Aftermath of the Encounter
The encounters between the Americas and Europe altered the civilizations of both deeply and irrevocably. Among the many dramatic changes resulting from the encounters are the three covered in this section. “Language and Religion” documents the efforts of Spanish missionaries to convert natives and to record their languages. “Competition for Empire” reveals how other European powers, and eventually the newly created United States as well, vied for position and control in the Americas. Finally, in “Documenting New Knowledge,” the exhibition examines two disciplines, natural history and geography, in which post-encounter Europe recorded the abundant “New World” information that often challenged their earlier conceptions and worldview.
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Languages and Religion
The Spaniards came to the New World with a dual mission of seeking wealth and spreading Christianity. To achieve the goal of conversion, missionaries learned native languages and sought to understand the cultures. Using the Roman alphabet, they transcribed languages and created grammars and dictionaries, all to translate and disseminate their Christian message. Out of the commitment to their goal of conversion, missionaries became the first ethnographers. Although much of their work remained unpublished, much of what we know about the Inca, Aztecs, and Maya is found in these manuscripts. However, some missionaries also destroyed many native texts and cultural objects, considering them works of idolatry. Read more about Languages and Religion »
Competition for Empire
During the centuries of Spanish exploration and colonization, “treasure fleets” made regular trips to the Americas to deliver merchandise and collect treasures and precious metals. As these cargos increased in size and value, so did the risk of capture and theft. Foreign navies, privateers (commissioned agents sent out against the enemies of states), and pirates threatened, attacked, and plundered the ships of the treasure fleets.
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Pirates and Privateers
During the centuries of Spanish exploration and colonization, “treasure fleets” made regular trips to the Americas to deliver merchandise and collect treasures and precious metals. As these cargos increased in size and value, so did the risk of capture and theft. Foreign navies, privateers (commissioned agents sent out against the enemies of states), and pirates threatened, attacked, and plundered the ships of the treasure fleets. Read more about Pirates and Privateers »
Spanish Florida
La Florida included the vast territory claimed by Spain on the basis of the explorations by Juan Ponce de León (1460–1521) in 1513 and 1521. Encompassing lands from the Gulf Coast of Texas to the Chesapeake Bay, Spanish Florida existed from 1565 to 1763, when Florida (by then reduced in size to today’s Florida and parts of Alabama and Georgia) came under British control. Spain regained possession of Florida from 1784 until 1821 when the territory became part of the United States. Read more about Spanish Florida »
English Florida
The territory of Spanish Florida once encompassed much of what is now the southeastern United States but decreased with the arrival of English and French settlements. The British controlled Florida between 1763 and 1783, when Florida reverted to Spanish hands. On February 22, 1821, the United States and Spain concluded a treaty that gave Florida and other Spanish-held areas to the U.S. Read more about English Florida »
The United States: An Emerging Empire
Sir Frances Drake’s Voyage Maps
Italian artist Baptista Boazio (fl. 1588–1606). created these handsome hand-colored engravings to accompany A Summarie and True Discourse of Sir Francis Drake’s West Indian Voyage, published in London by Biggs and Croftes in 1588–1589. The maps are illustrated in fascinating detail with the fleet of twenty-three ships, as well as land battle plans of the English attacks on Spanish harbor forts. Animals, flags, crests, and compasses decorate the cartography. These Boazio maps are historically important not only for understanding Sir Francis Drake’s (1540?–1598) activities, but also because the four city plans represent the first printed view of each locality.
The lead “voyage map,” charting the round trip from England, is captioned in English, while the accompanying four bird’s-eye views of ports are captioned in Latin. Drake sailed directly west from Santiago in the Cape Verde Islands off the coast of West Africa. The first port Drake reached in the West Indies was Santo Domingo in Hispaniola, present-day Haiti and Dominican Republic. This image shows the English fleet in the bay and the infantry battalions attacking the town. The view of Cartagena, situated on the South American coast of Colombia, depicts the English infantry marching on the city. The view of St. Augustine is the earliest engraving of any locality in the United States. It shows the English fleet at anchor as its infantry troops attack the Spanish settlement.
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Documenting New Knowledge
The European world view changed dramatically following the voyages of early explorers. News of the “new worlds” challenged current cosmographic beliefs as well as the information in geographical works by Claudius Ptolemy and other ancient Classical Greek astronomers and geographers. Maps played a major role in the information transfer, providing unmatched representations of newly discovered geographic realities. Johann Gutenberg’s mechanical printing press and the development of woodcut and engraving techniques ensured the preservation and wide distribution of this new information.
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Mapping the World
The European world view changed dramatically following the voyages of early explorers. News of the “new worlds” challenged current cosmographic beliefs as well as the information in geographical works by Claudius Ptolemy and other ancient Classical Greek astronomers and geographers. Maps played a major role in the information transfer, providing unmatched representations of newly discovered geographic realities. Johann Gutenberg’s mechanical printing press and the development of woodcut and engraving techniques ensured the preservation and wide distribution of this new information.
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Cartographic Treasures
Martin Waldseemüller’s 1507 map portrays the New World as a separate continent, which until then was unknown to the Europeans. It was the first map, printed or manuscript, to depict clearly a separate Western Hemisphere, with the Pacific as a separate ocean. The map represented a huge leap forward in knowledge, recognizing the newly found American landmass and forever changing the European understanding of a world divided into only three parts—Europe, Asia, and Africa.
Long thought lost, the 1507 Waldseemüller world map was discovered more than a century ago in a castle in southern Germany. The map was owned by the family of Prince Johannes Waldburg-Wolfegg for more than 350 years and had rarely been made available for examination. The map survived in mint condition because its twelve individual sheets were placed in a portfolio by its original owner, Johann Schöner (1477–1547), a Nuremberg astronomer and geographer.
The original portfolio contained other cartographic treasures including the 1516 wall map by Martin Waldseemüller, known as the “Carta Marina,” and terrestrial and celestial globe gores created by Schöner, which are part of the Library’s Jay I. Kislak Collection. The Carta Marina is thought by some to be the first printed nautical map of the entire world and differs markedly from the 1507 World Map. The name “America” is omitted from the 1516 map, the size of the New World is also greatly reduced, and the Pacific Ocean disappears. Among Schöner’s globe gores included in the portfolio is the first-known set of printed celestial gores that he designed and printed in 1517. These annotated gores represent the state of astronomical knowledge in Schöner’s time and are an improvement over many of the star charts of the period.
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Natural History
Among the most beautiful and richly illustrated items in the Kislak Collection are books detailing the natural history of the New World. These volumes describe and illustrate the diverse flora and fauna of Mesoamerica and include indigenous names for the plants and animals. Books such as Historia naturae (1635) by Juan Eusebio Nieremberg (1595–1658) also provide extensive information on the customs and rites of native cultures.
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