CHAPTER I.

_Of their_ ORIGIN.

THE means by which America received its first Inhabitants, have, since the time of its discovery by the Europeans, been the subject of numberless disquisitions. Was I to endeavour to collect the different opinions and reasonings of the various writers that have taken up the pen in defence of their conjectures, the enumeration would much exceed the bounds I have prescribed myself, and oblige me to be less explicit on points of greater moment.

From the obscurity in which this debate is enveloped, through the total disuse of letters among every nation of Indians on this extensive continent, and the uncertainty of oral tradition at the distance of so many ages, I fear, that even after the most minute investigation we shall not be able to settle it with any great degree of certainty. And this apprehension will receive additional force, when it is considered that the diversity of language which is apparently distinct between most of the Indians, tends to ascertain that this population was not effected from one particular country, but from several neighbouring ones, and completed at different periods.

Most of the historians or travellers that have treated on the American Aborigines disagree in their sentiments relative to them. Many of the ancients are supposed to have known that this quarter of the globe not only existed, but also that it was inhabited. Plato in his Timæus has asserted, that beyond the island which he calls Atalantis, and which according to his description was situated in the western Ocean, there were a great number of other islands, and behind those a vast Continent.

Oviedo, a celebrated Spanish author of a much later date, has made no scruple to affirm that the Antilles are the famous Hesperides so often mentioned by the poets; which are at length restored to the kings of Spain, the descendants of King Hesperus, who lived upwards of three thousand years ago, and from whom these islands received their name.

Two other Spaniards, the one, Father Gregorio Garcia, a Dominican, the other, Father Joseph De Acosta, a Jesuit, have written on the origin of the Americans.

The former, who had been employed in the missions of Mexico and Peru, endeavoured to prove from the traditions of the Mexicans, Peruvians, and others, which he received on the spot, and from the variety of characters, customs, languages, and religion observable in the different countries of the new world, that different nations had contributed to the peopling of it.

The latter, Father De Acosta, in his examination of the means by which the first Indians of America might have found a passage to that continent, discredits the conclusions of those who have supposed it to be by sea, because no ancient author has made mention of the compass: and concludes, that it must be either by the north of Asia and Europe, which adjoin to each other, or by those regions that lie to the southward of the Straights of Magellan. He also rejects the assertions of such as have advanced that it was peopled by the Hebrews.

John De Laët, a Flemish writer, has controverted the opinions of these Spanish fathers, and of many others who have written on the same subject. The hypothesis he endeavours to establish, is, that America was certainly peopled by the Scythians or Tartars; and that the transmigration of these people happened soon after the dispersion of Noah’s grandsons. He undertakes to show, that the most northern Americans have a greater resemblance, not only in the features of their countenances, but also in their complexion and manner of living, to the Scythians, Tartars, and Samoeides, than to any other nations.

In answer to Grotius, who had asserted that some of the Norwegians passed into America by way of Greenland, and over a vast continent, he says, that it is well known that Greenland was not discovered till the year 964; and both Gomera and Herrera inform us that the Chichimeques were settled on the Lake of Mexico in 721. He adds, that these savages, according to the uniform tradition of the Mexicans who dispossessed them, came from the country since called New Mexico, and from the neighbourhood of California; consequently North America must have been inhabited many ages before it could receive any inhabitants from Norway by way of Greenland.

It is no less certain, he observes, that the real Mexicans founded their empire in 902, after having subdued the Chichimeques, the Otomias, and other barbarous nations, who had taken possession of the country round the Lake of Mexico, and each of whom spoke a language peculiar to themselves. The real Mexicans are likewise supposed to come from some of the countries that lie near California, and that they performed their journey for the most part by land; of course they could not come from Norway.

De Laët further adds, that though some of the inhabitants of North America may have entered it from the north-west, yet, as it is related by Pliny and some other writers, that on many of the islands near the western coast of Africa, particularly on the Canaries, some ancient edifices were seen, it is highly probable from their being now deserted, that the inhabitants may have passed over to America; the passage being neither long nor difficult. This migration, according to the calculation of those authors, must have happened more than two thousand years ago, at a time when the Spaniards were much troubled by the Carthaginians; from whom having obtained a knowledge of Navigation, and the construction of ships, they might have retired to the Antilles, by the way of the western isles, which were exactly half way on their voyage.

