Spanish and Portuguese Conflict in the Spice Islands

Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés' account of the second and third Spanish Expeditions to the Moluccas. Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés (1478-1557), warden of the fortress and port of Santo Domingo on the Island of Hispaniola, also served his Emperor, Charles V, as the official chronicler of the first half-century of the Spanish presence in the New World. Book XX, published in 1557, concerns the first three Spanish voyages to the East Indies. Only the first four chapters deal with Magellan's voyage, the remaining thirty-one detail two subsequent expeditions to the Moluccas, 1525-35, the first initially led by García Jofre de and Loaysa. The narrative offers many details of the hardships and conflict with the Portuguese endured by the Spanish. There is also much information about indigenous culture, commerce, geography and the fauna and flora of the Spice Islands.