Juan de Castellanos was a Criollo

Criollo

Criollo is a Spanish term that may refer to:-Groups of people and animals:* Criollo people, a caste in the Spanish race-based colonial caste system* Criollo horse, a South American horse breed...

 poet, soldier and Catholic priest.

He travelled to America before 1545 as a cavalry

Cavalry

Cavalry or horsemen were soldiers or warriors who fought mounted on horseback. Cavalry were historically the third oldest and the most mobile of the combat arms...

 soldier, and acquired some property on the Pearl Coast. Abandoning the military profession he became a secular priest in Cartagena

Cartagena, Colombia

Cartagena de Indias , is a large Caribbean beach resort city on the northern coast of Colombia in the Caribbean Coast Region and capital of Bolívar Department...

 and, declining the positions of canon

Canon (priest)

A canon is a priest or minister who is a member of certain bodies of the Christian clergy subject to an ecclesiastical rule ....

 and treasurer, went as curate

Curate

A curate is a person who is invested with the care or cure of souls of a parish. In this sense "curate" correctly means a parish priest but in English-speaking countries a curate is an assistant to the parish priest...

 to Tunja

Tunja

Tunja is a city and municipality located in the central part of Colombia, in the region of "Alto Chicomocha". As of the 2005 Census it had 152,419 inhabitants. It is the capital of the Department of Boyacá and part of the subregion of the Central Boyacá Province. It is approximately 145 km...

. There he composed his epic poem, Elegias de Varones ilustres de Indias, the first part of which appeared in Madrid

Madrid

Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...

 in 1588, and the first three parts in 1837. It is the longest poem ever in the Spanish language. The Lenox Branch

Lenox Library

Lenox Library may refer to:*Lenox Library *A former library now part of the New York Public Library...

 of the New York Public Library

New York Public Library

The New York Public Library is the largest public library in North America and is one of the United States' most significant research libraries...

 possesses a complete copy. The verse recounts successively the deeds of prominent Spaniards in America, beginning with Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents in the...

, and is an interesting source for the colonial history of northern South America, including many details of ethnography and ethnology.

Castellanos was among the earliest Conquistadores, and was acquainted with nearly every prominent leader of the time. He relies to some extent upon Oviedo for many details, stating that Oviedo communicated to him verbally what he knew by personal experience of the settlement at Cartagena. Castellanos' poem is the second of a series of epic compositions in Spanish treating of the early colonization of America, Ercilla's La Araucana

La Araucana

La Araucana is an epic poem in Spanish about the Spanish conquest of Chile, by Alonso de Ercilla; it is also known in English as The Araucaniad...

being the earliest in date of publication.