Were the founders of Massachusetts and New England from Manasseh or Ephraim?
Contents:
A. Query from Richard Kean.
B. Brit-Am Reply.
1. MANASSEH WAS TO BECOME GREATER LATER AND THE USA SEAMLESSLY REPLACED BRITAIN AS THE WORLD POWER.
2. Ephraim arrives First
3. Manasseh Bigger and Richer.
4. "Manasseh" means responsible representation!
5. "America" means "sons of Machir" the First-born son of Manasseh.
6. "Machir" means "Capitalism."
7. "Manasseh" Migrated to America.
8. Clifford Smyth and British Israel
9. Relevant Summaries and Extracts of interest from "Albion's Seed."
10. Conclusion.
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A. Query from Richard Kean
@richardkean5940
What is the historical proof that Manasseh came and settled America? I am aware of all the symbols that might suggest they are but, that in its self is not the smoking gun. I have read "Albion's Seed" by David Fischer and according to him the first Settlers came from Angel territory. Which would mean they were Ephraimite. AM I missing something? I believe there are all of the tribes represented in America but, Manasseh must have the letter head and history should show proof of that. Can you help me to understand this ?
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B. Brit-Am Reply:
1. MANASSEH WAS TO BECOME GREATER LATER AND THE USA SEAMLESSLY REPLACED BRITAIN AS THE WORLD POWER.
We understand that members of ALL the Tribes of Israel helped create the USA.
The Tribes of Joseph (Ephraim and Maansseh) were especially important. Manasseh appears to have been more dominant than Ephraim.
Genesis 48:
8 THEN ISRAEL SAW JOSEPHS SONS, AND SAID, WHO ARE THESE?
9 JOSEPH SAID TO HIS FATHER, THEY ARE MY SONS, WHOM GOD HAS GIVEN ME IN THIS PLACE.
AND HE SAID, PLEASE BRING THEM TO ME, AND I WILL BLESS THEM.
10 NOW THE EYES OF ISRAEL WERE DIM WITH AGE, SO THAT HE COULD NOT SEE. THEN JOSEPH BROUGHT THEM NEAR HIM, AND HE KISSED THEM AND EMBRACED THEM.
11 AND ISRAEL SAID TO JOSEPH, I HAD NOT THOUGHT TO SEE YOUR FACE; BUT IN FACT, GOD HAS ALSO SHOWN ME YOUR OFFSPRING!
12 SO JOSEPH BROUGHT THEM FROM BESIDE HIS KNEES, AND HE BOWED DOWN WITH HIS FACE TO THE EARTH.
13 AND JOSEPH TOOK THEM BOTH, EPHRAIM WITH HIS RIGHT HAND TOWARD ISRAELS LEFT HAND, AND MANASSEH WITH HIS LEFT HAND TOWARD ISRAELS RIGHT HAND, AND BROUGHT THEM NEAR HIM.
14 THEN ISRAEL STRETCHED OUT HIS RIGHT HAND AND LAID IT ON EPHRAIMS HEAD, WHO WAS THE YOUNGER, AND HIS LEFT HAND ON MANASSEHS HEAD, GUIDING HIS HANDS KNOWINGLY, FOR MANASSEH WAS THE FIRSTBORN.
15 AND HE BLESSED JOSEPH, AND SAID:
GOD, BEFORE WHOM MY FATHERS ABRAHAM AND ISAAC WALKED,
THE GOD WHO HAS FED ME ALL MY LIFE LONG TO THIS DAY,
16 THE ANGEL WHO HAS REDEEMED ME FROM ALL EVIL,
BLESS THE LADS;
LET MY NAME BE NAMED UPON THEM,
AND THE NAME OF MY FATHERS ABRAHAM AND ISAAC;
AND LET THEM GROW INTO A MULTITUDE IN THE MIDST OF THE EARTH.
