Jose de acosta

Joseph de Acosta, S.J. (Medina del Campo, October 1, 1540 - Salamanca, February 15, 1600) was a Spanish Jesuit scientist, anthropologist and naturalist who carried out important missions in America from 1571, the year in which he undertook his trip to Peru, arguing that the American Indians would have arrived on that continent from North Asia.

In addition to the narration of the adventures of a layman in American lands, known to Europeans as "Las Indias" (Peregrinación de Bartolomé Lorenzo), owes his fame as a shrewd observer and lucid expositor to Natural and moral history of the Indies, a work published in Seville in 1590 and soon translated into French. in 1598 and English in 1604. In said book he observed the customs, rites and beliefs of the indigenous people of Mexico and Peru and found a scientific and global interpretation of all natural physical phenomena, among which he discovered the Humboldt Current (250 years before Humboldt).

Biography

Childhood and youth

Younger son of Antonio de Acosta and Ana de Porres. His family (of probable Jewish convert origin) belonged to the mercantile bourgeoisie of Medina del Campo and reached a total of 11 members. Breaking down this information, José de Acosta has three sisters and five older brothers, the vast majority of them directly linked to religious life. His sisters were two prominent nuns and four of his brothers joined the Jesuit order with him, while the remaining brother was a famous soldier in Italy, the Netherlands and Aragon, being honored by Philip II upon his death in 1595.

At the age of eleven, Acosta entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus and immediately highlighted his skills and abilities, becoming a professor of Latin for his classmates at the age of fifteen and writing several of the quarterly letters to the General Father. Likewise, before he was seventeen years old, he composed tragedies, comedies and biblical plays to be represented by his companions on holidays.

Between 1559 and 1567, he lived in Alcalá de Henares, then a recognized center of Spanish humanism. There he will receive studies in Philosophy, Theology and Natural Sciences evidencing, at the same time, an agile, cunning and precise mind as well as great powers of observation.

Jesuit priest and arrival in Peru

Being named a priest in 1567, he was assigned to Ocaña and Plasencia in order to teach theology classes in the Jesuit colleges of those places until, at the age of thirty-one, he asked the Company to be assigned to American missions as indicated in his «Disclaimer or Apology of the Pope». For this purpose, in 1571 he went to the Spanish Island and a few months later he continued his journey across the mainland to finally arrive in Peru in mid-1572 as part of the third mission sent by the Jesuits to the viceroyalty. There he collaborated with the viceroy Francisco Álvarez de Toledo and carried out important missionary work, becoming provincial of the Company in the Jesuit province of the aforementioned country.

Joseph de Acosta had arrived in Peru three years after Francisco de Toledo took over as viceroy in 1569. Upon his arrival in Lima, he was ordered to cross the Andes, apparently to join the viceroy in the interior. He took the route with fourteen or fifteen companions through the mountainous province of Huarochirí and through the high pass of Pariacaca, at more than 4,000 meters above sea level, where the entire group was seriously affected by the effects of the atmosphere. rarefied

After the beheading of Túpac Amaru I ordered by Viceroy Toledo, this soldier dedicated five years to a tour through each part of the Viceroyalty of Peru in order to learn about and highlight its organization. The Jesuit Acosta, Mr. Polo de Ondegardo, and Judge Matienzo participated in this activity. Similarly, Acosta also accompanied the viceroy in Charcas, and was with him during his unsuccessful expedition against the indigenous Chiriguanos.

Work as a missionary and teacher in the Viceroyalty

As part of his Jesuit work, José de Acosta founded several colleges, among them those of Panama, Arequipa, Potosí, Chuquisaca and La Paz despite the strong opposition of Viceroy Toledo, who in the exercise of the royal viceroyalty, disapproved of the new foundations due to the excessive number of existing ones. His official duties (such as the founding of educational facilities) led him to personally investigate the extensive territory; In this way, he acquired a practical knowledge of the vast province and its aboriginal inhabitants, which he embodied in the development of his recognized works.

The main headquarters of the Jesuits was at that time in the small town of Juli, near the western shore of Lake Titicaca. Here a college was formed, the languages of the natives were studied, and in time a printing press was established. Acosta probably resided in Juli for much of his stay in the territory that then comprised the Viceroyalty of Peru. It was here, in all probability, that he observed the famous comet of 1577, from November 1 to December 8, which spread like a fiery plume from the horizon almost to the zenith. Here he also devoted much of his time to the preparation of various scholarly works, the manuscripts of which he later took back to Spain, including the first two books of the Natural History of the Indies . In this same place, Acosta received information regarding the Amazon River from a brother of the order who had previously been on Lope de Aguirre's famous pirate cruise.

