Amerigo Vespucci (1454-1512) was an Italian explorer and the man America is named after. He played a key role in exploring the ‘New World’ of the Americas in the early 1500s. Here, Jorge Jaramillo discusses the importance of Vespucci’s letters and their lasting impact through Thomas More’s book Utopia (Amazon US | Amazon UK) – even having a role in the Soviet Union.
A depiction of Amerigo Vespucci in the Americas. A 1592 engraving by Theodor de Bry.
Context: Vespucci in the discovery of America
America was baptized after the name of Amerigo Vespucci, but there might be some disinformation surrounding this event. As history tells, it was Christopher Columbus —not Vespucci— the first European man to set foot on the continent. That’s why many would think Vespucci was someone who took too much credit for something he didn’t actually do. The thing is that from the 1500s to even today, many historians have insisted on discrediting Vespucci’s name, making people lose sight of the facts.
It is necessary to clarify the details of what happened, to understand the many achievements of Vespucci. Coming from a context of poetry, arts and knowledge as his native Florence was, he turned out to be quite a brilliant guy. In fact, one of the things that made him go down in history the way he did, was his remarkable capacity to interpret the position of stars. This was the key factor in concluding the lands Columbus discovered were actually a “New World”, against what Columbus thought. Christopher Columbus kept thinking he found a new path to Asia by crossing the Atlantic Ocean, ignoring the possible existence of land in between.
Vespucci’s letters
But the focus of this article is a side story that became an unexpected contribution to history. As a person who enjoyed writing masterful letters, Vespucci had the habit of documenting his sailing adventures in the form of letters that he sent to relatives and friends back in Florence. One of those letters, titled “The New World”, described the reasons why he thought the lands they were going to “opened” the Atlantic Ocean, and were actually a New World. This was the letter that stirred history and resulted in America being named after him.
The total number of trips Vespucci made to the New World is still disputed, but many claim there were three. Two were providing services to Spain and one to Portugal. In the letters he wrote to his relatives in Florence, he described with great poetry the many discoveries he made on these trips. It is said that his descriptions of the New World were more poetic and detailed than the messages Columbus wrote. One could say Columbus’ focus was more on himself and his achievements as a discoverer than on the discoveries themselves.
What is interesting is that Vespucci spent considerable effort in describing his not few encounters with the indigenous communities of the northern and central-east coast of South America (modern-day Colombia, Venezuela, and Brazil). As was normal, most of the European sailors felt and acted upon a sense of superiority over the cultures they were unveiling. Maybe because of the apparent contrast in technological development between locals and Europeans, but also because of the Europeans’ desire to colonize. But Vespucci was amazingly distant to that. As a matter of fact, his descriptions of the indigenous communities were, in many cases, flattering of their customs.
Mainly, Vespucci was very impressed with what most of these communities gave value to. Unlike Europeans, the indigenous people gave no importance to gold but instead gave great significance to feathers or rocks, which were absolutely worthless to the visitors. Also, he was interested in the way people shared their belongings because they didn’t believe in private or personal property. This meant that everyone in the community owned everything, and any individual could use or enjoy anything equally. Vespucci’s letters described this type of social setting, highlighting the great harmony and balance these communities enjoyed thanks to those rules.
Unexpected reach
Vespucci’s letters were later translated to several languages in Europe, allowing his findings and descriptions to reach and influence many thinkers of the time. In fact, Utopiaby Thomas More (1516) was one of the literary pieces to be notoriously influenced by Vespucci’s letters. It described a fictional society discovered in an island by Vespucci’s crew in their exploration of South American coasts. Even as a fictional work, Thomas More used many of the indigenous customs Vespucci described, to set up the social structure of this society, baptized by the author as Utopia. The inexistence of money and property, the collective lifestyle in which everyone owned everything, and the irrelevance of gold, were some of the features of Utopiathat were strongly connected to pre-Columbian cultures.
The importance and meaning of Utopia are still debated. Many authors argue that More’s fictional society was a literary reaction to the injustices and perversions he was witnessing in England and Europe. Etymologically, Utopia is a place that doesn’t exist, so in a certain sense this is what More desired but considered unachievable for a society.
Through the following centuries, different thinkers from diverse ideological grounds appropriated the concept of utopia to back up their theories. In fact, in the 19th century, the idea of utopia was adopted by Marx to describe the proletarian revolution in industrialized societies. Therefore Thomas More’s work was one indirect but essential inspiration in the early development of communism. Most importantly, Utopia was in good part inspired by the indigenous cultures of the New World, making their lifestyle and customs an unexpected —and unacknowledged— influence to theories like communism. As many authors say, the society More created on the island of Utopia, which recreated many of the features Vespucci recorded from the indigenous communities, was quite close to communism to contemporary eyes. The link between utopia and communism was even reaffirmed by Lenin, who ordered the inscription of Thomas More’s name in the Obelisk next to the Kremlin. This monument honored thinkers and personalities of the revolution.
Conclusion
There are two significant conclusions that one can take from these events. For the one part, Vespucci’s letters had a fantastic value and reach, influencing many thinkers throughout history. His letters were meant to inform his relatives and friends in Florence of his discoveries but ended up being the base to name the continent after him. His writings later also served to inspire different political theories. The second conclusion is the fact that there were unexpected influences of the pre-Columbian cultures to knowledge in the modern world, even after their almost total extermination. It is quite interesting to see that maybe the remotest origin of contemporary socialism, for example, could be traced back to pre-Columbian times in America - to the tribes and cultures that Spanish and Portuguese sailors were discovering in the 15th and 16th centuries.
What do you think of Amerigo Vespucci’s influence? Let us know below.
References
Arciniegas, G. (2002). América 500 años de un nombre. Vida y época de Amerigo Vespucci(3rd ed.; B. Villegas, ed.). Bogotá D.C., Colombia: Villegas Editores S.A. (Original work published 1954).
Martínez, C. (2017, October). The impact of the New World on the invention of Tomás Moro’s Utopia. Retrieved August 28, 2019, from NÓMADAS website: http://nomadas.ucentral.edu.co/index.php/inicio/2369-utopias-entre-lo-posible-y-lo-probable-nomadas-47/3-islas-y-planetas/936-el-impacto-del-nuevo-mundo-en-la-invencion-de-utopia-de-tomas-moro#volver_2
Phélippeau, M.-C. (2017, June 30). La utopía de Tomás Moro: 500 años de enigma. Retrieved August 28, 2019, from Humanitas. Revista de antropología y cultura cristianas. website: http://www.humanitas.cl/filosofia/la-utopia-de-tomas-moro-500-anos-de-enigma
