Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala and The First New Chronicle and Good Government

Speaker: Dr. Lauren Kilroy-Ewbank

Guaman Poma

Learn about Guaman Poma, the Indigenous author who documented pre-colonial and colonial Peru in a massive, illustrated manuscript. The video focuses on Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, who sent a letter to the King of Spain in the early 1600s. His monumental work, The First New Chronicle and Good Government, is nearly 1,200 pages and offers an important perspective on Indigenous life under Spanish rule, as well as Inka culture before Spanish colonization. The letter has nearly 400 hand-drawn illustrations. It is a unique primary source for understanding the era's complexities.

Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala

Frontispiece of El primer nueva corónica i buen gobierno, c. 1615 CE, pen and ink. Royal Library, Denmark

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