Jews Settled the Western Hemisphere

In about 600 B.C., two groups left Jerusalem for the Western Hemisphere--the Nephites and the Mulekites (Mulek and those who brought him). Obviously, then, the original settlers of the Land of Promise were Jews. It is interesting that a confirmation of this was written in 1581, by a Dominican friar, Diego Duran, who proposed the theory that the Amerindians could only be Jews. He maintained that they had escaped tribulation and found their way to the Americas.
Duran, best known for his authorship of this work, one of the earliest Western books was greatly criticized in his lifetime for helping the "heathen" maintain their culture. An excerpt from this book, also known as the Durán Codex, shows the founding of Tenochtitlan. Durán also wrote "Book of the Gods and Rites" (1574-1576), and "Ancient Calendar," (c. 1579).
He was fluent in Nahuatl, the Aztec language, and was therefore able to consult natives and their pictorial codices, as well as work done by earlier friars. His empathetic nature allowed him to gain the confidence of many native people who would not share their stories with Europeans, and was able to document many previously unknown folktales and legends that make his work unique.
Duran's concept was later adopted by Gregorio Garcia, another Dominican Friar who published it as "Origin of the Indians of the New World."
Durán was born sometime around 1537 in Spain. His family traveled to Mexico when he was very young and it was in Texcoco where he learned Nahuatl. Laater, his family moved to Mexico City where he attended school and was exposed to Aztec culture under the colonial rule of Spain.
His book contains seventy-eight chapters spanning from the Aztec creation story until after Spanish conquest of Mexico, and includes a chronology of Aztec kings.
The monks of the sixteenth century borrowed one another’s material without citation. Some scholars believe that the Durán Codex formed the basis for the Ramirez Codex although others believe that both Ramirez Codex and the Durán Codex relied on an earlier unknown work referred to as "Chronicle X". In 1596, Durán was cited as a source by Fray Agustín Dávila Pandilla in his Historia de la fundación y discurso de la Provinciade Santiago de Mexico.
The Durán Codex was unpublished until the 19th century, when it was found in the Library of Madrid by José Fernando Ramírez. In his Ancient Calendar, Durán explains why his work would go so long without being published by saying “some persons (and they are not a few) say that my work will revive ancient customs and rites among the Indians”, to which he replied that the Indians were quite good at secretly preserving their own customs and needed no outside help.
Durán's work has become invaluable to archaeologists and others studying Mesoamerica. Although there are few surviving Aztec codices written before the Spanish conquest, the more numerous post-conquest codices and near-contemporary works such as Durán's are invaluable secondary sources for the interpretation of archaeological theories and evidence.
Since the Aztecs were later descendants of the Nephites who emigrated to Mesoamerica in Hagoth's ships in the first century B.C., as explained in my book "Who Really Settled Mesoamerica," one can readily see that the Book of Mormon claim of Lehi and Ishmael, as well as Mulek, all coming from Jerusalem around 600 B.C. is factual.