History, Truth and Dialogue: Fernández de Oviedo's Historia general y natural de las Indias (Bk XXXIII, Ch LIV)

Indiana University

Fernández de Oviedo's concept of the making of history figures is one of the distinguishing characteristics of his Historia general y natural de las Indias (1535, 1547, 1557). Living in the geographical and chronological center of the Spanish Conquest of the New World, Oviedo, as Charles V's official Court Chronicler, recorded the momentous events of the Spanish encounter with the New World as they occurred⁴⁸. History was being made by the Spaniards, and Oviedo was responsible for gathering information and compiling reports for a history of the New World, which would preserve authentic evidence of the Conquest. Because he lived in the midst of the history about which he wrote, Oviedo's accounts often lack the breadth of information and the perspective time can lend to the writing of history. Writing over a period of thirty years, however, enabled the Court Chronicler to gather new information about incidents he had already recorded and this led him to engage in a process of continual correction, expansion, and revision of the history.

Yet more significant to the understanding of Oviedo's concept of history than his own geographical and chronological situation is his preoccupation with writing a truthful representation of historical events. His dedication to the idea of a history that would mirror, as closely as possible, men's actions as they actually occurred, as the omnipresent God would have witnessed them, helps to explain his use of multiple reports of a single incident⁴⁹. In keeping with the biblical model of using multiple representations to indicate the author's desire for accuracy, if new information contradicted a previous report, Oviedo often revised the account or wrote another version of it in order to see again the events he had recorded; this methodology, he hoped, would reveal the true nature of the moral and natural history of the Indies⁵⁰.

The Spanish historian's concept of a truthful history becomes clearer when viewed in fight of the intellectual currents and political ideology that influenced him. For example, Oviedo's early exposure to Italian humanism and the classical historian's moralizing tendency⁵¹; the author's belief in Spain's destiny to establish a universal Catholic empire and, therefore, his belief in the need to testify to the validity of the Spanish Conquest; and the author's recent conversion to Erasmian illuminism (about 1525) and its alternative to the novels of chivalry, «el libro de verdad» (Bataillon 247)⁵², are all influences that inform Oviedo's historical criteria, which he often elaborates in prologues and passages that correct his own earlier accounts of the same event.

One of the most famous sections of the Historia general devoted to revising previous accounts about the Conquest of Mexico is the dialogue between Oviedo and Juan Cano. Included in the narration on the Conquest of Mexico (Bk XXXIII of the Second Part), the dialogue is one of the concluding chapters of the Book (Ch LIV)⁵³. Situated among an assortment of information from various sources, which includes Cortés's Relaciones and Antonio de Mendoza's letters, the colloquy reflects Oviedo's data-collecting methods and his inclusion of multiple reports about the same event in his history⁵⁴. Given the frequency with which the Spanish chronicler employs multiple accounts, one is not surprised at his return in Chapter LIV to material treated earlier in Chapters XIV-XV. Rather, what does catch our attention is the historian's use of a new

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genre. Much of the history before this chapter consists of written and oral accounts that, for the most part, the author gathered and then transposed into summarizing narration. Why, then, at this particular narrative juncture does Oviedo choose to deviate from the norm of narrative summary, replacing it with dialogued prose? Why does he set aside the indirect discourse of his historical narrative to employ direct discourse? How does this form reflect his historical criteria and further the purpose of his work?

Perhaps the most obvious reason to use dialogue is that it dramatizes the historical material. The narration of facts fades into the background as the dialogue moves to the foreground and unfolds, apparently with no mediation, before the reader. However, unlike classical or humanist histories enlivened by direct discourse (and, in particular, by eloquent dramatic monologues), Oviedo's dialogue lacks the vitality that stems from the classicist's consideration of history as a branch of literature⁵⁵. Indeed, Oviedo reports that he subjugates style to content in order to avoid disguising the basic historical facts:

Another possible explanation for the use of dialogue in Chapter LIV is that its inquiry-and-response format enables Oviedo to treat more disparate material than narrative technique allows: the author may disregard chronological order and focus on specific details, regardless of their temporal relation to each other, and may therefore revise them as needed.

