The origin of the American population

         In this first class of America in The Modern Early Age, we have seen the different theories to explain the following question: who did humans arrive to America? We have to realize that the discovery of a new continent must be very shocking, because in this period, like today, they thought that they know all the world, and suddenly, a new continent, with a lot of different kind of empires and people was added to the old world. So in the age of the Renaissance, the renaissance people began looking for possible answers to explain the origin of the American humankind.

         One of these persons was the Spanish Jose De Acosta, who was born in Medina del Campo in 1540. He was Jesuit, anthropologist and nature lover. His work is very important and relevant, not only for being created in America, also because it has a big influence on the following theories about American population, as in the case of the theory of Aleš Hrdlička.

 

         Once in America, he received the post of provincial of the Jesuits in Peru, the second in the history of the Order in that country. He combined his religious and apostolic obligations with his penchant for observation and therefore he did not cease to collect samples and take notes which later formed the basis for his work.

         So now we are going to talk about the different theories proposed by Jose De Acosta.

1)    First, he criticized the dominant theory, which talks about the arrival of the first Americans by the sea. Some people believe that the arrival had been intentional, and others, that it had been unintentional. But in Jose De Acosta’s opinion, it was impossible, because they did not have the necessary naval technology  to cross the sea.

2)    Then, we have the theory of Jose De Acosta, which later will be called “The Asiatic theory”. He proposed that first Americans came by land, walking. He surmised rightly that thousands years ago immigrants came from Asia to America by exploiting an area where both continents were approaching from the north. In 1590, the Bering Strait was not discovered yet. This theory is more feasible, because they do not need any technical knowledge to do it. In this paragraph, which is a smart part of the work of Acosta “ Historia Natural y Moral de las Indias” we can see the main idea of this Castilian author:

“Mas al fin, en lo que me resumo es que el continuarse la tierra de Indias con esas otras del mundo, a lo menos estar muy cercanas, ha sido la más principal y más verdadera razón de poblarse las Indias; y tengo para mí que el Nuevo Orbe e indias Occidentales, no ha muchos millares de años que las habitan hombres, y que aquellos aportaron al Nuevo Mundo por haberse perdido de su tierra o por hallarse estrechos y necesitados de buscar nueva tierra, y que halándola, comenzaron poco a poco a poblarla, no teniendo más ley que un poco de luz natural, y cuando mucho algunas costumbres que les quedaron de su patria primera.”