The loudest contemporary critic, Father Bartholomeo de Las Casas, wrote indignantly: "It is well here to consider the injury and injustice which that Americo Vespucio appears to have done to the Admiral, or that those have done who published his Four Navigations, in attributing the discovery of this continent to himself, without mentioning anyone but himself. Owing to this, all the foreigners who write of these Indies in Latin, or in their own mother-tongue, or who make charts or maps, call the continent America, as having been first discovered by Americo.

For as Americo was a Latinist, and eloquent, he knew how to make use of the first voyage he undertook, and to give the credit to himself, as if he had been the principal captain of it" (Vespucci 1992, 126).

Las Casas was not the only critic.