Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas

Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas
Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas
Born	1549 Cuéllar, Segovia, Spain
Died	28 March 1626[1] or 27 March 1625[2] Madrid
Resting place	Cuéllar Town Hall, Cuéllar, Segovia, Spain
Occupation	chronicler, historian
Language	Spanish
Nationality	Spanish
Period	1582–1622
Subject	history, geography
Spouse	Juana de Esparza y Artieda (1581–1584) María de Torres Hinestrosa (1594–1626)
Children	Juana

Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas (1549 – 28 March 1626^[1] or 27 March 1625^[2]) was a chronicler, historian, and writer of the Spanish Golden Age, author of Historia general de los hechos de los castellanos en las Islas y Tierra Firme del mar Océano que llaman Indias Occidentales ("General History of the Deeds of the Castilians on the Islands and Mainland of the Ocean Sea Known As the West Indies"), better known in Spanish as Décadas and considered one of the best works written on the conquest of the Americas. It is worth noting that Herrera never visited or lived in any part of the Americas. Therefore his work was largely conjectural.

He was Chief Chronicler of Castile and the Americas during the reigns of Philip II and Philip III. Cristóbal Pérez Pastor called him the "prince of the historians of the Americas".^[3] He is considered the most prolific historian of his era, and his works also include a general history of the world, a history of Portugal, and a description of the Americas. His output also features translations of works from Italian and Latin into Spanish, and a translation of his own Descripción de las Indias Occidentales ("Description of the West Indies") into Dutch.

Herrera is not given much value by modern historians. A standard Spanish reference work describes him as "an official historian, who was not impartial....[He was] an opportunist, a schemer, and greedy.... He plagiarized entire works which were unpublished at the time.... He had no interest in Native American civilization and therefore never dealt with it."^[4]