Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés

Portions of the original text were widely read in the 16th century in Spanish, English, Italian and French editions, and introduced Europeans to the hammock, the pineapple, and tobacco as well as creating influential representations of the colonized peoples of the region.

[2] At one point he was placed in charge of the Fortaleza Ozama, in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, where there is a large statue of him, a gift to that country from a King of Spain.

The Quinquagenas is a collection of quaint, moralizing anecdotes in which Oviedo indulges in much lively gossip concerning eminent contemporaries.

Las Casas, the fellow contemporary chronicler of the Spanish colonization of the Caribbean, denounced Oviedo as "one of the greatest tyrants, thieves, and destroyers of the Indies, whose Historia contains almost as many lies as pages".

[10] The incomplete Seville edition was widely read in the English and French versions published by Eden and Poleur, respectively, in 1555 and 1556.

[2] It is through the Historia that Europeans came to learn about the hammock, pineapple, tobacco, and barbecue, among other things used by the Native Americans that he encountered.

[11] In zoology, the General History of the Indies is of particular interest for its descriptions of Hispaniolan animals, including some that became extinct between Oviedo's time and the development of the modern science from Linnaeus and Cuvier.