Although these elements possibly entered into the author's decision to employ direct discourse, I would suggest that Oviedo's deep-rooted commitment to write an edifying history based on a truthful representation of historical reality served as the catalyst for this use of dialogue as a narrative tool for rectifying past accounts. The existence of a voice other than his own, transcribed within the history as direct discourse, lends more credibility to the newly revised account; the dialogue format shares more directly with the reader one of the author's sources for his history. Moreover, the objective of most Renaissance dialogue was to arrive at a truth; through dialectical dialogue discourse is directed towards uncovering a truth. To better illuminate the relationship between history, truth and dialogue in Oviedo's work, I will examine his historically informed use of the dialogue genre by first reviewing the relationship between sixteenth-century views on history and truth and the use of the dialogue form, and then analyzing the dialogue itself.

Oviedo's years serving in D. Juan's court and traveling in Italy exposed him to the intellectual currents emerging at the turn of the sixteenth century. In particular, he was influenced greatly by the Renaissance concern with the nature of truth and its relationship to history and literature. As interest in verifiable events grew in the Renaissance, a lively debate emerged as to the interrelationship of truth and history, and how this differed from the truth of fiction⁵⁶. Until the sixteenth century, history, considered a branch of literature, depended greatly on rhetorical considerations for its composition and on moral truths for its raison d'etre. By the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the consideration of history as rhetoric was being debated and there existed an increased interest in the presentation of historical accounts as the written representation of documentable facts. This tendency coincided with the new emphasis on linguistic considerations and on eyewitness testimony. Furthermore, during the Age of Discovery the histories of classical antiquity were no longer adequate to describe the broadened world view. As a result, for many writers working through the problems of balancing the older vision with the newer one, the concept and genre of history were full of ambiguity⁵⁷. It was not unusual, therefore, for historians of the New World to elaborate on the requirements and purpose of their task in prologues or passages within the narrative.

The emphasis on the authority of direct experience to supplement or, at times, to improve on the authorities of classical antiquity was accompanied by an increased interest in linguistics and the Biblical notion that the written word represented reality and, therefore, truth. Furthermore, the book that contained the history was perceived as a receptacle of information through which one would be able to determine truth from falsehood. As Foucault observes in The Order of Things, beginning

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in the sixteenth century there was a tendency to believe that order could be found if only the right order of words could be constructed to represent man in his world⁵⁸. As author of America's first novel, Don Claribalte (1519), and, later as Europe's first official historian writing in the New World, Oviedo was acutely aware of the discussion and the attempt to distinguish fact from fiction and history from fictional literature⁵⁹. Oviedo responded to this debate on truth, history, and representation by entering into it. Prologues, chapter titles, and narrative passages in the Historia general are filled with Oviedo's musings and opinions on the theories and practices of historiography. In Chapter LIV he chooses the dialogue form to further probe the truthful representation of the Conquest of Mexico.

A brief review of the origins and the popularity of dialogue in the sixteenth century may help to illuminate this link between history, truth, and the dialogue form in Oviedo's work. Plato first fused common speech and dialectic to enliven the presentation of his ideas to his reader. The primary objective of the dialogic process, however, was to discriminate truth from error. Stemming from the concept of mayeutics (Greek for midwifery), the Socratic method, based on Plato's ideas, held that every man possessed an innate wisdom and one need only ask the proper questions to arrive at the truth, which was achieved through a drawing-out process that inquiry-and-response type dialogue aided. Cicero's later adaptation of the dialogue form into Latin as a vehicle to present moral questions be came an important model for the Quattrocento dialogue, from which the humanist dialogue was born. David Marsh notes that to Quattrocentists, dialogue was considered to be useful for both 1) the examination of a topic that may not have a definitive answer at the time of exposition; and 2) the discussion of a potentially dangerous topic (12)⁶⁰. These two purposes for the dialogue form, as we will see below, help to illuminate Oviedo's possible intentions with regard to his dialogue.

Furthermore, as natural, rational, and universal tendencies flooded the Renaissance literary scene, dialogue became a popular genre by which learning might be achieved with naturalistic speech. Erasmus employed this form in his famous Colloquies⁶¹. Oviedo's acquaintance with several of the leading authors of Quattrocento dialogues (in particular; Bruni and Pontano), as well as his knowledge of other dialogues (for example, those of Petrarch and Erasmus), points to the Spanish author's familiarity with the form and its purpose⁶².

The most striking characteristic of Oviedo's dialogue is its feature as a narrative bound colloquy. It is one of several examples of the dialogue genre in the multivolume narrative history, and the chapter that contains the dialogue with Cano, opens with a narrative passage that introduces the new form and establishes its purpose and tone. For example, the author articulates the purpose of the chapter in the chapter title:

Oviedo openly underscores his dependency on the testimony of other writers and eyewitnesses of the events he records and emphasizes his own commitment, at the cost of appearing repetitive, to present to his readers the most truthful historical narrative possible. The lexicon employed by Oviedo-the-historian (verificaçion, verdad, informando, enmendando, declarando, perfiçionando) points to the author's explicit intention in the chapter: to persuade the reader of the veracity of his newly written version of the events surrounding the «Noche Triste». However, as Hayden White so clearly illustrates in his Metahistory, all historiography involves a degree of interpretation⁶³. If we look at the narrative that introduces the dialogue we can see that it reveals Oviedo's self-awareness as an official Court Chronicler and his purpose in writing the account. The narrative frame that introduces the dialogue serves a three-fold purpose: it presents Oviedo's criteria for his history; it aims to persuade the reader to trust the new account; and it introduces, in a concrete manner, the circumstances that produced the dialogue. All of these will serve to

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assert the author's credibility.

Oviedo opens the narrative with a lofty statement about the utility of history and its role in instructing rulers, in this case, Charles V The historian's purpose, he argues, is to serve the King by providing him with information about the New World, information that should help him to rule wisely and promote the Imperial vision Portraying himself as «obidiente é fiel alcayde é criado» (10:129), the author emphasizes his trustworthy service to the King. Furthermore, as a historian, Oviedo gives authority to his own account by indirectly drawing parallels between his work and the works of well-respected contemporary and classical historians: Joanis Carionis, Oviedo tells us, also writes in the vernacular with much «utilidad» and «artifiçio»; and Thucycides's history is a «thessoro» of human truths (10:128)⁶⁴. Lastly, he asserts the authority of eyewitness account over second hand information Twice he brings up Spanish enterprises in Europe, Asia, and Africa, and each time he deliberately drops the topic saying «relátenlas los que allá se hallan» (10:130). In doing so, Oviedo underlines his own authority to write about the historical events occurring in the Indies.

The historical criteria presented in the opening paragraphs of Chapter LIV echo previous prologues and passages in the Historia general, but the final two paragraphs aim to persuade the reader to accept his new account as the objective truth. In an attempt to maintain his credibility, Oviedo only indirectly accepts the blame for the presence of incorrect information in his previous account of the Conquest of Mexico. To discredit himself directly would be to open the present account to questions and doubt. Thus, he employs a dual strategy: he excuses his poorly informed sources («los puse en este volúmen con buena fée, creyendo que deçian lo çierto, é aun assi lo afirmaban aquellos; pero como el entendimiento de los hombres sea mucho mejor en unos que en otros, no es de maravillar que discrepen en sus dichos é aun en sus hechos, en espeçial en cosas semejantes, en quel intento é afiçion é interesse particular causa essas diverssidades en la information» [10:131]), and he nvokes the signature of Divine Will in the project at hand («en verdad paresçe que Nuestro Señor permite que mis ojos no se çierren é que alcançen más claridad en la historia que entre manos tengo» [10:130]). Both strategies serve to protect Oviedo; they absolve him of responsibility for the material at hand, while also attempting to secure the reader's trust.

Before the dialogue moves to the foreground of the chapter, one last narrative paragraph provides pertinent situational information for establishing a real basis for the colloquy: the year (1544), the location (Santo Domingo), the interlocutors (Cano and Oviedo), and the topic to be addressed (correcting past accounts). In doing so, the author gives the colloquy the three aspects attributed to dialogue by Jan Mukařovský -the relation between the interlocutors, their surrounding situation, and a thematic structure- that enable him to bridge the gap between dialogue and narrative, oral and written history, history as events and history as recorded representation (86-88). The actual process of the dialogue is brought closer to the reader when Oviedo reveals the technique he has used: «é assi yo preguntando é Juhan Cano respondiendo diré aquellas cosas en que platicamos, porque no ovo tiempo para más...» (10:132). The author's method of inquiry results in the alternation of short and long exchanges between the questioner and the respondent, irritating the historian's interviewing method and revealing his continual attempt to focus questions in order to clarify historical reality. The dialogue illustrates the nature of the genre as a rendering-of-a-process, which is the essential core of the dialogue and motivates the choice of interlocutors, the unfolding of the dialogue, and the material treated.

Oviedo's choice of two interlocutors -himself, in his historical role as keeper of the fortress at Santo Domingo (alcaide) and official Court Chronicler, and Juan Cano- allows the author to present his account as a personal testimony to his own role in the making of history and, at the same time, to mirror the process of the historian's task. The voices of the alcaide and the historian merge and give the reader insight into the difficulty of Oviedo's task as compiler of a history and as a man of action within the history itself. Indeed, this appears to be the main thrust of his self-representation through direct discourse: as protagonist-historian he reveals the making of history, through both the events themselves and the written representation of the events. The transcription of Juan Cano's words enables Oviedo to reassert directly his technique

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as interviewer and compiler of the Historia general, as well as to reveal the dilemma he has faced as a historian. To a certain extent this interview technique highlights his reliance on informants and relieves him of responsibility for errors of information. He thus asserts the need for the present revision, as well as the ongoing need for trustworthy informants.

Anticipating his critics' scrutiny of his informant, Oviedo establishes his interlocutor's credentials. He states that he knew Cano's uncle, who was from a good family, and that Cano is of «buen entendimiento». Furthermore, in his roles as an eyewitness of the events discussed and as the husband of Montezuma's daughter, Cano was in a unique position to inform Oviedo about the Spanish and Aztec points of view about the conquest⁶⁵. He is presented as a legitimate link between the Old and the New Worlds.

The establishment of Cano's reliability as a source is paramount for the achievement of Oviedo's goals. Oviedo portrays himself as an intermediary, which limits his role and responsibility to that of questioner and scribe, and he portrays Cano as the best authority on the subject at hand. With this strategy Oviedo, through Cano's utterances, attempts to revise errors in earlier chapters and to regain credibility for his own Historia. Through the apparent objectivity of the interview process, Oviedo manipulates the dialogue for his own intentions. He directs the blame for his incorrect account of the Conquest to Cortés and he sets the record straight with regard to Las Casas's criticism of his history.

In doing so, Oviedo's dialogue is double focused. On one hand, he sets out to revise his representation of historical reality, that is, to draw out the truth of an event by correcting his own earlier accounts. On the other hand, he enters into a discussion with other texts, in particular, with those of Cortés and Las Casas. As we will see below, often the overt intention of correcting the representation of reality hides the critique or criticism of another speech act and, in the process, serves to assert Oviedo's own authority to write the official history of the Indies.

The author emphasizes his integration of recent written and oral reports with previous accounts in the Oviedo-Cano dialogue itself. Oviedo's speech as interlocutor abounds with words and phrases such as «oy» [oí], «diçen», «çierta information», «assi dizque» interwoven with «como to he escripto en el capítulo XVI», «assi lo he yo escripto diferençiadamente». By employing these phrases Oviedo suggests to the reader the nature of his task as a historian: he transposes information he receives in oral and written forms («diçen», etc.) into a narrative history («como to he yo escripto»). Another narrative strategy is the repetition of words that establish the veracity of the in formation presented: «es verdad», «sin dubda»; «raçon tiene»; «muy gram verdad es». Both strategies aim to establish a touchstone for the accuracy of the information treated. The author employs words and phrases that serve as a sort of code, inviting the reader to trust the new account. To further gain the reader's trust and to give credibility to the revised data, Oviedo disguises his manipulation of the dialogue itself. He weaves together apparently objective questions or statements and evaluative remarks, which Mukařovský calls «semantic reversals», or words and phrases found on the boundaries of an utterance in the course of a dialogue that are made to prompt a certain response from the other interlocutor (89)⁶⁶.

The use of apparently objective questions or statements coincides with the presentation of information about the Conquest that was generally accepted as fact during the era. For example, Oviedo asks, «Señor Juhan Cano, suplícoos que me digays por qué mató Hernando Cortés á Guatimuçin? Rebelóse despues, ó qué hiço para que muriesse?» (10:135). Cano responds with a testimony on Cortés's torture of the Aztecs for gold and the killing of Guatimucin. Oviedo then refers directly to Cortés's account about Guatimucin, which differs from Cano's testimony, and to the appearance of this information in Chapter XV of the Historia general. This in turn allows Oviedo, through Cano's response, to cast doubt on the veracity of Cortés's Relaciones and to highlight the reliability of his current informant: «Pues escriba Vuestra Merçed lo que mandare, y el marqués Hernando Cortés lo que quisiere; que yo digo en Dios y en mi consçiençia la verdad, y esto es muy notorio» (10:135).