17 NOW WHEN JOSEPH SAW THAT HIS FATHER LAID HIS RIGHT HAND ON THE HEAD OF EPHRAIM, IT DISPLEASED HIM; SO HE TOOK HOLD OF HIS FATHERS HAND TO REMOVE IT FROM EPHRAIMS HEAD TO MANASSEHS HEAD.
18 AND JOSEPH SAID TO HIS FATHER, NOT SO, MY FATHER, FOR THIS ONE IS THE FIRSTBORN; PUT YOUR RIGHT HAND ON HIS HEAD.
19 BUT HIS FATHER REFUSED AND SAID, I KNOW, MY SON, I KNOW. HE ALSO SHALL BECOME A PEOPLE, AND HE ALSO SHALL BE GREAT; BUT TRULY HIS YOUNGER BROTHER SHALL BE GREATER THAN HE, AND HIS DESCENDANTS SHALL BECOME A MULTITUDE OF NATIONS.
20 SO HE BLESSED THEM THAT DAY, SAYING, BY YOU ISRAEL WILL BLESS, SAYING, MAY GOD MAKE YOU AS EPHRAIM AND AS MANASSEH! AND THUS HE SET EPHRAIM BEFORE MANASSEH.
Isaac said concerning Manasseh,
HE ALSO SHALL BECOME A PEOPLE, AND HE ALSO SHALL BE GREAT; (48:19), HE SET EPHRAIM BEFORE MANASSEH (48:20).
The indications are the Ephraim would precede Manasseh in history. Rabbinical Commentators agreed with this evaluation:
Rabbi Tzvi Elimelech Shapira of Dinov 1784-1840 in his work, "Bnei Yissachar"
comments on the blessing of Jacob to Ephraim and Manasseh:
# Why did Jacob not command that Manasseh be placed on his left side and Ephraim on his right? Why did Jacob have to cross his hands over? The truth is that Manasseh is the firstborn. The future and most important building of all [i.e. the Third Temple] will be consecrated in the month dedicated to Manasseh, the middle month, and his standard will be in the center, and this is why it says 'GUIDING HIS HAND WITTINGLY' (Genesis 48:14) (and he did not change Manasseh over to the left side) for in truth Manasseh is the firstborn and the most important but he put Ephraim before Manasseh concerning the chronological precedence. #
This Sage is saying that: Manasseh remained on the right hand side of Jacob. He fulfilled the destiny of Jacob and expressed more the inner being of Jacob. The left hand of Jacob was on the head of Manasseh. The left hand is the weaker hand and the slower one. It indicated that Manasseh would be slower to reach fruition.
Rabbi Fishel Mael in 'Safer Shivtei Yisroel', USA, 5757, comments (p.490):
# According to what we have said we can conclude that the order of placing of the sons was important both in regards to their positioning concerning Joseph and in that concerning Jacob. Concerning Joseph.... Ephraim is the one who fulfils his place and most continues his path... Therefore Joseph set Ephraim on his right-hand side to show that Ephraim is the main principle of his might and the continuer of his path... However concerning Jacob it is just the opposite. Manasseh is closer ...to the path of Jacob... Jacob however guided his hands wittingly to indicate that the greatness of Manasseh would not be revealed so soon... Jacob agreed only that Manasseh remain at his right-hand side for he is destined to complete the quality ...of Jacob himself in the building of the Third Temple. #
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2. Ephraim arrives First
Manasseh it is implied was to emerge from Ephraim like the USA did from Britain.
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3. Manasseh Bigger and Richer.
The greatness of Manasseh was to find expression through its size and material advantage. This suits the USA.
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4. "Manasseh" means responsible representation!
The very name "Manasseh" connotes Responsible Representation which is a fundamental characteristic of USA social and political culture.
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5. "America" means "sons of Machir" the First-born son of Manasseh.
The name "America" derives from the Hebrew "Machir" or 'Ha-Machiri" originally meaning "Machir" or "Sons-of-Machir."
Machir was the firstborn son of Manasseh.
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6. "Machir" means "Capitalism."
"Machir" in Hebrew connotes "selling" or the Principle of Capitalism and the USA is the foremost Capitalist nation.
