Cristóbal Diatristán de Acuña

For the earlier Portuguese explorer, see Tristão da Cunha.

Cristóbal Diatristán de Acuña, SJ (1597 – c. 1676) was a Spanish Jesuit missionary and explorer.

Biography

He was born at Burgos in Spain. He was admitted a Jesuit in 1612, and afterwards sent on mission work to Chile and Peru, where he became rector of the college of Cuenca. In 1639 he accompanied Pedro Teixeira in his second exploration of the Amazon, in order to take scientific observations, and draw up a report for the Spanish government. The journey lasted ten months; and on the explorer's arrival in Belém, Acuña prepared his narrative, while awaiting a ship for Europe. The king of Spain, Philip IV, received the author coldly, and, it is said^[1] even tried to suppress his book, fearing that the Portuguese, who had just revolted from Spain (1640), would profit by its information. After occupying the positions of procurator of the Jesuits at Rome and censor (calificador) of the Spanish Inquisition at Madrid, Acuña returned to South America, where he died, probably soon after 1675. His Nuevo Descubrimiento del Gran Río de las Amazonas was published at Madrid in 1641; French and English translations (the latter from the French), appeared in 1682 and 1698.^[2]

Acuña was the first to describe the Casiquiare canal, a natural canal linking the Amazon and Orinoco Rivers, in 1639.^[3]

References

1. Chisholm 1911.
2.  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Acuña, Christoval de". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 1 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 166.
3. "canal Orinocco to Amazon". Archived from the original on 14 June 2013. Retrieved 17 February 2014.. Claim unattributed.

Further reading

• Chauca, Roberto (2018). "Missionary Hydrography and the Invention of Early Modern Amazonia". Colonial Latin American Review. 27 (2): 203–225. doi:10.1080/10609164.2018.1481272. ISSN 1060-9164. S2CID 165772867.
• Howgego, Raymond John, ed. (2003). "Acuna, Christoval de". Encyclopedia of Exploration to 1800. Hordern House. ISBN 1875567364.
• Smith, Anthony (1990). Explorers of the Amazon. London, England: Viking. pp. 149–154. ISBN 0-670-81310-9.

External links

• ACUNA, Christoval de, "NUEVO DESCUBRIMIENTO DEL GRAN RIO DE LAS AMAZONAS". — 1641
• Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography, edited by James Grant Wilson, John Fiske and Stanley L. Klos. Six volumes, New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1887-1889
• Acuña, Christobal de. 1641. Nuevo descubrimiento del gran Rio de las Amazonas. Madrid: Imprenta del Reyno.
• Nuevo descubrimiento del gran rio de las Amazonas (1641) at the Internet Archive