HERRERA Y TORDESILLAS, Antonio de (1549- 1625), Spanish historian, was born in 1549, at Cuellar, in the province of Segovia in Spain. His father, Roderigo de Tordesillas, and his mother, Agnes de Herrera, were both of good family. After studying for some time in his native country, Herrera proceeded to Italy, and there became secretary to Vespasian Gonzago, with whom, on his appointment as viceroy of Navarre, he returned to Spain. Gonzago, sensible of his secretary’s abilities, commended him on his death-bed to Philip II. of Spain; and that monarch, no less discerning, appointed Herrera first historiographer of the Indies, and one of the historiographers of Castile. Placed thus in the enjoyment of an ample salary, Herrera devoted the rest of his life to the peaceful pursuit of literature, retaining his offices till the reign of Philip IV., by whom he was appointed secretary of state, very shortly, however, before his death, which took place at Madrid on March 29, 1625. Of Herrera’s writings, the most valuable is his Historia General de los Hechos de los Castellanos en las Islas y Tierra Firme del Mar Oceano (Madrid, 1601- 15, 4 vols, fol.), a work which relates the history of’the Spanish-American colonies from 1492 to 1554. The author’s official position gave him access to the state papers and to other authentic sources not attainable by other writers, while he did not scruple to borrow largely from other MSS., especially from that of Las Casas. He used his facilities carefully and judiciously; and the result is a work on the whole accurate and unprejudiced, and quite indispensable to the student either of the history of the early colonies, or of the institutions and customs of the aboriginal American peoples. Although it is written in the form of annals, ...