Abstract:

This inquiry aims to analyze, following a gender approach, Costa Rican Discovery, Conquest and Colonization Chronicles. Based on the written trace left by Cristopher Columbus, Juan Vázquez de Coronado and Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, we will prove how the way the described and perceived the New World played a decisive role in the introduction of gender roles in force on the Peninsula. Thus, gender approach is added to the historical approach this research is immersed in as an essential methodological framework. Therefore, the appearance of women in the Chronicles of Indias, the way chroniclers talk about this populational group in their writings, and the construction of a gender theory become the main targets here. Also, they invite us to think how patriarchal society emanated from the colonial process was informed.

Keywords: Chronicles, colonization, woman, gender, indigenous population, discourse.