This source book is a distinguished accomplishment, certain to be much used by linguists and historians of colonial Latin America. It is a painstaking compilation of information on forty thousand immigrants to Spanish America, 1493-1600 (approximately twenty percent of the total flow during that period), obtained largely from published sources and manuscript passenger lists in the Archivo General de las Indias. Included in the entries for each colonist are name, date, and place of birth, date of passage to America, parents’ names, and the source of information. Where possible, data concerning the colonists’ education, social background, occupation, residence in the New World, and date and place of death are also included. Volumes I and II, now in print, include 18,743 colonists for the period 1493-1539.

The contents of the Índice geobiográfico are organized according to the Spanish provenance of the colonists, reflecting the compiler’s primary concern to provide data for testing hypotheses on the variety of Spanish dialects in America. His method and conclusions are reduced to concise introductory sections in both volumes replete with clearly-presented tables, graphs, a map, and bibliography. Boyd-Bowman grapples openly and fairly with his assumptions and the limitations of his sources (I, xxxii-xxxiii; II, ix). The cross indices, organized by name, occupation and social status, and destination in the New World, will be especially useful to historians.

The Índice geobiográfico supplies solid evidence for Boyd-Bowman’s thesis that most early Spanish colonists to the New World came from Andalucía rather than from Extremadura. In the first period, 1493-1519, the province of Andalucía supplied 39.7 percent of the colonists, compared to 18 percent for Old Castile and 14.1 percent for Extremadura. Approximately 17 percent of all colonists were former residents of the city of Seville. During the second period, 1520-1539 Andalucía (32 percent), Old Castile (17.6 percent), and Extremadura (16.6 percent) still predominated, although Andalucía lost ground to Extremadura and New Castile (12 percent). The prominence in numbers of Andalusian immigrants is interpreted to mean that “the language of Seville . . . established the first norms in Spanish America (I, xxiv).

Boyd-Bowman’s sample of colonists who can be traced to specific areas in Spain is certainly large enough to justify his conclusions on the relative representation of the various provinces of Spain in the New World. The information supplied in the Índice is less complete for the colonists’ eventual residence in Spanish America and their social role there. (At most, 43.5 percent of the entries in Volume I include a New World destination. For an unknown number of colonists the destination listed was their first stop rather than permanent home.) As the compiler is well aware, unpublished cabildo and notarial records could add significance to this aspect of the Índice. It would be unreasonable to expect more of one man than Boyd-Bowman has achieved in this meticulous and exhaustive examination of published sources and documents available to him. But perhaps scholars working in early cabildo and notarial records could be persuaded to pool the additional information on individual colonists which the Índice lacks.