Alexandria Gazette, Commercial And Political

From the Albany Daily Advertiser.
The origin of the Indians.

We are much gratified to learn, from the following article, that the source from whence the original inhabitants of this country were derived, has at length been discovered. Dr. Mitchill, who, first or last, hunts up every thing in the arts and sciences, has found out the very nest where the first brood was hatched. He seems to think that they are made up of almost as many sorts of people, as there were different kinds of animals in the Ark. Laplanders, Norwegians, Finns. Welshmen, &c. &c. form the ingredients of which Indians and Squaws were made. How the discovery has been made. In the improved state of chemical science, it may have been the fact, that by a careful analysis, and decomposition, the original drugs have been detected. Whether the learned Doctor has taken one of the natives to pieces to see how he was made we have not been informed.
Another important fact is disclosed in this article. The forts and other antiquities at Onondago, are found to be of a Danish character. This idea was suggested to Doct. Mitchell by Mr. Clinton and the Doct. says "in the twinkling of an eye he was penetrated by the justness of the remark. An additional window of light was opened to him." We should like to know whether the Doct. ever was furnished with a window of darkness.
Had Mr. Clinton suggested to the Dr. that he suspected the Onondago forts were of Hottentot origin, we have not a doubt he would have been penetrated quite as suddenly, as he was on the other suggestion.
There is one mystery at Onondago. which yet remains unexplained, and to which we hope the learned Professor will as early as possible turn his attention, and that is, the origin of the salt, which is so abundantly found in that region.
If he has room in his scientific edifice for another "window of light," we respectfully suggest to him for consideration and investigation, whether it is not probable that some of the wandering tribes who first peopled that part of the country. brought over Lot's-wife with them. and planted her down there for public use. and in that way laid the foundation of that valuable supply of so important a necessary of life ? Many people have supposed that the Indians were derived from the Hebrews. There is certainly a strong resemblance in the language and customs of some of the tribes to those of that people. Now, if among the varieties of mixture in the Aborigines, there, is in fact, a portion of Hebrew, as they always were a money making race, what is more probable than that they took up the old lady from the neighbourhood of the Dead Sea, where we are told in the Apocrypha she stood a long time after her transformation, and brought her over here for the purpose of making a speculation. The idea is only suggested—the Doct. can make what use of it he pleases. It has at least about as plausible a foundation as the story of Madoc and the Danes.
"All this may be considered correct as far as the Tartars and Malays are concerned. But there is another part of the American population which deserves to be particularly considered, I mean the emigrants from Lapland, Norway. and Finland, who, before the tenth century, settled themselves in Greenland, and passed over to Labrador. It is recorded that these adventurers settled themselves in a country which they called Vinland. This was probably a new settlement, so called in honor of Finland the region whence the adventurers came. Or if it was a land of Vines, the proof is the stronger of their southern encampment.
Our learned regent, Mr. De Witt Clinton who has out done Governor Colden, by writing the most full and able history of the Iroquois, or Five nations of New-York, mentioned to me in a late conversation, his belief that a part of the old forts and other antiquities at Onondago and the adjacent territory, were of Danish character. In the twinkling of an eye, I was penetrated by the justness of his remark. An additional window of light was suddenly opened to me. I told him in an instant how it could follow. with the Rev. pastor Van Troil, the European emigrants, during the horrible commotions of the ninth and tenth centuries, to Iceland. The Rev. Mr. Crantz had informed, me, in his important book, how they went to Greenland. I thought I could trace the people of Scandinavia, to the banks of the St. Lawrence. I supposed my friends had seen the Runic inscriptions made by them here and there, in the places where they rested. Madoc, Prince of Wales, and his Cambrian followers, appeared, to my recollection, among these bands of adventurers. And thus the north-eastern lands of North America. were visited by the hyperborean tribes from the northwesternmost climates of Europe ; and the northwestern climates of North America had received inhabitants of the same race from the northeastern regions of Asia.
The Danes, or Finns, (and Welshmen for I am willing to include them ) performing their migrations gradually to the southwest, seem to have penetrated to the country situated south of Lake Ontario, and to have fortified themselves there. The Tartars or Samoyeds, travelling by slow degrees from Alaska to the east, probably found them there.
In their course these Asian colonies had probably penetrated exterminated the Ohio and streams or drove them to the caverns, bounding in salt petre and copperas Kentucky and Tennessee, bodies accompanied with the clothes were the have ornaments been of repeatedly their peculiar disinterred manufact an
Think, what a memorable spot is Onondago—where men of the Mal race from the southwest, and of Tartar blood, from the northwest, and the Gothic stock from the northeast have successively contended for supremacy and rule, and which may considered as having been possessed eac befh nch,h the English visited the tr ct or indes knew any thing whatever about it.
We learn from the historian Clark voix, that the Eries an indigenous nation of the Malay race, formerly inhabited the lands south of Lake Erie, stretching to the western district of Pennsylvania the state of Ohio now are. And tem Evans, a former resident of this city has shown us, in his map of the middle colonies, that the hunting grounds of the Iroquois extended over that region. The Iroquois were of the same stock, and they converted as it seems the country of the exterminated E into a range for Beavers, Bears, Bisons & jeer.
The antiquarian of America will probably find that the Scandinavians emigrated about the tenth century of the Christian era if not earlier.
They may be considered, not merely as having discovered this continent, but to have explored the northern climes to great extent, and to have peopled them three or four hundred years before Christopher Columbus was born.
The enquirer into this subject will not fail to trace the swarms from the great hive of nations existing to the eastward and of the Caspian sea, in a manner very different from that which the writers of Europe and their imitators have pursued, as the Barbarians descended upon the more warm and productive countries of the south. He will follow the hordes journeying by land to the eastward, and he will trace the fearless boatman venturing over sea to the westward. until the Tartar and the Samoyed met each other at the antipodes.
He will find this antipodal region to lie south of the Lakes Ontario and Erie and thereon pursue the vestiges of their combats, their conflicts, and their untold story, to Onondaga, the great head quarters of the victorious Iroquois.