Juan de Castellanos, Elegías de varones ilustres de Indias (first part, 1589)

A verse history of the Indies written by a beneficed priest of Tunja who had spent his life in them, first printed in 1589 and reprinted here from the Madrid edition of 1852. Its royal censor licensed it and praised it for carrying an abundance of Indian names into Castilian metre without breaking the metre. Its first canto refuses mythology and promises only things the author saw; the same canto calls the peoples cruel barbarians and says they were forced to take new customs.