Those familiar with the Relaciones geográficas de Indias, Perú, edited first by Marcos Jiménez de la Espada in the late nineteenth century, will recognize the rough outlines of the material published in these volumes, for there is some overlap. But Tovar Pinzón provides a modern and better transcription of the early reports, as well as important editorial comments. Each volume, in fact, begins with an extensive introduction by Tovar Pinzón; collectively these constitute an overview of Colombia’s experience of contact between the European and Amerindian worlds of the sixteenth century. There is a basic spatial organization selected by the editor, and within that framework the temporal aspect unfolds. The second volume focuses on Colombia’s Caribbean, the third on the central-eastern sector, and the fourth on the Upper Magdalena. Chronologically, the earliest reports date from the 1530s, and the latest from 1611.
Many of the reports, found in various archives, are published here for the first time. This is least true of the first volume, where 10 of 14 relaciones have been published elsewhere, although most are now difficult to locate. But of the 17 reports in the second volume, only two have appeared previously; in the third volume, 4 of 12 had already been published. All material in volume 4 is published here for the first time, including the very important detailed visitas of the encomiendas in the province of Mariquita that took place between 1559 and 1563 (housed in the Archivo General de la Nación, Bogotá), and early-seventeenth-century reports on the Pijao (found in the Archivo General de Indias, Seville).
Together, these volumes should be made available in all major libraries, for they provide a firsthand look at early American society and are a gold mine for student research efforts. Professor Tovar Pinzón, on the basis of the quality of the transcriptions and his historical essays, is to be congratulated on a major contribution to the scholarship on the early colonial northern Andes.
