Pacific exploration was driven by expectations of finding the Lost Tribes

Evidence

The exploration and colonization of the Pacific was attended by lively speculation about long-lost Jewish communities and the likely existence of the Lost Tribes in these remote islands. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 325

Categorization

• SEED: An article angle: how European exploration of the Pacific was partly motivated by Biblical myths of the Lost Tribes — the imperial project as scripture-driven cartography.
• XREF: Connects to 16th-19th century European ethnography of indigenous peoples and the ‘Lost Tribe’ theory used to explain Native American and Pacific origins.