Vega, Garcilaso de la | Rare account of Hernando de Soto's expedition, by one of the New World's earliest authors

Vega, Garcilaso de la

La Florida del Ynca. Historia del adelantado Hernando de Soto, Gouernador y capitan general del Reyno de la Florida, y de otros heroicos caualleros Españoles è Indios; escrita por el Ynca Garcilasso de la Vega, capitan de su Magestad, natural de la gran ciudad del Cozco, cabeça de los Reynos y prouincias del Peru. Dirigida al serenissimo Principe, Duque de Bragança. &c. Con licencia de la santa Inquisicion. Lisbon: Impresso por Pedro Crasbeeck, 1605

4to (180 x 125mm). Woodcut initials, text in two columns; title lightly soiled, minor worming to inner margins on a few gatherings, touching a singular letter on five leaves. Contemporary calf tooled in blind, spine gilt with raised bands in five compartments, second gilt-lettered, edges stained red; front endpaper nearly detached, boards lightly rubbed with a few stains, spine scuffed and worn with minor worming to foot, top and fore-edges dust-soiled.

First edition of a major text of American history, written by one of the New World's earliest authors.

Garcilaso de la Vega was born in Cuzco, Peru and was the illegitimate son of Sebastian Garcilaso de la Vega y Vegas and Isabel Chimpu Ocllo, a Spanish conquistador and an Incan noblewoman and granddaughter of one the last Incan emperors. Often known under the nickname "El Inca", the author's identity and experience shaped the present work. In 1560, Garcilaso de la Vega left Peru for Spain to defy his father’s aristocratic family, who had abandoned him. He remained in Spain and received a classical education.

He was the first Latin American to write about the Americas from Europe. Having settled permanently in Cordoba in 1591, he began composing what would become the chronicle entitled La Florida del Ynca, an account of the conquistador Hernando de Soto's expedition between 1539 and 1542 through the southeastern United States, based on various written accounts, including those of an anonymous nobleman and two surviving soldiers, Alonzo de Carmona and Juan Coles. The text, dedicated to the Duke of Braganza, offers a rather unique perspective on the expedition. While Garcilaso de la Vega defends the legitimacy of imposing Spanish sovereignty in the conquered territories and subjecting them to Catholic jurisdiction, he simultaneously expresses and defends the dignity and courage of the Native Americans. Above all, his narrative offers a non-European viewpoint on the Spanish conquest.

Vega's account was a romanticized one, compiled in part by several of his colleagues who were present on De Soto's expedition and categorized by modern historians as a work more of literary value than of historical accuracy. Despite the author's embellishments, or in fact because of them, Vega's work was well read in Europe. Further editions were published in Madrid in 1723 with various foreign language translations culminating with its English translation in 1951. Two issues of the title page exist with no priority established, one like the present copy's published in 1605 and the other undated.

“One of the major accounts of De Soto’s travels in Florida and throughout the present-day Southeastern United States... The Inca’s work remains the major literary by-product of this historic invasion... it has earned the distinction of being the first work published by a Native-born American author” (J. A. and L. D. Servies).

No copy has appeared at auction since 2009.

REFERENCES

Howgego I, 978 (S138); Medina, Biblioteca Hispano-Americana 502; Alden & Landis 605/46; Palau 354790; Sabin 98745; Church 329; HSA, p. 226; not in Salvá, Heredia; not in the collections of Kenneth Nebenzahl or Frank S. Streeter

PROVENANCE

António José da Cunha Reis da Mota Godinho (library stamp to title page) — António da Cunha Reis (bookplate to front pastedown)