He thinks also that Great Britain, Ireland, and the Orcades were extremely proper to admit of a similar conjecture. As a proof, he inserts the following passage from the History of Wales, written by Dr. David Powel in the year 1170.

This historian says, that Madoc, one of the sons of Prince Owen Gwynnith, being disgusted at the civil wars which broke out between his brothers, after the death of their father, fitted out several vessels, and having provided them with every thing necessary for a long voyage, went in quest of new lands to the westward of Ireland; there he discovered very fertile countries, but destitute of inhabitants; when landing part of his people, he returned to Britain, where he raised new levies, and afterwards transported them to his colony.

The Flemish Author then returns to the Scythians, between whom and the Americans he draws a parallel. He observes that several nations of them to the north of the Caspian Sea led a wandering life; which, as well as many other of their customs, and way of living, agrees in many circumstances with the Indians of America. And though the resemblances are not absolutely perfect, yet the emigrants, even before they left their own country, differed from each other, and went not by the same name. Their change of abode affected what remained.

He further says, that a similar likeness exists between several American nations, and the Samoeides who are settled, according to the Russian accounts, on the great River Oby. And it is more natural, continues he, to suppose that Colonies of these nations passed over to America by crossing the icy sea on their sledges, than for the Norwegians to travel all the way Grotius has marked out for them.

This writer makes many other remarks that are equally sensible, and which appear to be just; but he intermixes with these some that are not so well-founded.

Emanuel de Moraez, a Portuguese, in his history of Brazil, asserts that America has been wholly peopled by the Carthaginians and Israelites. He brings as a proof of this assertion the discoveries the former are known to have made at a great distance beyond the coast of Africa. The progress of which being put a stop to by the senate of Carthage, those who happened to be then in the newly discovered countries, being cut off from all communication with their countrymen, and destitute of many necessaries of life, fell into a state of barbarism. As to the Israelites, this author thinks that nothing but circumcision is wanted in order to constitute a perfect resemblance between them and the Brazilians.

George De Hornn, a learned Dutchman, has likewise written on this subject. He sets out with declaring, that he does not believe it possible America could have been peopled before the flood, considering the short space of time which elapsed between the creation of the world and that memorable event. In the next place he lays it down as a principle, that after the deluge, men and other terrestrial animals penetrated into that country both by sea and by land; some through accident, and some from a formed design. That birds got thither by flight; which they were enabled to do by resting on the rocks and islands that are scattered about in the Ocean.

He further observes, that wild beasts may have found a free passage by land; and that if we do not meet with horses or cattle (to which he might have added elephants, camels, rhinoceros, and beasts of many other kinds) it is because those nations that passed thither, were either not acquainted with their use, or had no convenience to support them.

Having totally excluded many nations that others have admitted as the probable first settlers of America, for which he gives substantial reasons, he supposes that it began to be peopled by the north; and maintains, that the primitive colonies spread themselves by the means of the isthmus of Panama through the whole extent of the continent.

He believes that the first founders of the Indian Colonies were Scythians. That the Phœnicians and Carthaginians afterwards got footing in America across the Atlantic Ocean, and the Chinese by way of the Pacific. And that other nations might from time to time have landed there by one or other of these ways, or might possibly have been thrown on the coast by tempests: since, through the whole extent of that Continent, both in its northern and southern parts, we meet with undoubted marks of a mixture of the northern nations with those who have come from other places. And lastly, that some Jews and Christians might have been carried there by such like events, but that this must have happened at a time when the whole of the new world was already peopled.

After all, he acknowledges that great difficulties attend the determination of the question. These, he says, are occasioned in the first place by the imperfect knowledge we have of the extremities of the globe, towards the north and south pole; and in the next place to the havock which the Spaniards, the first discoverers of the new world, made among its most ancient monuments; as witness the great double road betwixt Quito and Cuzco, an undertaking so stupendous, that even the most magnificent of those executed by the Romans cannot be compared to it.

He supposes also another migration of the Phœnicians, than those already mentioned, to have taken place; and this was during a three years voyage made by the Tyrian fleet in the service of King Solomon. He asserts on the authority of Josephus, that the port at which this embarkation was made lay in the Mediterranean. The fleet, he adds, went in quest of elephants teeth and peacocks to the western Coast of Africa, which is Tarsish; then to Ophir for gold, which is Haité, or the island of Hispaniola; and in the latter opinion he is supported by Columbus, who, when he discovered that island, thought he could trace the furnaces in which the gold was refined.

