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Pilgrims Mistook Natives for Israelites
Posted on Friday, November 25, 2005 (CST) by Thoth
 The European settlers who were present at the first Thanksgiving in 1621 thought the Native Americans were wild Israelites who had lost their "civilized" ways after living in the New World wilderness, according to a U.S. historian.
The theory, which is outlined in a recent press release and is supported by several other American colonial history scholars, suggests one reason why tensions often mounted between the Native Americans and the Europeans.
It also foreshadows the later missionary work by other Europeans, many of whom felt they were turning the Native Americans back to their former beliefs. "The Europeans thought the Native Americans were a lost Israeli tribe that had been blown off course and landed in America," said Mark Miller, a history professor at Roanoke College in Virginia who specializes in American history from the colonial and Civil War periods.
"They thought the tribe arrived as civilized men and women, but became savages after living in the wilderness."
Miller added, "For fear of
contact with the savages, laws were enacted which forbade European
settlers to touch or look at the Indians."
According to the Web site
of The Nahum Goldmann Museum of the Jewish Diaspora in Tel Aviv,
Israel, the European settlers believed in the lost "Ten Tribes of
Israel," and likely thought that one of these missing tribes wound up
in America.
These tribes were said to be part of the original twelve 12 that conquered Canaan, believed to be "the Promised Land."
The Assyrians, in turn,
conquered the Kingdom of Israel in 721 B.C. This resulted in either the
assimilation or deportation of the tribes of Israel. The tribes' fate
was never fully documented, so the Pilgrims thought anything was
possible.
According to the site, the
supposed Israelite-Native American link remained popular through the
late 18th century, during which time European exploration of the
continent increased, as did necessary trade with Native Americans.
Carolyn Travers, research
manager at Plimoth Plantation, a Plymouth, Mass. living history museum
that recreates Pilgrim-era life, told Discovery News that she agreed
some, if not all, of the Pilgrims thought the Native Americans hailed
from Israel.
"They had to come from
somewhere, and the lost tribe origin struck them as being very
plausible and authoritative," said Travers. "You must try to imagine
the mindset of the time. The Europeans were expecting wild beasts and
wild men in the New World. There even were rumors in England about
people here with no heads or feet."
Travers added that the
settlers, who initially called themselves "Saints" and not "Pilgrims,"
were extremely religious individuals.
"They prayed in the
morning, prayed before eating, prayed after eating and during
in-between times," she said, "so it makes sense that they often viewed
their world in Biblical terms."
Travers, however, said she
does not believe many laws forbade contact between the settlers and
Native Americans, since she said they went into each other's homes to
trade items and for other purposes.
"It would be hard to hand an object over to someone and not look at the person's face," she said.
The Native Americans, who held their own spiritual views, thought of the Europeans in political terms, according to the new book Subjects Unto The Same King by Brigham Young University history professor, Jenny Hale Pulsipher.
Pulsipher said the Pilgrims landed in an area occupied by the Wampanoag tribe. The Wampanoags, weakened by epidemics and threatened by another tribe to the south called the Narragansett, welcomed friends with guns.
"The Indians didn't have the kind of racial solidarity that we tend to project onto the past," said Pulsipher. "The Pilgrims were another group, and the Wampanoags were happy to make an alliance with them, and it served both group' interests."
The alliance obviously did not last. Tensions mounted as the settlers continued to encroach on Native American territory but, for the harvest celebration in 1621 that now is referred to as the first Thanksgiving, the two groups joined forces for a meal that included corn, fowl and venison during celebrations that lasted for three days.
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