author
José de Acosta
1540–1600
A Jesuit traveler, missionary, and scholar, he wrote one of the earliest wide-ranging accounts of the Americas for European readers. His work blends close observation of nature, geography, and Indigenous societies with the religious aims of the Spanish empire.
2 Audiobooks
Historia natural y moral de las Indias (vol. 1 of 2)
by José de Acosta
Historia natural y moral de las Indias (vol. 2 of 2)
by José de Acosta
About the author
Born in Medina del Campo, Spain, in 1539 or 1540, José de Acosta joined the Jesuits at a young age and later traveled to Peru in 1571. He spent many years in Spanish America, including time in Peru and Mexico, where he observed the land, climate, peoples, and missionary work firsthand.
He is best known for Natural and Moral History of the Indies (1590), an influential survey of the New World. Readers have long valued it for its vivid descriptions of South America and for the way it tried to explain unfamiliar environments, animals, and cultures to European audiences. He also wrote about missionary practice and helped support the publication of Christian teaching in Indigenous languages in Peru.
Today, Acosta is remembered as an important early interpreter of the Americas: a religious writer shaped by his era, but also a careful observer whose books circulated widely in Europe. He died in Salamanca on February 15, 1600.