“At this day also the Abassins [Abyssinians]

“At this day also the Abassins [Abyssinians]

“At this day also the Abassins [Abyssinians] affirm that upon the Nilus [Nile] towards the west there inhabiteth a most populous nation of the Jewish stock under a mightie king. And some of our modern cosmographers set down a province in those quarters which they call the land of the Hebrews, placed as it were under the equinoctial [Equator] in certain unknown mountains, between the confines of Abassin [Abyssinia] and Congo”

SOURCE;

(John Pory, ‘A Geographical Historie of Africa’; 1600)

“In Congo, where the inhabitants dwell in low plains, they are of a deep black, and have strongly-marked Negro features. Here are many Jews, said to have acquired the Negro features, but retaining their distinct religious rites and habits”

SOURCE;

(Simmonds Colonial Magazine and Foreign Miscellany Vol. 5; 1844)

“The contention has been made that the extraneous element of the Bantu was derived from tribes of Israel which were first carried away to Babylon, as related in the Scriptures, and who afterward in whole or in part migrated through Egypt into equatorial Africa, and, through mingling with native tribes, upon whom they imposed much of their own religion and customs, gave rise to the peoples now known as Bantu…”

SOURCE;

(N. B. Ghormley, ‘The Land of the Heart of Livingstone Or, The Genius of the Bantu’; 1920)

“A young African negro has been in this city for the last few days who claims to be a Hebrew. He is deaf and dumb and as black as the ace of spades. He carries a pad of paper with him and answers all questions by writing them in Hebrew and Loschen Khodish. What excites the most wonder is that he writes Loschen Khodish very rapidly. It is the language of the books of Moses, and is made a special study of, spoken and written with ease only by the rabbis and highly educated Hebrews…

…The negro was sent to one of the rabbis of Hartford, who is perfectly satisfied that he is a Hebrew. He says that he came from a large town in Africa, where there is a tribe of about 20,000 black Hebrews who speak Loschen Khodish and are quite prosperous. He also says that his father is a rabbi in that town, and that is why his father took the trouble to teach him to write these languages, which needed an extra amount of labor on account of his being deaf and dumb…

…He says his people not only write Loschen Khodish, but it is their speaking language as well. He left home a few years ago and has seen a good deal of the world. In each town he hunts up the Jewish section, and there they give him clothes, food and money…

…What surprises him, he writes, is that no Hebrew knows of his countrymen in Africa.”

SOURCE;

(The Houston Daily Post, September 20, 1897 https://www.newspapers.com/image/71300930)