Amerigo Vespucci
Amerigo Vespucci describes the Indians he encountered in a letter of 1502
We found the region inhabited by a race of people who were entirely naked, both men and women. . .They have no laws, and no religious belief, but live according to the dictates of nature alone. They know nothing of the immortality of the soul; they have no private property, but every thing in common; they have no boundaries of kingdom or province, they obey no king or lord, for it is wholly unnecessary, as they have no laws, and each one is his own master.
They dwell together in houses made like huts in the construction of which they use neither iron nor any other metal. This is very remarkable, for I have seen houses two hundred and twenty feet long, and thirty feet wide, built with much skill, and containing five or six hundred people. They sleep in hammocks of cotton, suspended in the air without any covering; they eat seated upon he ground, and their food consists of the roots of herbs, or fruits and fish. . . . They are a warlike race, and extremely cruel. . .. The most astonishing thing in all their wars and cruelty was, that we could not find out any reason for them. . They made wars against each other, although they had neither kings, kingdoms, nor property of any kind, without any apparent desire to plunder, and without any lust for power, which always appeared to me to be the moving causes of wars and anarchy. When we asked them about this, they gave us no other reason than that they did so to avenge the murder of their ancestors.
Encounters in the New World: A History in Documents
Jill Lepore, Oxford University Press, Oxford New York
2000 p 47-48
Originally in Americo Vespucio, El Nuevo Mundo, Roberto Levillier, ed (Buenos Aires, Editorial Nova, 1951) 290-92
We found the region inhabited by a race of people who were entirely naked, both men and women. . .They have no laws, and no religious belief, but live according to the dictates of nature alone. They know nothing of the immortality of the soul; they have no private property, but every thing in common; they have no boundaries of kingdom or province, they obey no king or lord, for it is wholly unnecessary, as they have no laws, and each one is his own master.
They dwell together in houses made like huts in the construction of which they use neither iron nor any other metal. This is very remarkable, for I have seen houses two hundred and twenty feet long, and thirty feet wide, built with much skill, and containing five or six hundred people. They sleep in hammocks of cotton, suspended in the air without any covering; they eat seated upon he ground, and their food consists of the roots of herbs, or fruits and fish. . . . They are a warlike race, and extremely cruel. . .. The most astonishing thing in all their wars and cruelty was, that we could not find out any reason for them. . They made wars against each other, although they had neither kings, kingdoms, nor property of any kind, without any apparent desire to plunder, and without any lust for power, which always appeared to me to be the moving causes of wars and anarchy. When we asked them about this, they gave us no other reason than that they did so to avenge the murder of their ancestors.
Encounters in the New World: A History in Documents
Jill Lepore, Oxford University Press, Oxford New York
2000 p 47-48
Originally in Americo Vespucio, El Nuevo Mundo, Roberto Levillier, ed (Buenos Aires, Editorial Nova, 1951) 290-92