ABSTRACT
Literary firstings resonate in Spanish literature about the Americas, particularly in sixteenth-century travel literature, and its evolution can be traced through three case studies. The first engages with the writings of Christopher Columbus, who in his diaries and letters used arguments that constructed and defended the consequence of having arrived first to the Americas. His audience was obviously other Europeans, but he was also thinking globally. The second case study focuses on Hernán Cortés, who used firsting as a way of promoting his self-independence from the crown. The last case study examines Lope de Aguirre, who demonstrates how conquistadors were lasted when the Spanish monarchy wrestled control of lands away from them. By the 1560s the possibility of a travel literature linked to discoveries and based on proclamations of authority and authorship as a consequence of first arrivals had been surpassed by urban and new-born creole narratives concerned about a legitimate claim to territory, a process not necessarily seen outside of the Spanish Americas in this period.
