“
. . . 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. . . .
”
After a criticism of Lafitau’s work, the letter continued: “
. . . Adair too had his kink. he believed all the Indians of America to be descended from the Jews: the same laws, usages,
rites & ceremonies, the same sacrifices, priests, prophets, fasts and festivals, almost the same religion, and that they all
spoke Hebrew. for altho he writes particularly of the Southern Indians only, the Catawbas, Creeks, Cherokees, Chickasaws and
Choctaws, with whom alone he was personally acquainted, yet he generalises whatever he found among them, & brings himself
to believe that the hundred languages of America, differing fundamentally every one from the other, as much as Greek from
Gothic, have yet all one common prototype. he was a trader, a man of learning, a self taught Hebraist, a strong religionist,
and of as sound a mind as Don Quixot in whatever did not touch his religious chivalry. his book contains a great deal of real
instruction of it’s subject, only requiring the reader to be constantly on his guard against the wonderful obliquities of
his theory . . .
”
Other references to Adair’s work occur in the same letter.
James Adair, c. 1709-c. 1783, was born in Ireland. He had come to America before 1735 in which year he was trading with the Catawbas
and Cherokees. In 1744 he established himself among the Chickasaws. His
History of the American Indians is chiefly known for his arguments that the Indians are descendants of the ancient Jews. This argument is discussed by Volney
in his
Tableau du Climat et du sol des Etats-Unis d’Amerique
, q.v. no. 4032.
[3997]
30
Barton’s new views of the origin of the tribes of America.
g. 8
vo.
2. copies.
1815 Catalogue, page 122, no. 165, as above, but reading
8vo and omitting
2. copies.
BARTON,
Benjamin Smith.
New Views of the Origin of the Tribes and Nations of America. By Benjamin Smith Barton, M. D. Correspondent-Member of the Society of the Antiquaries of Scotland; Member of the American Philosophical Society;
Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences of Boston; Corresponding Member of the Massachusetts Historical Society,
and Professor of Materia Medica, Natural History and Botany, in the University of Pennsylvania.
Philadelphia: Printed, for the Author, by
John Bioren,
1797.
E61 .B28
First Edition. 8vo. 2 parts in 1, with separate signatures and pagination, 61 and 42 leaves; the first part for the introductory
matter and the Preliminary Discourse, the second for the comparative vocabularies of fifty-four words in a number of Indian
languages. Dedicated by the author to Thomas Jefferson, L.L.D. Vice-President of the United-States of America; President of
the Senate; and President of the American Philosophical Society, the dedication dated from Philadelphia, June 21st, 1797.
The Library of Congress copy from which this collation was made is uncut, and printed in part on blue paper.
Sabin 3819.
Evans 31777.
Field 89.
Pilling, page 36.
Jefferson’s manuscript catalogue calls for two copies of this book, of which only one was sold to Congress.
Barton mentioned his work on the Indian languages in a letter to Jefferson dated from Philadlephia, October 26, 1796: “. . . D
r. Priestley has kindly lent to me the great work of Pallas, on the languages of all nations. This will enable me to discover
what resemblances actually do subsist between the American languages and those of Northern Asia. Of this great work, I have
the first and second parts ”