To these migrations which preceded the Christian æra, he adds many others of a later date from different nations, but these I have not time to enumerate. For the same reason I am obliged to pass over numberless writers on this subject; and shall content myself with only giving the sentiments of two or three more.

The first of these is Pierre De Charlevoix, a Frenchman, who, in his journal of a voyage to North America, made so lately as the year 1720, has recapitulated the opinions of a variety of authors on this head, to which he has subjoined his own conjectures. But the latter cannot without some difficulty be extracted, as they are so interwoven with the passages he has quoted, that it requires much attention to discriminate them.

He seems to allow that America might have received its first inhabitants from Tartary and Hyrcania. This he confirms, by observing that the lions and tigers which are found in the former, must have come from those countries, and whose passage serves for a proof that the two hemispheres join to the northward of Asia. He then draws a corroboration of this argument, from a story he says he has often heard related by Father Grollon, a French jesuit, as an undoubted matter of fact.

This Father, after having laboured some time in the missions of New France, passed over to those of China. One day as he was travelling in Tartary, he met a Huron woman whom he had formerly known in Canada. He asked her by what adventure she had been carried into a country so distant from her own. She made answer, that having been taken in war, she had been conducted from nation to nation, till she had reached the place at which she then was.

Monsieur Charlevoix says further, that he had been assured, another Jesuit, passing through Nantz in his return from China, had related much such another affair of a Spanish woman from Florida. She also had been taken by certain Indians, and given to those of a more distant country; and by these again to another nation, till having thus been successively passed from country to country, and traveled through regions extremely cold, she at last found herself in Tartary. Here she had married a Tartar, who had attended the conquerors into China, where she was then settled.

He acknowledges as an allay to the probability of these stories, that those who had sailed farthest to the eastward of Asia, by pursuing the Coast of Jesso or Kamtschatka, have pretended that they had perceived the extremity of this continent; and from thence have concluded that there could not possibly be any communication by land. But he adds that Francis Guella, a Spaniard, is said to have asserted, that this separation is no more than a straight, about one hundred miles over, and that some late voyages of the Japonese give grounds to think that this straight is only a bay, above which there is a passage over land.

He goes on to observe, that though there are few wild beasts to be met with in North America, except a kind of tigers without spots, which are found in the country of the Iroquoise, yet towards the tropics there are lions and real tigers, which, notwithstanding, might have come from Hyrcania and Tartary; for as by advancing gradually southward they met with climates more agreeable to their natures, they have in time abandoned the northern countries.

He quotes both Solinus and Pliny to prove that the Scythian Anthropophagi once depopulated a great extent of country, as far as the promontory Tabin; and also an author of later date, Mark Pol, a Venetian, who, he says, tells us, that to the north-east of China and Tartary there are vast uninhabited countries, which might be sufficient to confirm any conjectures concerning the retreat of a great number of Scythians into America.

To this he adds, that we find in the antients the names of some of these nations. Pliny speaks of the Tabians; Solinus mentions the Apuleans, who had for neighbours the Massagetes, whom Pliny since assures us to have entirely disappeared. Ammianus Marcellinus expresly tells us, that the fear of the Anthropophagi obliged several of the inhabitants of those countries to take refuge elsewhere. From all these authorities Mons. Charlevoix concludes, that there is at least room to conjecture that more than one nation in America had a Scythian or Tartarian original.

He finishes his remarks on the authors he has quoted, by the following observations: It appears to me that this controversy may be reduced to the two following articles; first, how the new world might have been peopled; and secondly, by whom, and by what means it has been peopled.

Nothing, he asserts, may be more easily answered than the first. America might have been peopled as the three other parts of the world have been. Many difficulties have been formed on this subject, which have been deemed insolvable, but which are far from being so. The inhabitants of both hemispheres are certainly the descendants of the same father; the common parent of mankind received an express command from heaven to people the whole world, and accordingly it has been peopled.

To bring this about it was necessary to overcome all difficulties that lay in the way, and they have been got over. Were these difficulties greater with respect to peopling the extremities of Asia, Africa, and Europe, or the transporting men into the islands which lie at a considerable distance from those continents, than to pass over into America? certainly not.

