Place

America

Featured Items

Detail of a woodcut, hand-colored map depicting North and South America. Visible details include Cuba, written as "CVBA", a compass rose, and text in Italian.

La carta uniuersale della terra firma & isole delle Indie occidẽtali…

1534
Detail of a fold-out printed map shows town square in the center, surrounding buildings, and ships at sea at the outer perimeter.

Praeclara Ferdina[n]di.

Hernán Cortés
1524
Detail of a hand colored manuscript map shows flags and place names along a coastal region.

[Early representation of Newfoundland, Lower California, the Amazon, and the Ladrones]

António Pereira
circa 1546
Detail of a printed text shows an illustration of four naked Natives surrounded by trees. One holds a cross bow and another holds a large stick. Text in Dutch is also visible.

Van der nieuwer werelt

Amerigo Vespucci
1509
Detail of a map shows text in Latin.

Americae et Proximar Regionum Orae Descriptio

Giovanni Battista Mazza
1589
Detail of a printed book shows text in English reading "Appendix" at the top of the page.

Medical Inquiries and Observations

Benjamin Rush
1789
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 of a printed newspaper shows headline "Negro Slavery" and other text in English.

[Album]

Female Society...for the Relief of British Negro Slaves.
1828-1829

Related

Doctrina Christiana en Lengua Guasteca (México, 1571), by Juan de la Cruz.
Collections Up Close

Early Mexican Imprints at the JCB

José Montelongo, January 15, 2023
Simple, printed map of the island of Sicily, showing Mount Etna, Palermo, Messina, Catania, and other cities, which have been labeled by the author.
Fellow's Talk

Comparative Colonialisms? Palermo and the Americas at the JCB

A map showing the Americas and a constellation over them

Constellations: Reimagining Celestial Histories in the Early Americas

November 2020 - August 2021
colorful map of Caribbean islands with decorative cartouche

"So What'd I Miss?": Lafayette, Jefferson, and Hamilton at the JCB

Summer 2017
Native Americans of present-day Mexico dance around two drummers

Picturing the Past: Indigenous Expressions in Colonial Mexico

Spring 2020
engraved and hand-colored map of northeastern North America including present-day Maine to Virginia
Collections Up Close

Recens Edita totius Novi Belgii, in America Septenrionali…, 1730

November 26, 2019
JCB Fellow Juan Cobo Betancourt views an exhibition at the John Carter Brown Library
Our Fellows

Juan Cobo Betancourt, Donald L. Saunders Fellow

November 25, 2019
detail of a plan showing plantations and dwellings

Rooms of their Own: Dwellings of the Enslaved and the Free in the Early Americas

Spring 2018

See Also

16th Century

Atlas