FERNANDEZ de OVIEDO y VALDÉS, GONZALO. — Historian, b. in Madrid in 1478, d. in Valladolid in 1557. In 1513 he went to America, where he fought against the indigenous peoples and became governor of the fortress of S. Domingo.
His Historia general y natural de las Indias, the fruit of his colonial experience, constitutes a source of very useful and, in general, reliable information on the conquest and early development of the West Indies, Perú, and Mexico. His attitude toward the Indians is free from fanaticism. The hostility of Las Casas apparently prevented the publication of the work. He also wrote: Quincinagenas de la nobleza de España; Batallas y quincinagenas.
BIBL.: Works; edition of the Historia, with introduction and notes by A. De Los Rios, Madrid 1851–55, edition in the collection Letras españolas, 10, there 1927. Studies: E. Fuster, Storia della storiografia moderna, I, Italian translation, Naples 1944, p. 335 ff. Constancio Eguía