Toward the end of the Viceroyalty of Toledo, Acosta appears to have moved from the interior of Peru to Lima. In this period, he mentions supervising the foundry of a large bell (for which there were difficulties in obtaining fuel for the furnace) for which it was necessary to cut down large trees in the valley of the Rímac river.

Viceroy Toledo was practically the re-founder of the University of San Marcos in Lima, where Acosta held the chair of theology. In this position, the Jesuit managed to attest to his great oratory capacity and for this reason, among other reasons, he was elected provincial of the Company in 1576.

In 1579, Francis Drake threatened the Peruvian coast and the viceroy sent a fleet under the command of Don Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa with two objectives; on the one hand, to hunt for the English pirate and on the other in order to explore and study the Strait of Magellan. In connection with this, Acosta had interviews with the pilot of Sarmiento's fleet and was allowed to inspect his charts, thus obtaining much hydrographic information, particularly regarding the tides in the straits. Likewise, he spoke with the new viceroy Martín Enríquez de Almansa and expressed with him valuable ideas on the same subject.

The "III Concilio Limense", led by Santo Toribio de Mogrovejo, determined new ways and strategies for evangelization as a way of life for the clergy. The need to create Seminaries as well as a Catechism that should be disseminated in native languages (such as Aymara and Quechua) in order to comply with the resolutions of the Tridentine Council became clear. For this purpose, the Jesuit José de Acosta directed the elaboration of the Trilingual Catechism and Brevarie. A collateral consequence of this fact was that the selection of the original languages decisively defined the linguistic relegation of Puquina, which at that time was still mostly spoken by Amerindian women in the Urcosuyo, Umasuyo and Colesuyo regions of the Central Andes. In short, in the 1582 session of the "III Limense Council", Acosta played a fundamental role and was its historian. In addition to this, he delivered an eloquent and prepared speech at his last session on October 18, 1583.

Last years and writings

José de Acosta, in addition to the Natural and Moral History of the Indies, also composed another work, De procuranda indorum salute in which, bringing to a mature synthesis the studies of previous authors, gave a sure answer to many theological, juridical and missionary questions. Written between 1575 and 1576, this book was from its appearance an important Manual of Missiology.

In 1586 he marched towards New Spain, where he stayed for almost a year, finally returning to the Iberian Peninsula together with the Jesuit Alonso Sánchez, whose project of an Iberian invasion of China Acosta censured. His closeness to King Philip II allowed him to publish his first work on America, De Natura Novi Orbis, in 1589. He then traveled to Rome and printed some treatises in Latin. Appointed visitor of his order in Andalusia and Aragon, he returned to Rome in 1592 where he participated in the V General Congregation of the Society of Jesus and in it he was accused of "new Christian"; and rebellious. Dedicated to preaching and teaching in Valladolid, he printed his best sermons in three volumes in Salamanca. Claimed by his compatriots, he was elected rector of the College of Salamanca, a position in which he died at the age of fifty-nine, on February 15, 1600.

His work, considered among the last great works of the Salamanca school, fell into oblivion for centuries, due to his belonging to the Society of Jesus, which was condemned by the Enlightenment, as it affirmed that no knowledge it could come from the Church of Rome, although its contributions did not have theological connotations. This erasure of history was taken advantage of almost two centuries later by the Prussian Humboldt, whose anthropological current does nothing but copy his research.

Works

First page of the Natural and Moral History of the Indias de José de Aco

• Tragoedia de Jeptaeo filiam trucidante and Devento Joseph (Medina del Campo: 1555 and 1556, lost).

• Christian Doctrine and Catechism for the Indians' Instruction (Lima: 1584)
• Third Catechism and Exhibition of the Christian Doctrine, by sermons (Lima: 1585)[1]
• Confessional for Indian Curas (Lima: 1585)
• From Natura Novi Orbis Libri Duo (Salamanca: 1588/89)
• Indorum salute (Salamanca: 1588/89)
• Acosta, Joseph de, Natural and Moral History of the Indies, 1590
• Acosta, Joseph de, Natural and Moral History of the Indies: in which the remarkable things of the sky and elements, metals, plants, and animals of the wings and rites, and ceremonies, laws and government, and wars of the Indians Sevilla: Juan de León, 1590
• Acosta, Joseph de, From Christo revelato (Rome: 1590)
• Acosta, Joseph de, De temporibus novissimus (Rome: 1590)
• Letters