Payne lobbied Congress on behalf of the Cherokee. He also amassed a voluminous amount of research on their constitution, written language, customs, myths, food, and history of the tribe. Most of his papers were never published. He tried to advance the theory that the Cherokee were one of the ten lost tribes of Israel. Other figures of the early American period, such as Benjamin Franklin, shared the belief that Native Americans were descended from such a tribe, as their conception of history was based on the Bible. Payne specifically believed that he had found similarities between the Cherokee language and ancient Hebrew. The Cherokee and other American Indians have been thoroughly proven to have ancient origins in eastern Asia. But, Payne's study and papers have been an important source of information on Cherokee language and culture for subsequent scholars.