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Land of the Jewish Indians: How the Hebrew Bible Made Race and Territory in the Early United States

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Land of the Jewish Indians: How the Hebrew Bible Made Race and Territory in the Early United States LAND OF THE JEWISH INDIANS: HOW THE HEBREW BIBLE MADE RACE AND TERRITORY IN THE EARLY UNITED STATES Matthew William Dougherty A dissertation submitted to the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Religious Studies in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Chapel Hill 2017 Approved by: Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp Jonathan Boyarin Kathleen DuVal Kathryn J. Burns Brandon Bayne ©2017 Matthew William Dougherty ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT Matthew W. Dougherty: “Land of the Jewish Indians: How the Hebrew Bible Made Race and Territory in the Early United States” (Under the direction of Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp) This project traces the rise and fall from 1790-1850 of the idea, once popular in the United States, that Native Americans were descended from Ancient Israelites. White evangelicals, Native Americans, American Jews, and early Mormons all told “Israelite Indian stories” to intervene in the contest over land in North America. Their stories staked divinely- backed claims on “promised lands” in North America. In the process, they re-drew or disrupted racial boundaries by suggesting unlikely bonds of kinship among Native Americans, white Protestants, and Jews. In aggregate, these stories show that a broad swath of Americans, not just white proponents of the nation’s “manifest destiny” to rule the continent, used Christian motifs to understand and debate the future of this expansive empire. This project, therefore, clarifies the links between religion and empire in the early United States. In contrast to studies focusing on the religious and political theories of white elites alone, it demonstrates that a broad range of Americans of multiple races, classes, and confessions used religious narratives and Christian theology understand life in a colonial society. For those who told them, Israelite Indian narratives forged new political alliances and dramatized the crises brought about by white Americans’ appropriation of American Indian land. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation would not have been possible without several generous grants. I am grateful to the Department of Religious Studies, the Graduate School of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies, and the American Jewish Historical Society for the funding to conduct an extended research trip. A dissertation completion fellowship from the Graduate School of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill allowed me a year of writing that greatly improved the final product. I am thankful for assistance from the staff of the American Jewish Historical Society collections, Princeton University Rare Books and Special Collections, the Houghton Library at Harvard University, and the Congregational Library and Archives. I am particularly grateful to Dr. Margaret Bendroth of the Congregational Library and Archives for her advice and encouragement. Special thanks go also to the American Jewish Historical Society for granting permission to cite and quote the Mordecai Manuel Noah Papers, to Princeton University Rare Books and Special Collections for granting permission to cite and quote the Thorne Collection of Elias Boudinot and Stimson Collection of Elias Boudinot, and to the Houghton Library of Harvard University for permission to cite and quote the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions Papers. I am grateful for the encouragement and patient guidance of my adviser, Laurie Maffly-Kipp. She read draft after draft, helped me to keep my eye on what was most interesting and vital in this work, and counseled me through more than one moment of despair. I am also grateful for support from the members of my doctoral committee. Kathleen DuVal, Jonathan Boyarin, Brandon Bayne, and Kathryn Burns all read drafts and helped me iv reflect on my thoughts as this project changed and grew. I am fortunate to have had them as mentors and teachers. The faculty and graduate students of the Department of Religious Studies have supported me in ways large and small all along the way. I am particularly grateful to Brandon Bayne, Jessica Boon, Todd Ochoa, and Lauren Leve for helping me through the process and showing me the possibilities of life as a scholar. I am also grateful to my colleagues and friends in the Department, particularly Stan Thayne, Shannon Schorey, Sam Kessler, Stephanie Gaskill, Shaily Patel, Candace Mixon, Travis Proctor, Joanna Smith, and Candace Buckner, all of whom read parts of this project and helped shape my thoughts on it. Beyond the Department, the members of the American Indian and Indigenous Studies colloquium, the Triangle Religions in the Americas Colloquium, and the Diálogo de Saberes for Interdisciplinary Pathways of Knowledge Production working group all helped me refine my thinking and writing. My family supported me throughout the doctoral process and endured interruptions in more than one holiday dinner as I tried to explain what I was working on. I am particularly grateful to my parents, Susan and Thomas Dougherty, my brother, Jeffrey Dougherty, and to Helen Palmer, Joshua Rifkin, Marc Sacks, and Naomi Sacks. Finally, I am most thankful to Joanna Rifkin: a brilliant scientist, my best friend, and my partner in all things. Contra mundum. v TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION…….