Turning Points
in Wisconsin History
An 1839 visitor credits Aztalan to ancient foreigners
Discovery of America in the eighth century by a civilized race from Asia or Europe...Ruins of one of their cities in Wisconsin
This article describes a visit to Aztalan in the autumn of 1839. Its anonymous author advances the claim that remains as sophisticated as those he saw at Aztalan could not have been made by Native Americans, and so posits that Asian or European visitors must have built the mounds. His fanciful descriptions and supposed facts -- including rock stairways and towers -- cast doubt on whether he even actually set foot on the site. His opinion, however, was widely shared at the time. His article was used several years later to support the hypothesis that the builders of Aztalan were an ancient race described in the Book of Mormon (given elsewhere at Turning Points).
| Related Topics: |
Early Native Peoples Mississippian Culture and Aztalan |
| Creator: | anonymous |
| Pub Data: | Unattributed clipping in a scrapbook at the Wisconsin Historical Society, reprinting an article from the Greenwich, New York, Eagle (OCLC: 15715813); undated, but the Eagle began publication in Jan. 1845 and this text was reprinted in The Prophet (N.Y.) in March of the same year. |
| Citation: | "Discovery of America in the eighth century by a civilized race from Asia or Europe...Ruins of one of their cities in Wisconsin." Unattributed clipping in a scrapbook at the Wisconsin Historical Society (1845). Online facsimile at: http://wisconsinhistory.org/turningpoints/search.asp?id=1540; Visited on: 4/19/2024 |
.