The theory that the American Indians are descendants of the children of Israel was profoundly entertained by some of the most learned and most pious men of this country a century ago, and the number of analogies they pointed out between the two peoples is not exceeded by the number pointed out between the Indians and any other race.

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Among other Americans who held this theory were the Indian missionaries, Mayhew and Eliot, Elias Boudinot, Rev. Ethan Smith, Dr. Jarvis and Josiah Priest. Boudinot's work, "Star in the West," appeared in 1816; Smith's "View of the Hebrews" in 1820, and Priest's "American Antiquities" in 1833. This last-named work is still a standard with the Latter-day Saints, if not with archæologists, although from being a work on antiquities it has become an antiquity itself. George Catlin has also expressed the opinion that the American Indians have Jewish blood in their veins , though he does not claim that they are either Jews or the "lost tribes." He speaks of them as an amalgam race and thinks that they have descended from the Jews crossed with a primitive stock. And George Jones, in his "History of Ancient America," holds that the inhabitants of North America, but of North America alone, and the "lost tribes" are identical.

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The Book of Mormon presents this theory, but with two important differences. It claims that only a remnant of Israel, in which Manasseh, Judah and possibly other tribes were represented, came to America; and that, instead of coming by way of Behring Strait, they entered our continent at two different points, the Nephites landing somewhere on the west coast of South America and the Mulokites near the Isthmus of Panama.