Jonathan Carver, 1732-1780, was born in Stillwater, Connecticut. After serving in the army against the French in Canada, where he had a narrow escape in the massacre at Fort William Henry, he determined to explore the territory beyond the Mississippi, and to find a northwest land passage between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. He started from Boston in June 1766 and returned in October 1768, having travelled seven thousand miles and visited twelve Indian nations. He dedicated this account of his travels to Joseph Banks, Esq. President of the Royal Society [afterwards Sir Joseph Banks, q.v.][.] The first edition was printed in London in 1778. A deed of a grant of land made to him by Indian chiefs, in which he was referred to as “our good brother Jonathan” was for a time supposed to have been the origin of the name Brother Jonathan as the symbol of the American people.

Jefferson bought a copy from Froullé in Paris on April 17, 1789, price 30. This edition is entered by him on his undated manuscript catalogue without price.

Jefferson wrote an account of this book in a letter to John Adams, dated from Monticello June 11, 1812: “ . . . You ask if there is any book that pretends to give any account of the traditions of the Indians, or how one can acquire an idea of them? some scanty accounts of their traditions but fuller of their customs & characters are given us by most of the early travellers among them. these you know were chiefly French. Lafitau, among them, and Adair an Englishman, have written on this subject; the former two volumes, the latter one, all in 4 ^to. but unluckily Lafitau had in his head a preconcieved theory on the mythology, manners, institutions & government of the antient nations of Europe, Asia, & Africa, and seems to have entered on those of America only to fit them into the same frame, and to draw from them a confirmation of his general theory. he keeps up a perpetual parallel, in all those articles, between the Indians of America, & the antients of the other quarters of the globe. he selects therefore all the facts and adopts all the falsehoods which favor his theory, and very gravely retails such absurdities as zeal for a theory could alone swallow. he was a man of much classical & scriptural reading, and has rendered his book not unentertaining. he resided five years among the Northern Indians, as a Missionary, but collects his matter much more from the writings of others, than from his own observation . . . ”

Joseph François Lafitau, 1681-1746, French professor of belles-lettres, was in Canada between 1712 and 1718, stationed for the most part among the Iroquoians. He was chiefly interested in trying to prove the American aborigines to be descended of Tartar stock.