To illuminate the events precipitating the Noche Triste and Cortés's moral character, Oviedo typically uses evaluative language to

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provoke a semantic reversal: «Porque he oydo sobre esto muchas cosas, é muy diferentes las unas de las otras, é yo querria escribir verdad, assi Dios salve a mi ánima» (10:136). To which Cano responds «Señor alcayde, esso que preguntays es un passo, en que pocos de los que hay en la tierra sabrán dar raçon, aunque ello fué muy notorio, é muy manifiesta la sinraçon que á los indios se les hiço...» He goes on to explain that Alvarado's cruel massacre of the Indians during their ceremonial dance led to the Indian uprising and he concludes his testimony with a semantic reversal, «y con mucha raçon que tenían para ello». Oviedo allows Cano's words to stand on their own; he makes no comment and he proceeds directly to the next question: «Monteçuma, cómo murió? Porque diversamente lo he entendido, é assi lo he yo escripto diferençiadamente» (10:136). Through this technique Oviedo portrays himself as an objective interviewer, allowing Cano's words to appear unmediated by the author, left for the reader to judge.

A look at other examples of Oviedo's use of semantic reversals woven together with references to his account in Chapters XIV and XV reveals his attempt to establish his credibility as a reliable historian. Referring again to the controversial events of the Noche Triste, Oviedo states: «Grand lástima fué perderse tanto thessoro é çiento é çinqúenta é quatro españoles é quarenta é çinco yeguas é más de dos mill indios... Yo assi lo tengo escripto en el capítulo XIV desta historia» (10:138). To this Cano responds emphatically that many more died than Cortés reported: «Señor alcayde, en verdad quien tal os dixo, ó no lo vido ni supo, ó quiso callar la verdad. Yo os çertifico que fueron los españoles muertos en esso... más de mill é çiento é septenta, é assi paresçió por alarde; é de los indios nuestros amigos de Tascaltecle que deçís dos mill, sin dubda fueron más de ocho mill» (10:138). In essence, through Cano's speech, Oviedo is suggesting that Cortés is a liar. Although the author manipulates the dialogue and employs a code that invites the reader to trust this new account, ultimately the reader must decide whether Cortés's testimony in Chapter XV of the Historia general or Cano's present testimony most accurately depicts historical reality. The reader thus shares the historian's dilemma of choosing reliable informants.

The use of evaluative language to direct the interviewee's response increases as the dialogue continues, particularly as the list of Cortés's misrepresentations in his Relaciones grows longer. The language, however, takes on an ironic tone. Not long after Cano criticizes Cortés's attitude toward the Indians («dixo que [los indios] eran unos perros») and suggests that it provoked the Indian rebellion that culminated in the Noche Triste, Oviedo addresses Cortés's claim that he lost two fingers during the Conquest of Mexico. The Official Chronicler carefully constructs his dialogue with a series of linguistic devices and progression of material to make his inquiry appear objective, but in reality the passage is a covert attack on Cortes's character and his Relaciones. Oviedo apparently praises the conqueror's bravery:

There is, however, a hint of sarcasm in the last phrase («los honores é la palma de la victoria no se adquieren durmiendo»). When Cano responds, saying that no miracle or surgeon was needed to restore Cortés's fingers, the ironic praise of Cortés is made clear. Speaking in an ironic tone Cano sets the record straight with regard to Cortés's claim that he lost two fingers during the Conquest of Mexico:

Here, as in the previous example, Oviedo leaves the reader to judge the account because he moves directly to another area of controversy: «Señor Julian Cano, es verdad aquella crueldad que diçen que el marqués usó con Chulula?» His commentary is disguised in the form of another query eliciting evidence of Cortés's mistreatment of the Indians, constituting a lightly veiled attack on Cortés's character. Indeed, through Cano's utterances Oviedo portrays Cortés as one of the conquistadors who most mistreated the Indians. In fight of the attack on Las Casas which follows this passage, Oviedo may be attempting to

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shift to Cortés the criticism he received from Las Casas about his view of the Indians. Mikail Bakhtin's studies on the role of dialogue in narratives helps to elucidate Oviedo's possible authorial intention when employing Cano's direct speech. Bakhtin states: «The author's ultimate conceptual authority (the author's intention) is brought out, not in the author's direct speech, but by manipulating the utterances of another addresser» (179). By asking certain questions of Cano, Oviedo elicits specific information that damages Cortés's image as a hero.