Navigation, which has arrived at so great perfection within these three or four centuries, might possibly have been more perfect in those early ages than at this day. Who can believe that Noah and his immediate descendants knew less of this art than we do? That the builder and pilot of the largest ship that ever was, a ship that was formed to traverse an unbounded ocean, and had so many shoals and quicksands to guard against, should be ignorant of, or should not have communicated to those of his descendants who survived him, and by whose means he was to execute the order of the Great Creator; I say, who can believe he should not have communicated to them the art of sailing upon an ocean, which was not only more calm and pacific, but at the same time confined within its ancient limits?

Admitting this, how easy is it to pass, exclusive of the passage already described, by land from the coast of Africa to Brazil, from the Canaries to the Western Islands, and from them to the Antilles? From the British Isles, or the coast of France, to Newfoundland, the passage is neither long nor difficult; I might say as much of that from China to Japan; from Japan, or the Phillipines, to the Isles Mariannes; and from thence to Mexico.

There are islands at a considerable distance from the continent of Asia, where we have not been surprized to find inhabitants, why then should we wonder to meet with people in America? Nor can it be imagined that the grandsons of Noah, when they were obliged to separate and spread themselves in conformity to the designs of God, over the whole earth, should find it absolutely impossible to people almost one half of it.

I have been more copious in my extracts from this author than I intended, as his reasons appear to be solid, and many of his observations just. From this encomium, however, I must exclude the stories he has introduced of the Huron and Floridan women, which I think I might venture to pronounce fabulous.

I shall only add, to give my Readers a more comprehensive view of Mons. Charlevoix’s dissertation, the method he proposes to come at the truth of what we are in search of.

The only means by which this can be done, he says, is by comparing the languages of the Americans with the different nations, from whence we might suppose they have peregrinated. If we compare the former with those words that are considered as primitives, it might possibly set us upon some happy discovery. And this way of ascending to the original of nations, which is by far the least equivocal, is not so difficult as might be imagined. We have had, and still have, travellers and missionaries who have attained the languages that are spoken in all the provinces of the new world; it would only be necessary to make a collection of their grammars and vocabularies, and to collate them with the dead and living languages of the old world, that pass for originals, and the similarity might easily be traced. Even the different dialects, in spite of the alterations they have undergone, still retain enough of the mother tongue to furnish considerable lights.

Any enquiry into the manners, customs, religion, or traditions of the Americans, in order to discover by that means their origin, he thinks would prove fallacious. A disquisition of that kind, he observes, is only capable of producing a false light, more likely to dazzle, and to make us wander from the right path, than to lead us with certainty to the point proposed.

Ancient traditions are effaced from the minds of such as either have not, or for several ages have been without, those helps that are necessary to preserve them. And in this situation is full one half of the world. New events, and a new arrangement of things, give rise to new traditions, which efface the former, and are themselves effaced in turn. After one or two centuries have passed, there no longer remain any traces of the first traditions; and thus we are involved in a state of uncertainty.

He concludes with the following remarks, among many others. Unforeseen accidents, tempests, and shipwrecks, have certainly contributed to people every habitable part of the world: and ought we to wonder, after this, at perceiving certain resemblances, both of persons and manners, between nations that are most remote from each other, when we find such a difference between those that border on one another? As we are destitute of historical monuments, there is nothing, I repeat it, but a knowledge of the primitive languages that is capable of throwing any light upon these clouds of impenetrable darkness.

By this enquiry we should at least be satisfied, among that prodigious number of various nations inhabiting America, and differing so much in languages from each other, which are those who make use of words totally and entirely different from those of the old world, and who consequently must be reckoned to have passed over to America in the earliest ages, and those who, from the analogy of their language with such as are at present used in the three other parts of the globe, leave room to judge that their migration has been more recent, and which ought to be attributed to shipwrecks, or to some accident similar to those which have been spoken of in the course of this treatise.

I shall only add the opinion of one author more before I give my own sentiments on the subject, and that is of James Adair, Esq; who resided forty years among the Indians, and published the history of them in the year 1772. In his learned and systematical history of those nations, inhabiting the western parts of the most southern of the American colonies, this gentleman without hesitation pronounces that the American Aborigines are descended from the Israelites, either whilst they were a maritime power, or soon after their general captivity.

