SPANISH HISTORICAL WRITING ABOUT THE NEW WORLD, 1493-1700

From the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University

This project is based on a celebrated exhibition held at the John Carter Brown Library in 1992, which marked the quincentenary of Spanish activity in the Americas, curated by Professor Angel Delgado-Gomez. It offers 82 significant works of history mainly written in Spanish about America before 1700, including on-the-spot narratives, lives of missionaries, ethnographic studies, and natural histories.  It includes writings by explorers, conquistadors, missionaries, traders and scientists.  Equally importantly, there are also works by mestizos and Native American writers.

It offers a wide range of extremely rare printed items covering:

• Early Accounts of the Americas
• The Conquest of Mexico
• The Ethnography of Mexico
• The Conquest of Peru
• The Continental Empire: Florida, Central America, the Amazon, Chile and the Philippines
• The Quest for a General History of the Americas
• The History of Religion in the New World
• Biographies of leading protagonists
• Literature and the New World

The Early Accounts commence with the first publication to describe the New World, the Epistola (Rome, 1493) of Christopher Columbus.  This is followed by the Mundus Novus (Paris, 1503) of Amerigo Vespucci, who gave his name to the Americas; and De Orbe Novo Decades (Alcalá de Henares, 1516) by Pietro Martire d’Anghiera, appointed by Charles V as the first chronicler of the Indies.  These and other early volumes provide a mass of details concerning flora and fauna, minerals and landscape – they also talk of natives in a state of Biblical innocence, make comparisons to the Golden Age of Classical Antiquity and invoke legends of amazons and mermaids.

The story of Mexico in the 1500s and 1600s is told from a variety of perspectives. Three Carta de Relación by Hernán Cortés are included (Seville, 1522 & 1523; Toledo 1525), as well as La Istoria de las Indias (Saragossa, 1552) by Francisco López de Gómara, and Historia Verdadera de la Conquista de la Nueva España (Madrid, 1632), by Bernal Diaz del Castillo, a soldier during the campaign.  These are contrasted with 16th century writings by Franciscan missionaries such as Toribio de Montolinia and Bernardino de Sahagún, and by mestizos such as Fernando Alvarado Tezozomoc (c1519-c1599) and Fernando de Alva Ixtilxochitl (c1568-1648), none of which were published until the 19th century.  As Angel Delgado-Gomez has commented: 

“These authors … added a new perspective on the Spanish conquest of Mexico, namely a focus on the plight of the conquered.  These works constitute some of the earliest manifestations of a truly colonial culture, partly Spanish and partly Indian, which forms the dual base of today’s Latin America.”

The Conquest of Peru also combines descriptions of fabulous wealth and terrible tragedies, of well armoured troops and the ravages of disease.  Pizzaro was illiterate, but we have the account of his personal secretary, Francisco de Xerez, and of fellow soldier chroniclers.  These include Libro Ultimo del Summario delle Indie Occidentali (Venice, 1534), the first published account, and Parte Primera de la Chronica del Peru (Seville, 1553), perhaps the most celebrated.  

The rapid expansion of the Spanish Empire is described in books documenting expeditions to Florida, Yucatán, Colombia, Panama, the Amazon, Chile, the Magellan Straits and the Philippines.  These include La Florida del Ynca (Lisbon, 1605) by Garcilosa de la Vega, detailing de Soto’s travels to Tampa (1539) and on through Alabama and Arkansas to the Mississippi; and Cristóbal de Acuña’s Nuevo Descubrimiento del Gran Rio de las Amazonas (Madrid, 1641) in which more than 150 nations were encountered during a nine month voyage upstream.

The first general history of Spanish America was the 19 volume La Historia General de las Indias (Seville, 1535) by Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo Y Valdes.  This stands in strong contrast to Brevissima Relacion de la Destruycion de las Indias (Seville, 1552) by Bartolomé de las Casas, which focuses on the systematic exploitation and mistreatment of Native Americans.  Nicolás Monardes wrote a different kind of history, and his Historia Medicinal (Seville, 1574) provides an encyclopedic account of known flora and fauna in the Americas and their medicinal value – including a description of drunkenness following the inhalation of tobacco smoke.

The Church was an important factor in colonial expansion and missionary activity was used as a justification for the extension of the Spanish state and the acquisition of private wealth.  As a consequence, priests and friars accompanied each expedition.  Their accounts are among the most sensitive that we have, recording the habits and beliefs of the peoples they encountered both before and after the conquest, and the process of acculturation.  The Monarquia Yndiana (Seville, 1615) by Torquemada attempts to describe the civilian and religious history of Mexico from pre-Columbian times to 1600. Valuable ethnographic data is juxtaposed with a religious justification for the conquest.  Similarly, the Coronica Moralizada del Orden de San Augustin en El Peru (Barcelona, 1639) by Calancha, a Creole, provides a rich description of all aspects of 17th century colonial life, with much archaeological, anthropological and scientific information.

Sections devoted to biography and literature round off the project.  There are lives of conquistadors and missionaries; even of the first woman born in the New World to achieve Sainthood. Whilst works such as La Araucana (Madrid, 1569) by Alonso de Ercilla y Zuniga, and Cortés Valeroso, Y Mexicana (Madrid, 1588) by Gabriel Lasso de la Vega, show how the New World affected the artistic imagination.

For any university offering courses in these areas, this project will offer important resources.  It will greatly enrich studies of the Aztecs and the Incas - their art, architecture, stories, languages, social systems and beliefs.  It will be invaluable for any study of the transformation of Spain in this period and of the profound impact that the New World had on European ideas and beliefs.