Acosta, José de (1540–1600)

José de Acosta (b. September or October 1540; d. 15 February 1600), Spanish Jesuit historian. Born in Medina del Campo, Acosta joined the Jesuit order while young and went to Peru in 1571. He lived there for fourteen years, and in Mexico City for one, before returning to his native Spain in 1587. His Historia natural y moral de las Indias (A Natural and Moral History of the Indies) was published in Seville in 1590. Widely read by educated Spaniards and quickly translated into most important European languages as well, Acosta's Historia enjoyed immediate success. Like other similar texts, the Historia places the entire American continent within a universal and providential Christian framework, implying a divine role for Spain as a conquering power. Many features of the natural American world, as well as indigenous religions, cultures, and governments, are described in great detail, making Acosta's work an invaluable source of information. It is considered by literary scholars and historians to be an elegantly written, classic example of sixteenth-century New World historiography.

Duke University Press published a new translation of Historia with an introduction by Walter Mignolo in 2002.

See alsoLiterature: Spanish America .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

A complete English translation by Frances López-Morillas of Acosta's Historia natural, with notes and introduction by Walter Mignolo, is presently in preparation. The best Spanish edition is José De Acosta, Historia natural y moral de las Indias, edited by Edmundo O'Gorman (1962). For a study of Acosta's ethnological method see Anthony Pagden, The Fall of Natural Man: The American Indian and the Origins of Comparative Ethnology (1982), pp. 146-200.

Additional Bibliography

Burgaleta, Claudio M. José de Acosta, S.J., 1540–1600: His Life and Thought. Chicago: Jesuit Way, 1999.

Hovde, James Marc. "God's Order and Worldly Action: José de Acosta, Ignatius Loyola, and Augustine." Ph.D. diss., University of San Diego, 2003.

Shepherd, Gregory J. An Exposition of José de Acosta's Historia natural y moral de las Indias, 1590: The Emergence of an Anthropological Vision of Colonial Latin America. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2002.

                                        Kathleen Ross