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Rediscovering the Forgotten White Ancestors Of Many American Indians
By J.S. Slaymaker
The Barnes Review published an article by John Nugent in its May/June 2000 issue regarding the discovery of a skull and some other skeletal fossil remains of an individual who has come to be known as “Kennewick Man.” Kennewick Man is said by scientists to be one of the most ancient human remains thus far unearthed in America and was radiocarbon dated to be about 9,400 years old. What has piqued the attention of many students of the subject is that the composition of the skeletal structure is without a doubt Caucasoidal rather than Mongoloid—or, to be more specific, those stocks of the Mongoloid race we have come to regard as the “native Americans” (or Amerindians, Eskimos and Aleuts). The national media is almost at a loss for words as, due to the unexpected discovery of such inconvenient facts, their own historically tainted doctrines of political correctness now hang in the balance.
Voluminous works in circulation today, although politically incorrect, set forth historically sound theories regarding the origins of the early Americans. As professional opinion is some what divided among historians, anthropologists and archeologists, controversy seems to be the ultimate rule of the day, both within and without the academic community.1 The question here seems to be exactly where the first migrants came from and what other Old World voyagers joined them before the time of Christopher Columbus. Although this brief article is by no means exhaustive, and because such information is open to various interpretations, there is simply not enough evidence to satisfy everyone completely.2
Hubert Bancroft, for example, concedes that neither is there supportive evidence nor a possibility of stray ships of various nations and sporadic times and places which may have landed upon American coasts, nor will he concede to voyages specifically designed for such a purpose before Norse men of the tenth century A.D. Yet he will contradictorily admit that it was extremely probable that there was some form of communication taking place by sailing vessel as the only means of travel across oceans and therefore the only means of intercontinental communication until well into the 19th century.3
The theory that Christopher Columbus was the first white man to set foot in the Americas should be immediately dispelled. Of course, everyone agrees that the Vikings were here earlier, although the extent of Viking contact with America continues to be hotly debated. But we also have records of Sumerians, Dravidians and Phoenicians going to sea in large, sturdy and well-rigged ships, far more advanced than those being constructed in the late 15th century A.D. by Europeans. Some of these records go as far back as 2100 B.C. Ancient tablets from Sumer tell of their monarchs sailing to the “Land Beyond the Western Sea,” where Sumerian monuments and colonies were established.4 Yet scholars today are unsure on whether this could be a reference to ancient America.
One surety among scholars, though, is that considerable progress in the area of navigation was achieved in the ancient world. Contrary to popular belief, the idea that the earth was spherical in shape was in no way original with Galileo Galilei, but was known from a much earlier period.
Harvard Professor Barry Fell [see TBR’s Profile on page 57] recounts an incident as told by Diodorus Siculus of Carthaginian settlements established in what now appears to be either South America or Cuba. According to Diodorus, Phoenician ships were blown far off course beyond the Pillars of Hercules (now known as the Strait of Gibraltar) and into the Atlantic Ocean. After several days of sailing to the west of Africa, they came upon an enormous island, which was not only fertile but watered by navigable rivers. Before long, the discovery was well known to both those of not only Carthage but also to the Tyrrhenians of Italy. Carthaginian settlements were founded here but were soon disbanded and prohibited from any further encroachment due to the official policies of Carthage.5
Some Chilean Indians have a tradition that claims their ancestors came from the west. Chippewa Indians of North America claim their ancestors traveled from a distant land in which “bad” people lived, that these ancestors had crossed a narrow lake, filled with islands, where the ice and snow exist continually. Algonquins teach similarly of a foreign origin and distant sea voyage. The tradition preserved by the Olmecs is that they are eastern peoples. The Yucatees traditionally believe that they too were originally eastern people, having come only after passing through a sea which God made dry for them.6
French Commandant Jules Cauvet published a thesis from Algiers in 1930 with the idea of certain groups of Berbers having the same ethnic names as certain Indian tribes in America. Nowhere else in the world are such American names found outside of the Berber tribes themselves. Ethnic names have at various times through out the past been discovered by archeologists in their following of a migrating people. These names are often the final linguistic element to be abandoned after the people’s language has either been forgotten or absorbed. More than one anthropologist has made the discovery of peoples inhabiting the Sahara Desert possessing similar traits to those of the American Indian. These similarities do not only include names and naming methods, but also include tribal groups who are designated by similar titles, only differing occasionally in prefix or suffix.7
Professor Fell notes that America has a long history of discovering—or rather rediscovering—ancient coins and other artifacts, but nearly as long is America’s history of ignoring such finds. In the early days of the republic, our Founding Fathers and earlier men of learning such as Increase and Cotton Mather, both men of the clergy and founding presidents of Harvard University, studied the Latin language and Roman history; both being required subjects in order to earn any college degree. It was commonly understood among these men that such mementos were left as Roman ships sailed the Atlantic Ocean. After the evolution of the Col umbus mystique in American textbooks (and the teaching of our children that until the year 1492 the world was considered to be flat), these discoveries were dismissed and further discoveries were ignored.8
