Place

North America

Featured Items

Printed book bound in red and green Morocco and blue silk with text in Spanish reading "Viva Agustin Primero" on the inner front cover and "emperador de Mexico" on the inner back cover.

Apuntamientos sobre la necesidad de promover el cultivo del azucar y otros frutos

1822
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 hand colored, engraved map of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania shows roads, rivers, and settlements. Text in English labels features.

A map of Philadelphia and parts adjacent..

Nicholas Scull
1752
Detail of a hand colored printed map shows text in French reading "Terre-Neuve," latitude and longitude lines, and labels over other geographical areas.

Carte reduite des bancs et de l'Ile de Terre-Neuve avec les cotes du Golf de St. Laurent et de l'Acadie

[Depot de la Marine]
1784
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 a printed book shows branding marks ("marca de fuego") on the outer edges. Leather binding also partially visible.

Aqui comiença vn vocabulario en la lengua castellana y mexicana,

Alonso de Molina
1555
Detail of a printed book shows title of the book at the top of the page and the index with text in English.

Jewes in America. Part 1

Thomas Thorowgood
1652
Detail of a manuscript title page shows red and black ink used for titular text and birds.

Philosophia Iesuitico, Aristotelico, Thomistica, Angelico...

Francisco de los Rios
1766

Related

[Plan of the Seige of Savannah, 1779]
Collections Up Close

Mount Vernon symposium: Mapping the American Revolution

Bertie Mandelblatt, December 15, 2022
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

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

Image of an artificial flower clock, with two hands emerging from clouds on either side holding a numbered circle, and a thorn stemming from the flower's circle pointing at the time.
Fellow's Talk

Earthquakes and Timekeeping Practices in New England, 1600-1800

Detail from the Tovar Codex, showing a bearded Spanish man atop the symbol for house (calli), while holding a book that points to the letters of the Roman alphabet.
Fellow's Talk

Translating Late Medieval Classics into Nahuatl: The Imitatio Christi and How to Think About Latin-Nahuatl translation

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

Maritime History

Imaginary Geographies