scholar. For Mitchell was one of the few antiquarians of his day who believed the now established theory that the Indians had originated in eastern Asia* This theory already had a bulky though recondite literature supporting it. But even in the nineteenth century, Mongolian civilization was too remote to most Americans for the idea to be widely accepted. The Yankee knew only the stereotyped Chinese mandarin, almond-eyed, yellowskinned, and dressed in embroidered silks, a figure bearing no resemblance to the copper-colored Indian, buckskin-clad and dirty, who menaced the outposts along the
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