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Garcia or Garzia, Gregorio

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a Spanish missionary, was born at Cozar, Andalusia, about the latter half of the 16th century. He studied in the Dominican convent of Baeca in 1627, and joined that order. Appointed missionary to America, he spent twelve years in Mexico and Pans, where he preached with success, and gathered numerous historical documents and traditions, which he published after his return under the title Origen de las Indias del Nuevo Mundo y Indias occidentales, averiquenda con discorso de opiniones, etc. (Valencia, 1607, 8vo; Madrid, 1729, fol.). This work contains a great deal of information which has been made use of by subsequent historians. The author's theory is that America was successively settled by emigration from divers races coming from other parts of the world. He thus attempts to uphold the text of Scripture, which gives but three sons to Noah, one of whom peopled Europe, the second Asia, and the third Africa; and argues in favor of this opinion on the ground that, before the arrival of the Spaniards, the Mexicans possessed the tradition of the creation of the world, the flood, the confusion of tongues, and the dispelsion of nations, as is proved by some sculptures he saw which represented these various events in a symbolic manner. He also wrote Predicacion del Evangelio en el Nuevo Mundo viviendo los Apostoles (Baega, 1625, 8vo), in which he attempts to prove that it is impossible that any of the immediate disciples of Christ ever went to preach the Christian faith to America. — Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generale, 19:456 sq.; see also Echard, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum, 2:437; Nicolas Antonio, Bibliotheca Nova Hispana, 1:544.