author
Martín del Barco Centenera
b. 1535
A 16th-century cleric and chronicler, he left one of the earliest long literary accounts of the Río de la Plata world. His writing mixes travel, conquest, and observation, offering a vivid window into the Spanish colonial frontier.
1 Audiobook
La Argentina, o La conquista del Rio de La Plata. Poema histórico
by Martín del Barco Centenera
About the author
Born in 1535 in Extremadura, Martín del Barco Centenera was a Spanish cleric who joined the expedition of Juan Ortiz de Zárate to the Río de la Plata in 1572 as a chaplain. He spent many years in South America and became closely connected with the turbulent early colonial history of the region.
He is best remembered for La Argentina y conquista del Río de la Plata, a long historical poem printed in Lisbon in 1602. The work combines eyewitness material, narrative history, and literary storytelling, and it remains an important early source for the history of the Río de la Plata and nearby parts of South America.
Sources agree that he died around 1602. Although details of his life are not fully clear, his reputation endures because his writing preserves a rare first-hand perspective on exploration, conquest, and settlement in the early colonial period.