This descent he endeavours to prove from their religious rites, their civil and martial customs, their marriages, their funeral ceremonies, their manners, language, traditions, and from a variety of other particulars. And so complete is his conviction on this head, that he fancies he finds a perfect and indisputable similitude in each. Through all these I have not time to follow him, and shall therefore only give a few extracts to show on what foundation he builds his conjectures, and what degree of credit he is entitled to on this point.

He begins with observing, that though some have supposed the Americans to be descended from the Chinese, yet neither their religion, laws, or customs agree in the least with those of the Chinese; which sufficiently proves that they are not of this line. Besides, as our best ships are now almost half a year in sailing for China (our author does not here recollect that this is from a high northern latitude, across the Line, and then back again greatly to the northward of it, and not directly athwart the Pacific Ocean for only one hundred and eleven degrees) or from thence to Europe, it is very unlikely they should attempt such dangerous discoveries, with their supposed small vessels, against rapid currents, and in dark and sickly Monsoons.

He further remarks, that this is more particularly improbable, as there is reason to believe that this nation was unacquainted with the use of the loadstone to direct their course. China, he says, is about eight thousand miles distant from the American continent, which is twice as far as across the Atlantic Ocean. And we are not informed by any ancient writer of their maritime skill, or so much as any inclination that way, besides small coasting voyages. The winds blow likewise, with little variation from east to west within the latitudes thirty and odd, north and south; and therefore these could not drive them on the American coast, it lying directly contrary to such a course.

Neither could persons, according to this writer’s account, sail to America from the north by the way of Tartary or Ancient Scythia; that, from its situation, never having been or can be a maritime power; and it is utterly impracticable, he says, for any to come to America by sea from that quarter. Besides, the remaining traces of their religious ceremonies and civil and martial customs are quite opposite to the like vestiges of the Old Scythians. Even in the moderate northern climates there is not to be seen the least trace of any ancient stately buildings, or of any thick settlements, as are said to remain in the less healthy regions of Peru and Mexico. And several of the Indian nations assure us, that they crossed the Mississippi before they made their present northern settlements; which, connected with the former arguments, he concludes will sufficiently explode that weak opinion of the American Aborigines being lineally descended from the Tartars or ancient Scythians.

Mr. Adair’s reasons for supposing that the Americans derive their origin from the Jews are,

First, because they are divided into tribes, and have chiefs over them as the Israelites had.

Secondly, because, as by a strict permanent divine precept, the Hebrew nation were ordered to worship, at Jerusalem, Jehovah the true and living God, so do the Indians, stiling him Yohewah. The ancient Heathens, he adds, it is well known worshipped a plurality of gods, but the Indians pay their religious devoirs to the Great beneficent supreme holy Spirit of Fire, who resides, as they think, above the clouds, and on earth also with unpolluted people. They pay no adoration to images, or to dead persons, neither to the celestial luminaries, to evil spirits, nor to any created beings whatever.

Thirdly, because, agreeable to the theocracy or divine government of Israel, the Indians think the deity to be the immediate head of their state.

Fourthly, because, as the Jews believe in the ministration of angels, the Indians also believe that the higher regions are inhabited by good spirits.

Fifthly, because the Indian language and dialects appear to have the very idiom and genius of the Hebrew. Their words and sentences being expressive, concise, emphatical, sonorous, and bold; and often, both in letters, and signification, are synonimous with the Hebrew language.

Sixthly, because they count their time after the manner of the Hebrews.

Seventhly, because in conformity to, or after the manner of the Jews, they have their prophets, high-priests, and other religious orders.

Eighthly, because their festivals, fasts, and religious rites have a great resemblance to those of the Hebrews.

Ninthly, because the Indians, before they go to war, have many preparatory ceremonies of purification and fasting, like what is recorded of the Israelites.

Tenthly, because the same taste for ornaments, and the same kind are made use of by the Indians, as by the Hebrews.

These and many other arguments of a similar nature, Mr. Adair brings in support of his favourite system; but I should imagine, that if the Indians are really derived from the Hebrews, among their religious ceremonies, on which he chiefly seems to build his hypothesis, the principal, that of circumcision, would never have been laid aside, and its very remembrance obliterated.

Thus numerous and diverse are the opinions of those who have hitherto written on this subject! I shall not, however, either endeavour to reconcile them, or to point out the errors of each, but proceed to give my own sentiments on the origin of the Americans; which are founded on conclusions drawn from the most rational arguments of the writers I have mentioned, and from my own observations; the consistency of these I shall leave to the judgment of my Readers.

