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Rh deserts, to incur the alienation of friends, the hostility of enemies, to endure obloquy, insult, and persecution."

His great work, Historia General de las Indias, to which he devoted himself during thirty years, while still in manuscript, was largely drawn upon by different writers, notably by Herrera, who incorporated a large amount into his own work published in 1601. An edition of his works was published in five volumes at Madrid in 1876. His Brevisima Relacion, widely read and translated into foreign languages, was a terrible indictment of his countrymen and their dealings with the natives. The integrity of his character, the purity of his motives, and his apostolic virtues command admiration, and, though his intemperate zeal in the cause he championed troubled the serenity of his appreciations as an historian, his statement of facts may be invariably trusted, and his record of contemporary events is of unquestionable value.



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motolinia

Toribio de Benevente is best known by his Indian name (which he himself adopted) of Motolinia, meaning the "poor man" (equivalent of the Poverello which was St. Francis's dearest title). He was one of twelve Franciscans who first came to Mexico in response to the request of Cortes, at the close of the conquest (1523). He travelled from Mexico to Guatemala and Nicaragua on foot, and knew the country and its peoples as did few. His headquarters were at a convent at Texcoco, where his life and energies were devoted with success to teaching and converting the Mexicans. His Historia de los Indias de Nueva España embraces first religion and rites of the Aztecs, second conversion, third their character, chronology, astrology, and some account of their principal cities, etc. His MS. was printed in the first volume of Icazbalceta's Documentos Ineditos.



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peter martyr

Pietro Martire de Angleria of Arona, Italy, came to Spain