ABSTRACT
The enterprise of imperial expansion in Portugal and Spain, beginning in the fifteenth century, always maintained an active culture of writing and reporting as one of its predominant features. A seemingly endless stream of chronicles, letters, histories, and news pamphlets was both the product of, and further incentive for, voyages of exploration and colonialism that reached the edges of the known world for western European-based travellers. This chapter studies the prolific culture of reportage and its strategies of eye-witnessing and authority in a number of contexts, including letters and reports sent to, or patronized by, imperial monarchs or administrators, and popular accounts of events that happened at great distances. The multifarious forms and genres of writing (such as chronicles or shorter reports in the form of pamphlets) provide the basis of analysis. Strategies of credibility and truth-making in such writings include expeditions on behalf of royal patrons or sponsors on distant lands, people, and natural phenomena, mirabilia, monsters and strange happenings, and persistent (yet often erroneous) concepts about geography and non-Western peoples.
