Recherches philosophiques sur les Américains, ou Mémoires interessants pour servir à l’histoire de l’espèce humaine.
Contents: Du climat de l’Amérique.—De la complexion altérée de ses habitants.—De la découverte du Nouveau-Monde.—De la variété de l’espèce humaine en Amérique.—De la couleur des Américains.—Des anthropophages.—Des Eskimaux; des Patagons.—Des Blafards et des Négres blancs.—De l’Orang-Outang.—Des hermaphrodites de la Floride.—De la circoncision et de l’infibulation.—Du génie abruti des Américains.—De quelques usages bizarres, communs aux deux continents.—De l’usage des flèches empoisonnées chez les peuples des deux continents.—De la religion des Américains.—Sur le grand Lama.—Sur les vicissitudes de notre globe.—Sur le Paraguai.—Défenses des recherches sur les Américains.—D. Pernetty. Dissertation sur l’Amérique et les Américains contre les recherches philosophiques de M. de Pauw.
There was an edition in French at Berlin in 1770, in 2 vols., and, with Pernetty annexed, in 1774, in 3 vols. The Defenses was printed also at Berlin in 1770. These were all included in De Pauw’s Œuvres Philosophiques, published at Paris “an iii.” An English translation by J. Thomson was printed at London, 1795. Daniel Webb published some selections in English at Bath, 1789, 1795, and at Rochdale, 1806. Pernetty’s Examen was printed at Berlin in 1769. There is another little tractate of this time attributed to Pernetty, De l’Amérique et des Américains (Berlin, 1771), in whose humor De Pauw fares no better; but Rich has a note on the questionable attributing of it to Pernetty, and its real author was probably C. de Bonneville (cf. Hœfer).
[1576] Delle Lettere Americane (opere, xi.-xiv., Milano, 1784-94); better known in J. B. L. Villebrune’s French translation, Lettres Américaines (2 vols.; Paris and Boston, 1787); Sabin, no. 10,912. There is also a German version.
[1577] The United States elevated to Glory and Honor. New Haven, 1783. It is included in J. W. Thornton’s Pulpit of the Amer. Revolution (Boston, 1860).
[1578] This Canaanite view, though hardly held with the scope given by Dr. Stiles, had been asserted earlier by Gomara, De Lery, and Lescarbot. Cf. For. Quart. Rev., Oct., 1856.
[1579] G. H. Loskiel, Mission of the United Brethren among the Indians, trans. from the German by La Trobe (London, 1794). Johann Gottlieb Fritsch, Disputatio historico-geographica in qua quæritur utrum veteres Americam noverint nec ne (Curæ Regnilianæ, 1796).
[1580] Observations on some Parts of Nat. Hist., Lond., 1787.
[1581] Pilling, Bibliog. Siouan languages (1887, p. 4).
[1582] Hist. North Carolina, 1811-12.