In this sweeping four-volume work, The General and Natural History of the Indies, Islands, and Mainland of the Ocean Sea, Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo endeavored to construct a comprehensive first-hand account that documents the various stages of the exploration and conquest of the Americas, as well as to describe the natural world and the diverse indigenous civilizations and cultures of the newly discovered lands. The scope, creativity, and innovation of Oviedo’s history of the New World is one of the richest and most detailed primary sources on the history, cultures, biodiversity, and transformation of the Caribbean and Latin American regions during the first half-century of European colonization.