It was not until after 1860 that the theory arose that American Indians were descended from Asiatics who migrated across the Bering land bridge. It has been as recent as 1940 that Norsemen were considered by establishment historians as never having ventured to America, and no European was thought to have visited America prior to Columbus.9
Needless to say, Professor Fell was not short on his own supply of critics. He has been accused of everything from unsupported speculation to a faulty knowledge of the Algonquian language, leading him to erroneous conclusions, not to mention defective analysis and interpretation. In some cases, he has even been accused of outright fraud, using inscriptions that have been proven to be fakes. Others say that his ideas are no more than well-worn but disproven themes which no respectable archeologist would take seriously.10 Yet in spite of such criticisms, Professor Fell invalidate these accusations against him, as reliable scholars in some well respected universities and museums have confirmed the validity of Fell’s conclusions.11
In fact, there have been some indisputable occurrences which have taken place in various parts of what we now call the United States as it was being settled. The Welsh clergyman Morgan Jones was traveling home to Roanoke, Virginia from South Carolina in 1660 when he fell captive to the Tuscarora Indians. He spent several months among these “white Indians” as they were known in the colonial era, preaching the Gospel to them. He personally believed that his life was spared because of his ability to speak Welsh, a language many of the Tuscarora Indians understood. Rev. Jones concluded that, due to the fairness of their skin, color of their eyes, the circular manner in which they constructed their living quarters and the Druidical order of their religious life, they were of pre-Christian Welsh origin.12
In 1801 a certain Lt. Roberts recounted the story of having met with an Indian chief at Washington who spoke the Welsh language as fluently as that of any native of Wales. The lieutenant was informed of this being the ancient language of the “Asguaws,” a people living some 800 miles northwest of Philadelphia. The Indian was himself unfamiliar with the land of Wales but said that it was traditionally believed among his people that their ancestors had come from a distant land that was far to the east, across the great waters. Stationed at a trading post in Illinois, a certain Capt. Davies had written that he had found it to be of a great surprise to find that several of the Welshmen belonging to his company could readily converse with the Indians in Welsh. The Scottish Lord Monboddo, in the 17th century, wrote that many of the Indian tribes throughout Florida spoke a Keltic tongue.13
In May of 1773 Thomas Bullitt met with Shawnee Chief Black Fish on behalf of Virginia’s “great white father,” Lord Dun more, in hopes that a treaty of peace might be negotiated over settlements that ran just south of the Ohio River, known as Can-Tuc-kee. Chief Black Fish stated that he neither had the power to negotiate over this land nor the power to grant permission to settle it, for it did not belong to the Shawnee but the ghosts of the murdered “Azgens,” a white people from the Eastern Sea. He claimed that the forefathers of the Shawnee had long ago killed off the Azgens but were now in fear of their spirits.14
Some historians believe the Azgens mentioned by Black Fish may have been remnants of Sir Walter Raleigh’s lost colony at Roanoke, which disappeared without a trace in 1587.
Copper works in the Michigan area have proven to be one of the greatest puzzles in mining technology history. Approximately 5,000 ancient copper mine workings revealed on Lake Superior’s northern shore and on nearby Isle Royale date back to 4000 B.C. according to Nigel Da ies, although this writer believes his date to be at least 2,000 years premature.15 Ac cording to radiocarbon testing (admittedly one of the more unreliable methods of dating), these operations took place between 2000 and 1000 B.C., which corresponds more closely to the bronze age in Northern Europe. Estimates are that 250,000 tons of copper were removed, although the exact location of where that copper was moved to re mains a mystery. Because only a relatively small number of artifacts have been discovered in North America, it is believed that the vast majority of it was transported to Europe.16
Coins with Hittite glyphs have been found near Kanab, Utah.17 However, the most interesting artifact discovered, this writer believes, was in 1827 by a farmer in Brazil. While in his fields he came upon a flat stone with the Greek engraving: “During the dominion of Alexander, the son of Philip, king of Macedon, in the 63rd Olympiad, Ptolemaios.” Below the stone were found two swords, a shield and a helmet. The handle of one of the swords bore a portrait of Alexander III; the helmet contained a design which represented the corpse of Hector as he was being dragged around the walls of Troy by Achilles.18
FOOTNOTES
1Davies, Nigel, Voyagers to the New World, New York, William Morrow & Co., 1979, 7.
2Ibid., 16-19.
3Bancroft, Hubert H., The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft; Vol. 5, “The Native Races of the Pacific States,” San Francisco, A.L. Bancroft & Co., 1883, 5: 130,134.
4Verill, A. Hyatt, and Verill, Ruth, America’s Ancient Civilizations, New York, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1953, 105.
5Fell, Dr. Barry, Saga America, New York, The New York Times Book Club, Times Books, 1983, 72-73.
6Bancroft, Hubert H., op. cit., 5: 22.
7Van Sertima, Ivan, They Came Before Columbus, New York, Random House, 1976, 252-54.
8Fell,Saga America, op. cit., 27.
9Ibid., 15.
10Davies,op. cit., 153-56.
11Saga America, op. cit., 24.
12Spencer, Morton W., The Missing Links; or The Anglo-Saxons, The Ten Tribes of Israel, Hollis, New York, the Holliswood Press, 1901, 14.
13Bancroft,op. cit., 5: 118-120, 122.
14Eckert, Allan W., The Frontiersman, Boston, Little & Brown, 1967, 70-74.
15Davies,op. cit., 73.
16Fell, Dr. Barry, Bronze Age America, New Boston, Little & Brown, 1982, 261.
17Verill,op. cit., 94.
18Bancroft,op. cit., 5: 123.
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