A lot has been written about Native Americans with European appearance, the famous "White Indians". There are plenty of websites, with different European homelands for the origin of these white Amerindians, see the following examples: webpage I (Knights Templar), webpage II (Welsh), webpage III (white indians), webpage IV (Mormons), webpage V (Celts), Phoenicians, Carthaginians and Romans.
By the way, what is "white"? Personally I disagree with classifying people. The Americans, on the other hand, love it. The US Census classifies people by race and color in categories (!): White, Black or African American, Asian, American Indian or Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, and also Hispanic or Latino ethnicity (?).
So what is a person born in Galicia, Spain, with Celtic background (blue-eyed, fair haired, typical Celtic look)? Hispanic? Latino? White? or all? And a dark-skinned Indian from Tamil-Nandu? Black? or Asian?
I hope I made my point.
Europeans in America before Columbus
The Vikings did reach the shores of America from their villages in Greenland, setting up a small base on Terranova at L'Anse aux Meadows c.1000 AD, but after 20 years they had to quit, the hostilities with the natives was something they couldn't cope with. They used it to obtain wood and the climate was better than in Greenland. But the brave and fearless Vikings met their match in Terranova. And, it should be noted, they didn't mix with the locals.
Carthaginians and Phoenicians may have strayed across the Atlantic by chance, pushed by a storm, or traded goods sourced from America. I find it difficult to believe they would have settled in the new world. Even if they did, any genetic signal they left behind must have surely diluted away over the years. The "Great Dying" after 1492 would have also erased the evidence.
Spanish chroniclers in Chile: concern with "White Indians"
The Spanish conquistadors moved into the Inca Empire's southernmost provinces (Modern Central Chile) after defeating the Incas in Peru and Cusco, the heart of the empire. The conquest of Chile took place in 1540 under the command of Pedro de Valdivia (1497-1553). During the long war that ensued, he was captured by the Mapuche natives, and executed. But in the end, the Spaniards prevailed, at least north of the Bio Bio River.
There are plenty of accounts written by those who took part of the Conquest or visited the area later. They all tell us about "white Indians". Below are some of these reports written by contemporary eye witnesses.
Father Molina wrote about them in his book Ensayo sobre la historia Natural de Chile (p.206 - Spanish), published in Italy in 1810:
"The complexion of this people is commonly a reddish-black color, which seems to be unnatural to them, because in people who are not frequently exposed to air and sun, it is decidedly white. The inhabitants of the province of Boroa, located in the center of the Araucanian state, at 39° south latitude, are generally white and red, have blue eyes and blond hair, like those of Europeans, who are born in the middle of the northern temperate zone. This effect perhaps comes from the physical constitution of that province, which is surrounded by high mountains and irrigated by the great Cautín River.
He didn't attribute the European features (bluer eyes, white skin, fair hair) to interbreeding with Europeans. He believed it was the geography of the area that caused it. Interesting theory!
Right at the beginning of the Spanish conquest, Alonso de Góngora Marmolejo (1523-1576) wrote about his experiences during the invasion and occupation of Chile in 1540, and the war against the Mapuche people that took place then, and for the next few decades in his Historia de Chile (see page 2 - Spanish). He described the natives they encountered in 1540 as follows: "They are people with a pleasant appearance, mostly white, well disposed."
Claudio Gay in his Historia Física y Política de Chile (see Vol. 1 page 225 - Spanish) published in 1846, transcribed the notes of José Antonio Pérez García from the 1780s, who described the natives in the area around the town of Valdivia as follows: "They are of good understanding, all white, the women beautiful." This version was based on records he had obtained on an expedition by Chilean Governor Hurtado de Mendoza to this region some time between 1556 and 1561.
In 1600, Father Diego de Ocaña in his journal, Relación del Viaje a Chile, año de 1600 wrote that "The women are beautiful though some are whiter than those of other places" (see p. 30 - Spanish). He included an illustration in color (below), shown below of a Mapuche chief, Lautaro, and his native wife Guacolda. The woman's image is captioned: "beautiful Guacolda, clothes of Chilean women, from Coquimbo to the Valley of Arauco.
"Beautiful" Guacolda (c.1530s-1557) was a Mapuche, the wife of the Chief Lautaro who led an uprising against the Spaniards in 1557. Her name in Mapuche language means "red corn" meaning her hair was probably fair or red. We have the following portrait of her and her husband, from Diego de Ocaña's book. Both died in 1557 when the rebellion was brutally quelled by the Spanish forces.