Although Oviedo's use of the dialogue form is a method of pointing to the truths about Cortés's character and the facts of the Conquest, the dialogue simultaneously serves as a method of self-protection for the author. Literary critics often point to the ambiguity of meaning that dialogue can introduce into a text. For example, according to Robert Alter, biblical dialogue employs first-person direct discourse in order to circumvent the authoritativeness of a trustworthy narrator and to allow the reader to evaluate the spoken word of the person, that is, «to ponder the different possible connections between the author's spoken words and his actual feelings or intention» (67). Another critic, David Marsh, asserts that the Quattrocento dialogues intentionally create ambiguities (such as the discrepancies between historical figures and their literary portrayal) to protect the author of the dialogue (15). The use of Cano's testimony about the Conquest (which contradicted Cortés's version) and Oviedo's own questions about Cortés may be a way to undermine the Conqueror of Mexico without directly using negative words when talking about him. Oviedo thus engages in covert polemics with Cortés's written representation of the Conquest of Mexico in the Relaciones, which Oviedo used as a basis for his earlier account.

A look at the Proemio to the book that contains this dialogue supports the argument proposed above and more specifically elucidates Oviedo's purpose. The narrative sequence of the Proemio moves from a reiteration of Oviedo's central concern, the importance of a truthful representation of history, to a defensive statement directed to his critics. The statement acknowledges that not everyone will be content with his revisions, which were necessary for presenting a truthful rendering of history, but, he says, God will be the judge of them all. The Proemio concludes with an attack on Cortés's failure to comply with the King's order, which required that certain government officials send accounts to Oviedo upon request: «Demás desto digo que yo tengo çédulas reales, para que los gobernadores me evien relaçion de lo que tocare á la historia en sus gobernaçiones para estas historias. Y escribí é avisé al marqués del Valle, don Hernando Cortés para que me enviasse la suya... é remitióme á unas cartas missivas, que le escribió á Su Magestad... é no curó de más...» (8:228). Clearly, Oviedo is implicating Cortés as the cause of the misinformation that appeared in his own earlier accounts. According to Oviedo, if history's most important qualities are truth and morality, Cortés's accounts deny the purpose of history.

Cortés, however, is not the only object of Oviedo's criticism of writers of the New World. After his statement on Cortés's cruel treatment of the Indians, Oviedo turns his attention to the recently passed Nuevas Leyes de Indias and their instigator, Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas⁶⁷. The friar's criticism of Oviedo's view of the indigenous populations was notorious; it has been suggested by some critics that Las Casas may have blocked the publication of the second part of Oviedo's Historia general⁶⁸. In fact, Oviedo opens this chapter with a complaint about his inability to publish the second part of his history. Thus, as he writes for the King, he takes this opportunity to file an official record of the outcome of his dispute with Las Casas, which was judged by the Bishop of San Juan. Changing the inquiry-and-response pattern of the dialogue, Oviedo's harangue about the friar moves into monologue: «El señor obispo de Sanct Juhan... holgaba... que todo lo que dixe é lo que dexé de deçir se probaria façilmente... y como el señor obispo de Sanct Julian es tan noble, é le consta la verdad é cuán sin passion yo escribo, el obispo de Chiapa quedó satisfecho: aunque yo no ando por satisfaçar á su paladar ni otro, sino por cumplir con lo que debo, hablando con vos, señor, lo çierto» (10:140).

As the penultimate utterance of the Alcaide in this dialogue, this passage serves to bring the purpose of the colloquy full circle. Oviedo's Historia is often self-referential; the history folds back onto itself and responds to earlier chapters, as well as to Oviedo's critics,

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in an effort to vindicate the history and to reassert the truthfulness and objectivity of his own representation of historical reality. Oviedo's efforts to persuade the reader -through both the chapter's content and the use of the dialogue form- that his account best represents historical reality, however, is ironic. Falsehoods and subjective statements permeate the whole history, undercutting his efforts to write an objective history⁶⁹. In this passage alone, for example, he exaggerates the number of languages into which his history had been translated, and he is blatantly sarcastic in his closing comment about Las Casas: «Y por tanto, quanto á la carga de los muchos frayles me paresçe en verdad questas tierras manan ó que llueven frayles... paresçia una devota farsa, é agora la comiençan: no sabemos en qué parará» (10:141)⁷⁰.

