The distinctive Mormon view of Native pasts and futures did not develop in a vacuum. Traditions about an Israelite origin for America’s Native peoples were as old as European colonization.’ Nearest in time and location to Smith and his peers were Ethan Smith (1762-1849; no relation) and Josiah Priest. Other Anglo-Americans used Natives for various ends, whether as “noble savages,” as support for American exceptionalism, or as fictionalized braves who proved the existence of an indigenous American literature.*° Joseph Smith integrated the Indians into his apocalypse, merging their fate with his at the end times. God would gather the Lamanites with the rest of Israel in preparation for the return of Christ.

84. Ethan Smith—especially View of the Hebrews (Poultney, Vt.: Smith & Shute, 1823)—and Josiah Priest—especially American Antiquities— depended on James Adair (c. 1709-1783). Fawn M. Brodie (No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet, 2d ed. rev. and enl. [New York: Knopf, 1971], 46-47) popularized View of the Hebrews as the source of the Book of Mormon, following Mormon hierarch B. H. Roberts, Studies of the Book of Mormon, ed. Brigham Madsen (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985), esp. 235. This position misapprehends the relationships between the two books.