The Power of Ruins: William Richard Harris's Discovery of the Americas

Abstract

Most Canadian writers have shown remarkably little interest in the Americas below the United States, identifying far more with the Northern Hemisphere than with the Western one. The Toronto author William Richard Harris (1846–1923) is one notable exception. A Catholic priest and an amateur anthropologist and archaeologist, Harris devoted his four popular travel books primarily to the Caribbean, Mexico, and Central America. Fascinated with ruins, he was profoundly affected by the remnants of the architectural wonders that he encountered during his treks. However, partly because of his orthodox religious views on human origins, Harris was never fully able to accept that the builders of those once majestic structures were directly related to modern Indigenous peoples.