Oviedo's monologue ends with an abrupt change of tone: «Pero pues van [Las Casas and his friars] haçia aquellos nuevos volcanes, deçidme señor, qué cosa son, si los aveys visto, é qué cosa es otro que teneys allá en la Nueva España, que se diçe Guaxoçingo» (10:141). Cano responds with a long description of the aforementioned volcano and the colloquy comes to a halt as he leaves for his ship. When viewed in the context of the chapter and the history as a whole, this ending may not be as arbitrary as it appears at first glance, since it serves as a link to the rest of the Historia. The musing over his own historical method through the contrast of his work to that of Las Casas follows the tone set by the chapter's introduction; the description of the volcano echoes narrative passages throughout the Historia that are devoted to the depiction of the natural wonders of the New World. Whereas the former reveals the nature of the historian's task and his criteria, the latter eases us back into the narrative history.

Although the colloquy may merely be an integral part of Oviedo's process of continual revision, the examination of other histories and historical methods at the opening and closing of the chapter, as well as the manipulation of the dialogue and the nature of the material treated within the dialogue itself, point to the author's effort to do more than desmentir his own earlier accounts and those of his critics and competitors. Ostensibly an interrogation aimed at establishing the truth about several significant events in the history of the Spanish encounter with the Aztecs, the dialogue actually probes the issues with which a historian of the Indies must contend. Because of the unique nature of the European encounter with the New World, as well as the new demands placed on the sixteenth-century historiographer, Oviedo works through various theories and practices of historical representation in the Historic general, and, at times, he shares these with the reader. The slowing of the narrative tempo from the norm of summarizing narration to the dramatization of speech-acts themselves in this dialogue enables the reader to view the historian's task of compiling information from the oral and written testimony of eyewitnesses and his attempt to ferret out the truth from conflicting testimony. The dialogue form brings the historical material one step closer to the reader and gives it an immediacy and importance that few parts of the Historia can claim⁷¹.

Although the nagging question of whether the colloquy actually occurred in this way is, to be sure, unanswerable, the use of the dialogue form reflects the author's awareness of the dialogic and dialectical nature of historiography. Through dialogue Oviedo visually presents to his readers the new emphasis in the sixteenth century on inquiry and experience to arrive at an objective truth or a documentable fact, and illustrates the multivoiced discourse that is historiography⁷². In keeping with the original tenets of the dialogue form, Oviedo seeks to draw out a truth: much as Juan de Valdés presents a linguistic truth in his Diálogo de la lengua, Antonio de Valdés portrays the ideal ruler in Mercurio y Carón, and Cervantes writes an artistic treatise in his «Coloquio de los perros» Oviedo advances criteria he believes are essential to the theory and practice of writing a truthful history in the Oviedo-Cano dialogue⁷³. Furthermore, in keeping with the humanist use of the dialogue form to treat potentially dangerous material and debatable topics, Oviedo employs the genre 1) to criticize the historical representations of the New World written by the Renaissance hero of the Conquest of Mexico, Hernán Cortés, and the man motivating the establishment of the Nuevas Leyes, Las Casas; and 2) to examine the ambiguous

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nature of truth, history and historiography. By drawing out the historical truths of the events of the Conquest of Mexico in this chapter of the Historia general. Oviedo points to the errors of other writers' accounts of the Conquest. In the process, he asserts the reliability of his own history and suggests a methodology for historical discourse on the New World.

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Barbolani, Cristina. «Los Diálogos de Juan de Valdés, Reflexión o improvisación?» Doce consideraciones sobre el mundo hispano-italiano en tiempos de Antonio y Juan de Valdés. Bolonia: Actas del Coloquio Interdisciplinar Bolonia, 1976. 138-51.

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Fernández de Oviedo, Gonzalo. Historia general y natural de las Indias. Prol. and ed. José Amador de los Ríos. Madrid: La Real Academia, 1851-55.

_____. Historia general y natural de las Indias. Eds. J. Natálico González y José Amador de los Ríos. Asución del Paraguay: Editorial Guarania, 1945.

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Manzotti, Filma. «Rememorias de una peregrinación en el historiar del cronista Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo». Dissertation, Temple University, 1988.

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_____. «La Biblioteca de Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo». Revista de Indias 31 (1971): 139-98.

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Hispania [Publicaciones periódicas]. Volume 73, Number 3, September 1990