Alphonse Pinart (1852–1911) was a French explorer, philologist, and ethnographer. He was an early champion of the theory that the Americas were first populated by migration across the Bering Strait. To support his research, he made extensive travel in the Pacific, from Alaska and the Aleutian Islands to Easter Island. He also pilfered numerous historical documents from the Spanish archives in Santa Fe, New Mexico:

Large numbers of documents of this period [from 1743 to 1749] were . . . stolen and are now in the so-called “Pinart” collection. Pinart (Alphonse) was a Frenchman and visited New Mexico and Arizona in the early ‘seventies [1870's], at which time this “collection” was made.

Alternatively, he may have purchased the documents from someone at the archives. Twitchell was not in Santa Fe when this alleged theft took place, and Twitchell is described as "... the most prolific New Mexico historian of his period, although his works were often seen as biased."