and voyages.^65 Writing at the beginning of the nineteenth century, Boudinot
was quite convinced that the discoveries made since Ben-Israel’s time only
further corroborated the case for the tribes:
It is now asked, can any one carefully and with deep reflection,
consider and compare these traditions with the history of the ten
tribes of Israel, and the late discoveries of the Russians, Capt. Cook
and others, in and about the peninsula of Kamschatka and the
northeast coast of Asia and the opposite shore of America, of which
little was before known by any civilized nation, without at least
drawing strong presumptive inferences, in favour of these wandering
nations being descended from some oriental nation of the old world,
and most probably, all things considered, being the lost tribes of
Israel.^66
In London in 1829 , Barbara Anne Simon directly considered Ben-Israel in
her ownHope of Israel.“Presumptive evidence” was put forward that “the abor-
igines of the Western hemisphere” were descended from the “Ten Missing
Tribes of Israel.” Simon was much more informed in the nineteenth century
about world geography than Ben-Israel had been, and her narrative was far richer
in detail than his. Still, he was crucial as an authority on accommodating
scripture and geography. Nearly 200 years after him, Simon was certain that
the hope of Israel—“the general restoration of the ten tribes”—was within reach.
The appropriation of Ben-Israel’s title reflects an underlying theme persistent for
centuries, indeed since the birth of Christianity: “Israel” is the Christian church,
not necessarily the Jews. When Harriet Livermore sang of “Judah missing his
brethren,” Judah signified not the Jews, but her Christian listeners.
Simon’s project began as a purely theological speculation about the possi-
bilities of restoring the Native Americans to Christianity. However, as she
already had notified her readers in a special advertisement, a fresh 1836
volume with “new evidence about the Western tribes” was forthcoming. The
ten tribes were now “historically identified” with the “Aborigines of the West-
ern Hemisphere.”^67
The “new evidence” turned out not to be so new, given the research
on Mexican antiquities undertaken by the relentless Lord Edward Kingsbor-
ough. Kingsborough is mostly associated with his marvelous collection
of codices of Mesoamerican art and culture, the preparation of which cost
him his fortune. An “amiable and talented nobleman” of Irish decent, King-
sborough devoted his life to studying the Spanish histories of North American
indigenous peoples, particularly those of Mexico, hoping to prove that they
were descendants of the ten tribes. Impoverished, Kingsborough died of