page_title: Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés
section_title: Caribbean
hierarchical_section_title: Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés / Caribbean
caption_attribution_description: Title page
context_page_description: Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés, commonly known as Oviedo, was a Spanish colonialist, historian and writer. Oviedo participated in the Spanish colonization of the West Indies, arriving in the first few years after Christopher Columbus, in 1492, became the first European to arrive at the islands. Oviedo's chronicle Historia general de las Indias, published in 1535 to expand on his 1526 summary La Natural hystoria de las Indias, forms one of the few primary sources about it. Portions of the original text were widely read in the 16th century in Spanish, English, Italian and French editions, and introduced Europeans to the hammock, the pineapple, and tobacco as well as creating influential representations of the colonized peoples of the region.
context_section_description: In 1514 Oviedo was appointed supervisor of gold smelting at Santo Domingo, and on his return to Spain in 1523 was appointed historiographer of the West Indies. He paid five more visits to the Americas before his death, in Valladolid in 1557. At one point he was placed in charge of the Fortaleza Ozama, in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, where there is a large statue of him, a gift to that country from a King of Spain.
caption: Title page of Libro de [...] Don Claribalte, (Valencia, 1519)
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