‘On the word of the most trustworthy men’: Dr. Francisco Hernández and the chroniclers of Indies

• In Event: Chronicles of Indies and Early Modern Science

Abstract

In recent years, Dr. Francisco Hernández’s natural historical expedition to New Spain has been lauded as the epitome of a particular brand of Iberian empiricist practice that combined medical experimentation and ethnographic research. Less attention has been paid, however, to how Dr. Hernández engaged with earlier explorers’ and missionaries’ chronicles and to what extent he relied on them in his won own work. This paper focuses on the ways in which Hernández used the writings of Toribio de Benavente “Motolinía”, Bernardino de Sahagún and, very likely, Diego Durán to produce authoritative descriptions of American nature. Focusing on the rhetorical devices Hernández employed to render his own description authoritative, this paper argues that the protomédico relied as much on his own direct experience exploring New World nature as on the direct experience of previous observers, as long as he considered them “trustworthy men”. These findings suggest that in addition to the empiricist practice Hernández pioneered in New Spain, he also incorporated a legalistic rhetoric in the description of his findings – which included quoting coinciding testimonies and multiple observations in different locales and under controlled conditions – which were the inheritance of earlier chroniclers, such as Fernández de Oviedo.

Author

• Iris Montero Sobrevilla