Memory of the World - Latin America and the Caribbean
The Florid Recollection, a Historical Speechand Natural, Material, Military and Political Account ofthe Reyno of Guatemala
The proposed work is a manuscript dating from the end of the 17th century written by Captain Francisco Antonio de Fuentes y Guzmán neighbour and Regidor Perpetuo of Guatemala City The author is a direct witness of the time a Creole layperson militia captain landowner regidor perpetuo and corregidor who referencing chronicles authored in the 16th century wrote an original work in the 17th century in which he describes the cultural and natural wealth of Guatemala a territory of which he recognises himself a native This positions him as a precursor of the Creoles who a century later were to establish a distance from the Spanish of the peninsula shaping a sense of identification with their birth countryIt is the region´s first chronicle to use a method oriented toward the principles later developed for historical science a history based on documentary sources related to the indigenous peoples upon the Spanish arrival There are two different and unique manuscripts of the work one in the Biblioteca del Palacio de Madrid and the other in the Archivo General de Centroamérica The Guatemala manuscript includes a completely new second part containing 16 extra books in addition to the Madrid manuscript and is extensively illustrated and unpublished in its entirety
Guatemala -