This book honors the German Spaniard Enrique Otte, author of six dozen publications in the last half century, including five compilations of royal cédulas that touch on the early history of Venezuela and the islands off its coast. Otte probably knows more about early Spanish activities in Venezuela than any other historian, and few equal his knowledge of the sixteenth-century records of the Archivo General de Indias. Apart from two biographical pieces by the editors, Günter Vollmer and Horst Pietschmann, and two autobiographical contributions by Otte himself, the articles in this collection date from the years 1959 – 69. Since these are published in their original form, Otte’s findings remain stuck in an antiquated historiographical framework. Readers will look in vain for relevant literature that has come out in recent decades. The virtue, however, of serving seasoned articles is that today’s historians are made aware of old scholarship. All too...
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