Ideas about Trans-Pacific Origins and Voyages in Early Spanish Chronicles from the Americas

ABSTRACT During their explorations of the Americas and the South Sea, the Spanish pondered the question of the origins and ancient voyages of the Indigenous people they encountered. They also documented sightings of local raftsmen along the American Pacific coast and chronicled knowledge gained from them about lands to the west. These writings are not only part of the history of ideas of trans-Pacific contact; they have also been used as evidence demonstrating these contacts—as secondary sources concerning pre-European Indigenous traditions. This article describes and analyzes the earliest European ideas about trans-Pacific contacts or origins concerning the Americas, based on a detailed reading of some of the earliest chronicles. It argues that the central influence of the European intellectual landscape appears to have been the belief that both the biblical traditions and new geographical theories were converging in order to motivate the discovery of lands to the west.