Buenaventura de Salinas y Córdova
Who Will Speak the Truth? brings to light the powerful seventeenth-century voice of the Peruvian Franciscan Buenaventura de Salinas y Córdova, whose Memorial on the Histories of the New World, Peru (1630) stands as one of the earliest and most forceful creole denunciations of colonial injustices against Andean Indigenous peoples. Framed by the apocalyptic imagery of the opening of the Seventh Seal in the Book of Revelation, Salinas’s Memorial is both exposé and call to action, articulating a passionate plea for justice and reform within the Spanish Empire. This volume offers the first English translation and a robustly annotated edition of the key activist chapters from the Memorial accompanied by a modernized Spanish transcription and a critical essay that situates Salinas within a broader tradition of colonial advocacy. Mapping the legacy of Bartolomé de Las Casas’s Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias (1552), the essay traces a vibrant ’activist archive’ of colonial Peru in which creole, Indigenous (such as Guaman Poma de Ayala), and Spanish voices contested oppression and demanded fair treatment for Native communities. A valuable resource for students and specialists alike, this volume reveals Salinas’s work as a milestone in the history of colonial activism, Indigenous advocacy, and transatlantic debates about justice, empire, and moral responsibility.
