Writing from the edge of the world

Secondary title is The Memoirs of Darién, 1514-1527. This is a smooth and flowing English translation of Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo's General and Natural History of the Indies, Part II, Book XXIX, Chapters VI thru XXIV, with both the translation and the introduction by G.F. Dille. G.F. Dille focuses on Oviedo's first-hand experiences in the settlement of Spain's first colonies on the mainland in what is known today as Panama. Prior to his first voyage to the New World, Oviedo had spent much of his youth as a page to Prince Juan, the son of Ferdinand and Isabella, and as such was educated in the royal court. Originally sent overseas as a notary, he quickly advanced to the position of overseer of the gold smelting operations. Carlos V later authorized Oviedo as the official historian of New Spain. As Dille states in the Foreword,

"From his youthful days at the court of Queen Isabella and King and Ferdinand, his travels through Italy, and then four decades of residence in the Indies, Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo was uniquely positioned to chronicle everything related to the New World. Kings and princes, cardinals and bishops, explorers and conquistadors, bureaucrats and merchants–there was scarcely anyone whom he did not know, converse with, or correspond with. From 1492, when Oviedo first saw Columbus at the siege of Granada, until his death in 1557 in the fortress guarding Santo Domingo, he painstakingly recorded and evaluated every scrap of information on the Indies he came across. Yet, of the thousands of pages filled with his neat italic script, only a small portion saw print during his lifetime. The fifty books of the General and Natural History were only published three centuries after his death and several thousand pages of other writings still await editing. This translation of Oviedo's Darién years is intended for a general audience interested in early American history as well as the history of Spain during the age that catapulted that country to the position of dominant European power in an astonishingly short period of time."