“Good Indians”, “Bad Indians”, “What Christians?”: The Dark Side of the New World in Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés (1478-1557)

This essay was presented on June 23, 2001, at the Alexander Von Humboldt State University, Arcata, California. It is part of a book in progress, provisionally entitled Of Nature and Man: Wonder and Exoticism in Gonzalo Renández de Oviedo y Valdés (1478-1557). Warm thanks to Horacio Capel, Fermín del Pino, Josefina Gómez Mendoza, Ángel Gurría Quintana, Jan Gustaffson, Patricia Pou y Vila, and Guy Rozat Dupeyron who responded generously to earlier version, as well as to this journal's readers. A Spanish version of this article appeared in SCRIPTA NOVA, the Online Journal on Geography and Social Sciences of the Department of Geography at the Universitat de Barcelona (U.B.), Vol. V, no 101, 15 de noviembre de 2001The purpose of this article is to explore the discursive flaws and moral contradictions in Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo’s writings. These contradictions stem from his post as a royal chronicler of the Indies, which pitted him forcefully against the diabolical Indians while exalting Spain’s providential design, on the one hand, and his own judgment, which led him to criticize the arrogance, greed and military incompetence of some Spanish conquistadors, on the other