OVIEDO Y VALDEZ, Gonzalo Fernandez de (1478-1557), an early historian of Spanish America, was born at Madrid, of noble Asturian descent, in 1478. He was brought up at the court of Ferdinand and Isabella as one of the pages of Prince John; in this capacity he was present at the surrender of Granada in 1492, and saw Columbus at Barcelona on his first return from America in 1493. In 1514 he was sent out to San Domingo as supervisor of the gold-smeltings. He only occasionally afterwards visited his native country and the American mainland. Among other offices subsequently added to his original appointment was that of historiographer of the Indies, in the discharge of which he produced, besides some unimportant chronicles, two large works of abiding interest and value— La general y natural Historia de las Indias and Quincuagenas de los Notables de Espana. He died at Valladolid in 1557....
The History of the Indies first appeared at Madrid in the form of a Sumario in 1526. Of the full work, consisting of fifty books, the first twenty-one were published at Seville in 1535 (Eng. transi, by Eden, 1555; Fr. transi, by Poleur, 1556). The whole has recently been published for the first time by the Madrid Royal Academy of History (4 vols, fol., 1851-55). It contains a large mass of valuable information, but written in a loose rambling moralizing style which makes it somewhat difficult to use. According to Las Casas, it is “as full of lies almost as pages,” but the judgment of the humane ecclesiastic was, necessarily perhaps, somewhat prejudiced. The Quincuagcnas, devoted to reminiscences of the principal characters who had figured in Spain during his lifetime, consists of a series of imaginary conversations full of gossip and curious anecdote of great interest to the student of history. Several MSS. are extant, but the work has never been printed.
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