From the Australian continent to heaven on earth: A Spanish vision of the Oceanian peoples of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
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The great Spanish sailor Pedro Fernandez de Quiros (1560-1615) was undoubtedly the first to use the expression « Heaven on Earth » to qualify the South Sea (as it was called at the time), where there was no need to work for a living—which is a trite idea still deeply rooted in people’s minds today. He sensed the cultural identity connecting the peoples of the South Sea and strongly believed that the Austral Continent, he wished to discover, really existed. To colonize that other « New World » he wished to protect from undergoing the same tragedies as the ones that occurred in America, he built amazing plans, including the construction of schools and universities, that would lead to the Oceaniens’ cultural integration that might be spiritual, social and economic altogether.That great visionary man who is unfairly unknown, particularly dedicated interesting pages to the Marquesas and the Tuamotu Islands which are still shown as Heaven on Earth on postcards nowadays.
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