Lautaro and Guacolda, by Diego de Ocaña (1600). Source
Then we have Cieza de León, who wrote in 1553 about the Chachapoyas, and yes, he said they were the whitest! (La Crónica del Peru): "These native Indians of Chachapoyas are the whitest and most graceful of all those I have seen in the Indies that I have traveled through, and their women were so beautiful that, simply for their grace, many of them deserved to be enslaved by the Incas and taken to the temples of the sun; and so, we see today that the Indian women who remain from this lineage are extremely beautiful, because they are white, and many of them are very handsome." (see p. 259 - Spanish).
Dutch genes?
Paul Treutler, a Prussian (1822-1887) lived in Chile for more than a decade, and wrote a book about his experiences (Andanzas de un Alemán en Chile 1851-1863 - Adventures of a German in Chile. See p.311.) In it he mentions the fair and white-skinned natives of Boroa (the same that Molina had mentioned), and provides an explanation for their unusual trait:
"Furthermore, there is a tribe living a little north of the Toltén River, the Boroa, who have fair skin, blue eyes, long blond hair, slender stature, good physique, and noble manners, giving them a strong resemblance to the Germans. However, their character, customs, and culture are very similar to those of the Araucanian tribes, with the only difference being that they are, precisely, among the most savage and cruel indigenous people and least susceptible to civilization. Furthermore, they maintain few relations with other tribes and only marry among themselves. There are contradictory opinions, one of which is that they are considered descendants of the crew of a European ship that was shipwrecked on the neighboring coast, since Boroa is not very far from the sea."
They were endogamous, and the original source may have been the castaways from a shipwreck. Dutch, English, and even American ships sailed down this coast towards the Strait of Magellan or The Drake Passage, and shipwrecks were not unusual.
Why were the Colonial Spaniards so concerned with whiteness?
There were many men but few Spanish women in the Spanish colonies of America because decent women stayed in Spain, they didn't want to suffer the hardships of the colonies. It was not civilized in the European sense, it lacked safety, comfort, and all that an upper class Spanish woman would expect. It was tough, rough, dangerous, and uncomfortable. Few Spanish women ventured across the Atlantic into the New World. The Spanish conquistadors therefore married the native women. They mixed joyfully with the natives, and a new group appeared, the mestizo - creole people of Latin America, with Spanish surnames but 50% Amerindian genes, and 100% mtDNA from their mothers. Father Y-Chromosomes was European.
The Spaniards introduced a caste system in their colonies, especially in Mexico (Nueva España) and Peru, people were set in strict categories depending on their genetic mix of White, Black (African slaves) and Native Americans. It was not as strict as we'd expect, but it separated the "pure" Spanish upper classes from the mestizo creoles of the middle and lower ones.
The image below shows a Spaniard (White) and a Native American (Indian) that had a "mestizo" child. (Source). Whiteness status could be purchsed and wealthy mestizos did so. Whiter skin helped a lot too.
Spanish and Indian produce a Mestizo. Source
If white native women were available, then their offspring would be whiter and could have a better social standing. That is probably why so much emphasis was put on promoting native women's white skin.
As you'd expect, there is a high content of Amerindian genes in the current Latinamerican population. The following image also shows the African content (slave trade), which in several cases is even higher than the Native American share (Source). The remaining share, to make 100% is mostly European, with a tiny share of Asian admixed.
Indigenous and sub-Saharan African descendant populations in Latin America and the Caribbean in 21st century. (-) represents a lack of data.. Source
The following image is interesting because it shows the prevalence of European ancestry in certain regions, and Amerindian in Others. I am not sure about its sources or accuracy. (Source).
These maps show how complex it is to try to find specific information on the "real" Amerindian DNA, and its diversity. The average Latinamerican is the outcome of 500 years of epidemics, war, slavery and forced relocations of local people coupled with massive African slave trade and, after 1850, in certain locations, an influx of Europeans.
A Critique of the Prehispanic Europeans Theories
For a very good, well structured and referenced criticism of the "White" or "European" settlement in Pre-Hispanic times (Vikings, Carthaginians, Phoenicians, etc.) see: Schobinger, J. (1977). Mediterráneos, semitas, celtas y vikingos en América: Ojeada sobre algunas modernas expresiones de hiperdifusionismo transatlántico (Spanish).
Patagonian Monsters -
Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia
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