Theme

Indigenous History

Featured Items

Detail of an engraved title page shows medallion portraits at the border, a coat of arms, and text in Spanish.

Historia general de las conquistas del nuevo reyno de Granada

Lucas Fernández de Piedrahita

1688

Instructio[n], y memoria, de las relaciones que se han de hazer, para la descripcion de las Indias

Juan López de Velasco

1577

Detail of an engraved, hand colored print shows portrait of Hendrick, a Mohawk chief.

The brave old Hendrick the great Sachem or Chief of the Mohawk Indians...

1740

Detail of a manuscript, hand-colored map depicting the Great Lakes, scattered trees depicted on surrounding land, and text in French.

Nouvelle Découverte de plusieurs Nations Dans la Nouvelle France en l'année 1673 et 1674

Louis Joliet

1673-1674

Detail of a printed map shows decorative elements such a sun, a person carrying arrows, ships and fish at sea, a scale, and a key with text in French at the bottom of the map.

Carte geographique de la Nouvelle France

Samuel de Champlain

1612

Engraved fold-out map shows Greenland spelled "Grœnland" and other text in German.

Historie von Grönland

David Cranz

1765-1770

Detail of a printed book shows a decorative head piece on the title page written in Spanish.

Historia natural, civil y geográfica de las naciones situadaes en las riveras del Rio Orinoco

Joseph Gumilla

1791

Detail of printed frontispiece shows two men on either side of French title.

Le miroir de la tyrannie espagnole perpetrée aux Indes Occidentales

Bartolomé de las Casas

1620

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

Wednesday, July 28 at 1:00pm

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

Wednesday, September 1 at 1:00pm

Guided show-and-tell

A Curatorial Conversation: North American Indian Treaties at the JCB

Thursday, December 17 at 5:30pm

A map showing the Americas and a constellation over them

Constellations: Reimagining Celestial Histories in the Early Americas

November 2020 - August 2021

cover image of Códice Santa María Tetelpan

Códice Santa María Tetelpan: A JCB manuscript transcribed, translated, and published in facsimile in Mexico City

October 7

Lecture

Historia del libro en lenguas originarias de América

Tuesday, October 27 at 2:00pm

Native Americans of present-day Mexico dance around two drummers

Picturing the Past: Indigenous Expressions in Colonial Mexico

Spring 2020

JCB Fellow Juan Cobo Betancourt views an exhibition at the John Carter Brown Library

Meet a JCB Fellow

Juan Cobo Betancourt, Donald L. Saunders Fellow

November 25