…………………………………………..………………………......1 Precis of the Argument………………………………………………………..………1 Significance and Literature Review…………………………………………..……….6 Sources………………………………………………………………………….........19 Theory and Method………………………………………………………..…………24 Outline of the Argument………………………………………………..……………28 CHAPTER 1: ISRAELITES IN AMERICA (1800-1825)……………………..……………32 Introduction………………………………………………..…………………………32 Sources………………………………………………………………..……………...39 Israel and the Idea of Covenant………………………………………..…………….46 The Millennium and the Politics of Missions……………………………..…………61 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………..…….70 CHAPTER 2: OUR COMMON FATHER (1829-1839)…………………………...………..72 Introduction……………………………………………………………..……………72 Mordecai Noah……………………………………………………………..………...77 William Apess…………………………………………………………..……………92 Conclusion……………………………………………………………..…………...116 CHAPTER 3: THE REMNANT OF JOSEPH (1830-1847)………………………..……...118 Introduction………………………………………………………………..………..118 vi Literature Review……………………………………………………………..…….122 Lamanites and Jewish Indians in the Early Mormon Imagination……..…………..125 Jewish Indians and the Reception of the Book of Mormon…………………..…….142 The Rise of Ephraim………………………………………………………..………150 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………..……...155 CHAPTER 4: THE ORIGINAL CUSTOMS OF OUR NATION (1835-1838)……..…….157 Introduction………………………………………………………………..………..157 Sources…………………………………………………………………..………….165 Land Claims……………………………………………………………..………….170 Election, Ceremony, and Healing…………………………………………..………174 Election and Possession of Christianity………………………………..…………...178 Conclusion…………………………………………………………..……………...184 CHAPTER 5: TO POSSESS THE WHOLE OF THE CONTINENT (1825-1850)…….....187 Introduction………………………………………………………………..………..187 Israelite Bones and the American Past………………………………..…………….191 The Rise of Manifest Destiny……………………………………………..………..203 Mormon Expansionism………………………………………………………..……207 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………..……...216 CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………………..………220 BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………………..………223 vii Introduction Precis of the Argument In the years between the Louisiana Purchase of 1808 and the end of Indian removal in 1842, travelers in the northeastern United States would have been likely to hear a bizarre story repeated by a minister’s fireplace or read out loud from a newspaper at the Post Office.1 In its most frequently-repeated form, the story might have resembled this composite: Our North American Indians are the descendants of Israelites. Learned men have pointed out the resemblances between their religious rites and those of the Israelites: they worship one God, whom they call Yo-He-Wah; they have a feast of expiation like the Day of Atonement; and their languages seem to have Hebrew roots. Therefore, many weighty scholars have said that they are the remnants of the Kingdom of Israel, which was destroyed by God for its wickedness…2 1 The Indian Removal Act of 1830 effectively declared the Federal Government’s intention to forcibly relocate all American Indians living East of the Mississippi, but removal was not instantaneous. The politics of relations between the United States and American Indian nations at the time required that Native peoples at least appear to assent formally to removal. Hence, over the years from 1830-1835 the Federal Government’s Indian Agents negotiated a series of treaties that provided the legal pretext for removal piece-by-piece. The actual movement of people took even more time. Thus, it was not until the 1842 conclusion of the decade-long Second Seminole War that this wave of forced migrations came to an end. Mark Rifkin, Manifesting America: The Imperial Construction of U.S. National Space (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009); John Van Atta, Securing the West: Politics, Public Lands, and the Fate of the Old Republic, 1785-1850 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014); John P. Bowes, Land Too Good for Indians: Northern Indian Removal (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2016). 2 The most common newspaper items that told Israelite Indian stories were reviews of Mordecai Noah’s public speeches about the Israelite descent of American Indians or reviews of books arguing
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