Garcilaso de la Vega, the great chronicler of the Incas and the conquistadors, was born in Cuzco in 1539. At the age of twenty, he sailed to Spain to acquire an education, and he remained there until his death at Córdoba in 1616. As the natural son of a noble conquistador and an Indian woman of royal blood, he took immense pride in both his Spanish and Inca heritage, and, living as he did during a bewildering but stimulating epoch, he personally witnessed the last gasp of the dying Inca empire, the fratricidal conflicts that accompanied the Conquest, and the literary growth as well as the political decline of the Spain of Philip II and Philip III. Garcilaso left for posterity one of the earliest accounts of the ancient Incas, a reliable though admittedly biased chronicle of Spanish conquests in Andean America and a glowing story of Hernando de Soto’s exploration of North America. Though he never lost pride in his Spanish heritage, continued rebuffs in caste-conscious Spain strengthened his pride in his Indian heritage and his sympathy for his mother’s people. Thus his histories, while ennobling Spaniards, also ennobled the Incas, and eventually were to have some influence in the struggle of South Americans for political independence from Spain. In both blood and character El Inca Garcilaso was a true mestizo. He is generally considered to have been the first native-born American to attain the honor of publication. This was the life, and these were the times, that Varner has evoked so richly in his narrative. It rings and glitters with the sounds and colors of festivals, pageantry, and battle; it listens to the murmur of prayers, the defeated mutter of the Incas, the scratch of the scholar’s quill; it pictures both highlights and shadows. For the reader already acquainted with Garcilaso’s chronicles, this book will be a welcome complement; for those who are meeting El Inca here for the first time, it will be a rewarding and satisfying introduction.

A cross-disciplinary view of an important De Soto chronicle. Among the early Spanish chroniclers who contributed to popular images of the New World was the Amerindian-Spanish (mestizo) historian and literary writer, El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega (1539-1616). He authored several works, of which La Florida del Inca (1605) stands out as the best because of its unique Amerindian and European perspectives on the De Soto expedition (1539-1543). As the child of an Indian mother and a Spanish father, Garcilaso lived in both worlds--and saw value in each. Hailed throughout Europe for his excellent contemporary Renaissance writing style, his work was characterized as literary art. Garcilaso revealed the emotions, struggles, and conflicts experienced by those who participated in the historic and grandiose adventure in La Florida. Although criticized for some lapses in accuracy in his attempts to paint both the Spaniards and the Amerindians as noble participants in a world-changing event, his work remains the most accessible of all the chronicles. In this volume, Jonathan Steigman explores El Inca’s rationale and motivations in writing his chronicle. He suggests that El Inca was trying to influence events by influencing discourse; that he sought to create a discourse of tolerance and agrarianism, rather than the dominant European discourse of intolerance, persecution, and lust for wealth. Although El Inca's purposes went well beyond detailing the facts of De Soto’s entrada, his skill as a writer and his dual understanding of the backgrounds of the participants enabled him to paint a more complete picture than most--putting a sympathetic human face on explorers and natives alike.

The author of Comentarios reales and La Florida del Inca, now recognized as key foundational works of Latin American literature and historiography, Inca Garcilaso de la Vega was born in 1539 in Cuzco, the son of a Spanish conquistador and an Incan princess, and later moved to Spain. Recalling the family stories and myths he had heard from his Quechua-speaking relatives during his youth and gathering information from friends who had remained in Peru, he created works that have come to indelibly shape our understanding of Incan history and administration. He also articulated a new American identity, which he called mestizo. This volume provides guidance on the translations of Garcilaso's writings and on the scholarly reception of his ideas. Instructors will discover ideas for teaching Garcilaso's works in relation to indigenous thought, European historiography, natural history, indigenous religion and Christianity, and Incan material culture. In essays informed by postcolonial and decolonial perspectives, scholars draw connections between Garcilaso's writings and contemporary issues like migration, multiculturalism, and indigenous rights.

This study of the Comentarios is original both in adopting the perspective of discourse analysis and in its interdisciplinary approach.

La Florida del Inca (Lisbon, 1605) is a key text in the history and culture of the Americas. In this chronicle, its author, Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, born in Cuzco, the son of an Inca princess and a Spanish conquistador, offers a unique representation of Hernando de Soto's expedition (1539-43) to the vast territory then known as La Florida. The studies collected here analyze the period of early contact in La Florida, study the chronicle of the Cuzcan writer and the works that influenced it, with the objective of affirming its central place in colonial, cultural, and transatlantic studies and its importance in understanding the intertwined history of the Americas. An introduction, a chronology, a general bibliography, and fifty-six images offer a frame for these sections. The various essays are written in a direct manner, and are free of jargon with the aim of attracting both general and academic readers. Raquel Chang-Rodriguez is Distinguished Professor of Hispanic Literature and Culture at the City University of New York.

Sixteenth-century historian Garcilaso Inca de la Vega had a unique view of the ancient Inca Empire and the Americas. A Peruvian mestizo who emigrated to Spain, he was the first writer to envision Latin America as a multiethnic continent, and he advanced a humanist interpretation of New World history that continues to enrich our appreciation of that era. Widely read and translated, Garcilaso is a key figure for understanding the development of mestizo culture in Latin America and his works have sparked many heated debates. This new collection of articles advances that discussion through contributions by twelve distinguished scholars who review central aspects of Garcilaso's life and work from the perspectives of history, linguistics, literary theory, and anthropology. These essays explore the complex intertextual threads which weave through Garcilaso's principal writings. Some examine the relationship of his work with the canon of European historiography, while others stress its link with Andean culture; still others focus on the puzzles presented by his use of self-representation.Many of the articles offer fresh readings of Garcilaso's Royal Commentaries and include not only textual analyses of key themes but also a reassessment of Inca political organization. Other contributions address his Florida of the Inca, focusing on such aspects as its discourse and dating. Together, all the essays demonstrate that Garcilaso scholarship continues to be receptive to new critical approaches. Assembled as a tribute to José Durand, whose life-long study of Garcilaso renewed scholarly understanding of the historian's work, Garcilaso Inca de la Vega is a valuable collection for anyone interested in the history of North and South America or the rise of mestizo culture. It contributes significantly to current studies in multiculturalism as it renews our appreciation for one of its earliest proponents.