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7. "Manasseh" Migrated to America.
Areas in the British Isles and in Europe where Tribal groups with names suggesting possible descent from Manasseh provided a disproportionately significant number of early migrants to the USA.
This last point (no.7) has been challenged.
In reply:
1. Statistical Evidence. Calvin Kephart ("Races of Mankind. Their Origin and Migration", New York, 1960) opines that:
"Approximately 87 per cent of the British immigration to the United states (in colonial times and later) consisted of persons whose antecedents reach back to western England and to Scotland, Wales, and Ireland."
p.438, n.314: "based on statistics of the U.S. Department of Labour and the assumption that two-thirds of the immigrants from England had such antecedents".
2. Genealogical Indications.
Linda Merle was a genealogist specializing in Northern Ireland genealogy but also well versed in that of Ireland and of Britain in general. I do not know if Linda ever wrote a book but she was very active in sending out erudite postings to various e-mail discussion groups.
Linda had the impression that among the early colonists of what became the USA were many of particular social groupings that somehow had never been part of the traditional Feudal fabric.
Linda implied the following without expressly announcing it:
English Society (regardless of local differences) from 1600 to ca. 1800 was divided along the following lines:
1. Lords and/or Landowners.
2. Serfs. Descendants of hereditary serfs who had once lived on their own lands but had had to pay rent or give annual service to no.1.
3. Landless Freemen. These had belonged to neither class 1 nor class 2 but enjoyed an undefined but autonomous existence. They had dwelt in forests, or on common lands, etc, or were hired servants, fishermen, sailors, or paid artisans, etc.
Linda held that members of class 3 were prominent among the migrants to America.
This too would have had ethnic implications and even suits the meaning of the name "Machir" (i.e. the Principle of Selling) in Hebrew.
It has been claimed that most of the early colonies came from areas in Britain associated with Ephraim.
Many came from the area known as "Anglia" named after the Angles. The cognomen "Angle" is synonymous with Aegel meaning "Bull-Calf" and this is associated with Ephraim.
Many did come from Anglia and settled heavily in Massachusetts was very important in American History BUT it was only one of several major Mother-sources.
The immigrants to Massachusetts were mostly Puritans. They comprised the demographic core of the classes they belonged to, i.e. the youngest elements, and many of the women. Women were important among them , a trait of Manasseh, as seen with the daughters of Zelophehad who were concerned with their the continuation of their tribal inheritance, Numbers 32:33; Joshua 13: 29-31
The Anglo-Saxon invaders of England in the 450s and 500s CE were headed by Angles, Saxons, Jutes. other peoples from the north were among them including Vandals (from Asher), Goths (from Gad) and Frissians (from Manasseh. The Frissians also settled in Anglia. They may have been more prominent that we realize.
Procopius (in the 500s CE) seems to have referred to the areas known as "Anglia" by the name "Brittia" and described it as populted by Angles, Frisians and Britons, each with their own King
See: "A jilted Anglian bride on the warpath - a neglected episode from Procopius," by Deorreader.
https://deorreader.wordpress.com/2018/09/13/a-jilted-anglian-bride-on-the-warpath-a-neglected-episode-in-procopius/
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8. Clifford Smyth and British Israel
Below are extracts of interest from Albion's Seed : Four British Folkways in America by David Hackett Fischer, 1989, USA.
My copy of this work was sent to me decades ago by Clifford Smyth. Clifford resides in Northern Ireland. He is prominent in British Israel circles and reportedly now heads the BIWF (British Israel World Federation).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifford_Smyth
https://www.historyireland.com/loyalism-and-british-israelism/
British Israel in the past attracted certain anti-Jewish elements alongside Philo-Semites and supporters of Israel.. There were always important British heroes and statesmen who also believed in British Israel, were pro-Jewish, and were devoted to Zionism and the Jewish cause.
