The Dynamics of José de Acosta's Colonizing Voice: Ventriloquism in Sixteenth-Century Ethnography

Abstract

In an effort to establish a missionary program in the Americas, José de Acosta, 16th Century Jesuit philosopher and theologian, began to represent and organize the anthropological characteristics of different Amerindian groups along a series of hierarchical ladders. This essay examines the discourses of sameness and difference in Acosta's writing to show how Eurocentric models altered perceptions of Amerindian culture. Ultimately, Acosta proposes an evolutionary progression whereby Amerindian culture would develop according to European models later giving rise to the development of the 19th-century disciplines of sociology and anthropology.