Ethan Smith (December 19, 1762–August 29, 1849)[1] was a New England Congregationalist clergyman in the United States who wrote View of the Hebrews (1823), a book that argued that Native Americans were descended from the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. His position was not uncommon among religious scholars, who based their history on the Bible.
Historians including Fawn McKay Brodie, a 20th-century biographer of Joseph Smith, founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, suggest that View influenced the Book of Mormon (1830), because of the strong "parallelisms" found between the two.[2]
brodie was invoked but never defined (see the help page).