Examples include, Lt. Colonel John Henry Patterson, DSO (1867 - 1947) commander of the Jewish legion in WW1; Major-General Orde Charles Wingate, DSO and two bars (1903 - 1944), a co-founder of the Zionist Hagana which led to the IDF, later liberator of Ethiopia from the Italians, and founder of the commando "Chindits' against the Japenese in Burma in WW2.
so too,
Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen (1878-1967) believed the British and western peoples were of Israelite origin, see:
Bird Watcher. Gentile Heroes of Israel
https://hebrewnations.com/articles/16/meiner.html
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9. Relevant Summaries and Extracts of interest from "Albion's Seed."
1629-1640 ca. 80,000 from England to America, ca. 21,000 of them to Massachusetts.
"The emigrants who came to Massachusetts it he great migration became the breeding stock for America's Yankee population. They multiplied at a rapid rate doubling every generation for two centuries."
".. a religious movement of English Christians who meant to build a New Zion in America."
Most of the migrants were religious and held to a very high standard on the communal and individual levels.
"The Puritans found this belief [in the Covenant] on the book of Genesis, where God made an agreement with Abraham..."
"The nuclear families that moved to Massachusetts were in many cases related to one another...'
typically young people in their teens and twenties.
More men than women but a much higher ration of men to women as compared to other colonies.
More women formal members of churches than men.
" The great majority were yeomen [freeholders], husbandmen, artisans, merchants, and traders - the sturdy middle class of England. They were not poor."
high levels of literacy.
Came from all parts of England but especially (60%) from the eastern part. 10% from London.
60% from east Anglia.
Before the migration:
East Anglia in England had had more advanced farming methods, simiar to those of the Netherlands.
Origins: Angles (east Anglia), Danes, and Jutes (from Jutland, Denmark) in Kent. A center of resistance to Charles-1 after 1625.
Possibly most intellectual area of England.
Reform meant return to a distant past.
# Anglian historian, R. W. Ketton-Cremer, writes, "The Norfolk man, gentle or simple, tended to be dour, stubborn, fond of argument and litigation, strongly Puritan in his religious views. ..."
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There is much evidence that the majority of migrants to the USA were of Israelite descent. The Tribes of Josep (Ephraim and Manasseh) were predominant especially Ephraim. Other evidence indicates that Ephraim is numerically very important in the USA though in other ways Manasseh often predominates. New England and Massachusetts were very impornt in the early stages and still are. In our article Massachusetts and Manasseh we identified Massachusteets as the leading colony of Manasseh in the USA.
The Puritan Migrants to America from England and especially East England show the characteristics of a whole ethnic strata moving en masse from one place to another. They belonged to specific social groups sharing common features, consisted mainly of young people, and drained England of themselves. In America they weaned out all those who did not fit in thusly achieving a preconceived homogeneity. Once they had all reached America the emigration of that type from England virtually ceased, and in England it did not really remain. From this experience we may extrapolate to other migrating groups to America.
Amos (NKJV) 9:
9 For surely I will command,
And will sift the House of Israel among all nations,
As grain is sifted in a sieve;
Yet not the smallest grain shall fall to the ground.
cf.
Quote from "Brittanica."
https://www.britannica.com/topic/American-colonies
In the 17th century the principal component of the population in the colonies was of English origin, and the second largest group was of African heritage. German and Scotch-Irish immigrants arrived in large numbers during the 18th century. Other important contributions to the colonial ethnic mix were made by the Netherlands, Scotland, and France. New England was almost entirely English, in the southern colonies the English were the most numerous of the settlers of European origin, and in the middle colonies the population was much mixed, but even Pennsylvania had more English than German settlers. Except in Dutch and German enclaves, which diminished with the passage of time, the English language was used everywhere, and English culture prevailed. The 'melting pot' began to boil in the colonial period, so effectively that Gov. William Livingston, three-fourths Dutch and one-fourth Scottish, described himself as an Anglo-Saxon. As the other elements mingled with the English, they became increasingly like them; however, all tended to become different from the inhabitants of 'the old country.' By 1763 the word 'American' was commonly used on both sides of the Atlantic to designate the people of the 13 colonies.