The world needs to defend the legacy of indigenous peoples, since they were the creators of original civilizations, declared Mexican historian Miguel de Leon Portilla.

Speaking at the eighth meeting of the Association of Latin American and Caribbean Historians on Thursday, De Leon Portilla is considered the most important living historian of the Central American pre-Hispanic peoples and one of the greatest supporters of the Latin American indigenous peoples history.

ADHILAC President Venezuelan Aristides Medina highlighted De Leon Portilla's book "Vision de Los Vencidos" with more than 40 published editions translated into the world's principal languages.

De Leon Portilla spoke about his work of more than 50 years to uncover elements of the suffering and presence of indigenous peoples and of the extermination carried out by colonizers in America, which provoked the movement of entire peoples.

The ADHILAC forum includes debates until October 12 among professionals from the US, Mexico, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela.