Recherches Philosophiques Sur Les Americains, Ou, Mémoires Intéressants Pour Servir À L'histoire De L'espece Humane, 3...

by Cornelius de Pauw

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244 pages, Hardcover

First published February 22, 2012

About the author

Cornelius Franciscus de Pauw or Cornelis de Pauw (Corneille de Pauw in French; 18 August 1739 — 5 July 1799) was a Dutch philosopher, geographer and diplomat at the court of Frederick the Great of Prussia.

Although born in Amsterdam, son of Antonius Pauw and Quirina van Heijningen, he spent most of his life in Kleve. Working for the clergy, he nonetheless became familiar with the ideas of the Enlightenment. During his lifetime he was considered to be the greatest expert on the Americas, although he never visited the continent; he also wrote at length on the origins of ancient peoples, rejecting the popular idea of the time that China was originally a colony of Ancient Egypt.

He was a specialist in ethnologic studies as well, publishing a study of American Indians in French in 1768. Daniel Webb, an English scholar and translator, translated portions of de Pauw’s work into English for a public that was hungry for information regarding the new continent of America. De Paauw had no hesitation in rejecting the observations of those with personal experience of the Americas if they differed from his preconceptions, as can be seen from his comments on the Aztec calendar. Despite this, he was reputed in his lifetime to be Europe’s foremost authority on the Americas. He read the accounts of Buffon and other scientists, naturalists, and explorers, and drew his own conclusions. De Pauw was of the opinion (shared with other European scientists of that time) that the American natives were inferior to natives of northern and western Europe, and that this inferiority was partly due to American climate and geography.