Period

18th Century

Featured Items

Detail from a weathered printed document, that includes manuscript inscriptions, shows text in English from the president of the united states.

Sea letter, Brigantine Neptune, July 26, 1793

1793
Detail from a printed text shows questions and follow-up answers about astronomy.

An astronomical and geographical catechism. For the use of children.

Caleb Bingham
1795
Detail of a printed book shows a fold-out illustration of stones outside of a buildings facade.

Descripcion de las antiguedades de Xochicalco

Jose Antonio de Alzate y Ramirez
1791
Detail of two books shows brown leather binding and spine labels "1" and "2" and the shortened title.

Histoire philosophique et politique, des établissemens & du commerce des Européens dans les deux Indes.

Guillaume Thomas Francois Raynal
1770
Detail of a printed book shows a page with text in French and an illustration on the opposite page.

Code Noir: ou Recueil d’edits, déclarations et arrets concernant les Esclaves Nègres de l’Amérique

1743
Detail of a hand colored, engraved map of Boston, Massachusetts shows details such as "Boston Harbor," "Mill Pond," and "Charles's Wharf." Pink, green, and blue colors help differentiate geographical features.

A plan of Boston, and its environs,...

Richard Williams
1776
Detail of a hand colored manuscript map shows villages labeled in Spanish such as "Pueblo de S. Pablo" and "Pueblo de Huitziltzinco." Churches, trees, and bodies of water are also included in the map.

El presente mapa demuestra la cituacion, plano, y repartimiento, que en la actualidad tienen los arroyos, que bajan de Sierra Nevada…

Felipe de Zúñiga y Ontiveros
1770
Detail of a printed book shows text in English reading "Appendix" at the top of the page.

Medical Inquiries and Observations

Benjamin Rush
1789

Related

[Plan of the Seige of Savannah, 1779]
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Mount Vernon symposium: Mapping the American Revolution

Bertie Mandelblatt, December 15, 2022
A detail from the "Carte Physique de la Grande Mer"
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Philippe Buache, “Carte Physique de la Grande Mer ci-devant nommée Mer du Sud ou Pacifique…” from Cartes et tables de la géographie physique ou naturelle: présentées au roi le 15 mai 1757, Paris: 1770

August 30, 2021
Frontispiece from Museum Wormianum. Seu, Historia rerum rariorum, 1655.

Natural History Collecting in Late Colonial New Spain: Highlights from the JCB Collection

Engraving showing whale fishery
Fellow's Talk

Baleação e Escravidão: Conexões Atlânticas entre New England, África e Brasil. Séculos XVIII e XIX (in Portuguese)

Frontispiece of 'Mis Mac Rea', by Hillard-D'Auberteuil
Fellow's Talk

“Indian Castles” and “Barbarous Frenchmen”: the Shadow of New France in the American Revolution

The cartouche of the map “Algemeene Kaart van de Colonie of Provintie van Suriname,” by Alexander de Lavaux
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Alexander de Lavaux, “Algemeene Kaart van de Colonie of Provintie van Suriname,” after 1758

July 28, 2021
Engraving of two Nahua men speaking to one another. An angel hovers behind one of the men, preventing him from producing idolatrous speech, while the other has a snakes stemming from his mouth, which is representative of such language.
Fellow's Talk

"Brute animals" and "rational creatures": Defining humanity in the Indigenous-language vocabularies and pedagogies of New Spain

An eighteenth-century hand colored, engraved image of a ship unloading cargo and men from a boat, surrounded by other ships and backgrounded by a fortification, dwellings, churches, and a harbor.
Fellow's Talk

"To cease and yield the continual pretensions of the French:" The Spanish Establishment of Monte Cristi as a Free Port, 1750-1763

See Also

Nahuatl

Map