The better to introduce my conjectures on this head, it is necessary first to ascertain the distances between America and those parts of the habitable globe that approach nearest to it.

The Continent of America, as far as we can judge from all the researches that have been made near the poles, appears to be entirely separated from the other quarters of the world. That part of Europe which approaches nearest to it, is the coast of Greenland, lying in about seventy degrees of north latitude; and which reaches within twelve degrees of the coast of Labrador, situated on the north-east borders of this continent. The coast of Guinea is the nearest part of Africa; which lies about eighteen hundred and sixty miles north-east from the Brazils. The most eastern coast of Asia, which extends to the Korean Sea on the north of China, projects north-east through eastern Tartary and Kamschatka to Siberia, in about sixty degrees of north latitude. Towards which the western coasts of America, from California to the Straights of Annian, extend nearly north-west, and lie in about forty-six degrees of the same latitude.

Whether the Continent of America stretches any farther north than these straights, and joins to the eastern parts of Asia, agreeable to what has been asserted by some of the writers I have quoted, or whether the lands that have been discovered in the intermediate parts are only an archipelago of islands verging towards the opposite continent, is not yet ascertained.

It being, however, certain that there are many considerable islands which lie between the extremities of Asia and America, viz. Japon, Yeso or Jedso, Gama’s Land, Behring’s Isle, with many others discovered by Tschirikow, and besides these, from fifty degrees north there appearing to be a cluster of islands that reach as far as Siberia, it is probable from their proximity to America, that it received its first inhabitants from them.

This conclusion is the most rational I am able to draw, supposing that since the Aborigines got footing on this continent, no extraordinary or sudden change in the position or surface of it has taken place, from inundations, earthquakes, or any revolutions of the earth that we are at present unacquainted with.

To me it appears highly improbable that it should have been peopled from different quarters, across the Ocean, as others have asserted. From the size of the ships made use of in those early ages, and the want of the compass, it cannot be supposed that any maritime nation would by choice venture over the unfathomable Ocean in search of distant continents. Had this however been attempted, or had America been first accidentally peopled from ships freighted with passengers of both sexes which were driven by strong easterly winds across the Atlantic, these settlers must have retained some traces of the language of the country from whence they migrated; and this since the discovery of it by the Europeans must have been made out. It also appears extraordinary that several of these accidental migrations, as allowed by some, and these from different parts, should have taken place.

Upon the whole, after the most critical enquiries, and the maturest deliberation, I am of opinion, that America received its first inhabitants from the north-east, by way of the great archipelago just mentioned, and from these alone. But this might have been effected at different times, and from various parts: from Tartary, China, Japon, or Kamschatka, the inhabitants of these places resembling each other in colour, features, and shape; and who, before some of them acquired a knowledge of the arts and sciences, might have likewise resembled each other in their manners, customs, religion, and language.

The only difference between the Chinese nation and the Tartars lies in the cultivated state of the one, and the unpolished situation of the others. The former have become a commercial people, and dwell in houses formed into regular towns and cities; the latter live chiefly in tents, and rove about in different hords, without any fixed abode. Nor can the long and bloody wars these two nations have been engaged in, exterminate their hereditary similitude. The present family of the Chinese emperors is of Tartarian extraction; and if they were not sensible of some claim beside that of conquest, so numerous a people would scarcely sit quiet under the dominion of strangers.

It is very evident that some of the manners and customs of the American Indians resemble those of the Tartars; and I make no doubt but that in some future æra, and this not a very distant one, it will be reduced to a certainty, that during some of the wars between the Tartars and the Chinese, a part of the inhabitants of the northern provinces were driven from their native country, and took refuge in some of the isles before-mentioned, and from thence found their way into America. At different periods each nation might prove victorious, and the conquered by turns fly before their conquerors; and from hence might arise the similitude of the Indians to all these people, and that animosity which exists between so many of their tribes.

It appears plainly to me that a great similarity between the Indian and Chinese is conspicuous in that particular custom of shaving or plucking off the hair, and leaving only a small tuft on the crown of the head. This mode is said to have been enjoined by the Tartarian emperors on their accession to the throne of China, and consequently is a further proof that this custom was in use among the Tartars; to whom as well as the Chinese, the Americans might be indebted for it.

Many words also are used both by the Chinese and Indians, which have a resemblance to each other, not only in their sound, but their signification. The Chinese call a slave, shungo; and the Naudowessie Indians, whose language from their little intercourse with the Europeans is the least corrupted, term a dog, shungush. The former denominate one species of their tea, shousong; the latter call their tobacco, shousassau. Many other of the words used by the Indians contain the syllables che, chaw, and chu, after the dialect of the Chinese.

There probably might be found a similar connection between the language of the Tartars and the American Aborigines, were we as well acquainted with it as we are, from a commercial intercourse, with that of the Chinese.

I am confirmed in these conjectures, by the accounts of Kamschatka published a few years ago by order of the Empress of Russia. The author of which says, that the sea which divides that peninsula from America is full of islands; and that the distance between Tschukotskoi-Noss, a promontory which lies at the eastern extremity of that country, and the coast of America, is not more than two degrees and a half of a great circle. He further says, that there is the greatest reason to suppose that Asia and America once joined at this place, as the coasts of both continents appear to have been broken into capes and bays, which answer each other; more especially as the inhabitants of this part of both resemble each other in their persons, habits, customs, and food. Their language, indeed, he observes, does not appear to be the same, but then the inhabitants of each district in Kamschatka speak a language as different from each other, as from that spoken on the opposite coast. These observations, to which he adds, the similarity of the boats of the inhabitants of each coast, and a remark that the natives of this part of America are wholly strangers to wine and tobacco, which he looks upon as a proof that they have as yet had no communication with the natives of Europe, he says, amount to little less than a demonstration that America was peopled from this part of Asia.

The limits of my present undertaking will not permit me to dwell any longer on this subject, or to enumerate any other proofs in favour of my hypothesis. I am however so thoroughly convinced of the certainty of it, and so desirous have I been to obtain every testimony which can be procured in its support, that I once made an offer to a private society of gentlemen, who were curious in such researches, and to whom I had communicated my sentiments on this point, that I would undertake a journey, on receiving such supplies as were needful, through the north-east parts of Europe and Asia to the interior parts of America, and from thence to England; making, as I proceeded, such observations both on the languages and manners of the people with whom I should be conversant, as might tend to illustrate the doctrine I have here laid down, and to satisfy the curiosity of the learned or inquisitive; but as this proposal was judged rather to require a national than a private support, it was not carried into execution.

I am happy to find, since I formed the foregoing conclusions, that they correspond with the sentiments of that great and learned historian Doctor Robertson; and though, with him, I acknowledge that the investigation, from its nature, is so obscure and intricate that the conjectures I have made can only be considered as conjectures, and not indisputable conclusions, yet they carry with them a greater degree of probability than the suppositions of those who assert that this continent was peopled from another quarter.

One of the Doctor’s quotations from the Journals of Behring and Tschirikow, who sailed from Kamschatka about the year 1741 in quest of the New World, appears to carry great weight with it, and to afford our conclusions firm support: “These commanders having shaped their course towards the east, discovered land, which to them appeared to be part of the American continent; and according to their observations, it seems to be situated within a few degrees of the north-west coast of California. They had there some intercourse with the inhabitants, who seemed to them to resemble the North Americans; as they presented to the Russians the Calumet or Pipe of Peace, which is a symbol of friendship universal among the people of North America, and an usage of arbitrary institution peculiar to them.”

One of this incomparable writer’s own arguments in support of his hypothesis is also urged with great judgment, and appears to be nearly conclusive. He says, “We may lay it down as a certain principle in this enquiry, that America was not peopled by any nation of the ancient continent, which had made considerable progress in civilization. The inhabitants of the New World were in a state of society so extremely rude, as to be unacquainted with those arts which are the first essays of human ingenuity in its advance towards improvement. Even the most cultivated nations of America were strangers to many of those simple inventions, which were almost coeval with society in other parts of the world, and were known in the earliest periods of civil life. From this it is manifest that the tribes which originally migrated to America, came off from nations which must have been no less barbarous than their posterity, at the time when they were first discovered by the Europeans. If ever the use of iron had been known to the savages of America, or to their progenitors, if ever they had employed a plough, a loom, or a forge, the utility of these inventions would have preserved them, and it is impossible that they should have been abandoned or forgotten.”