Primary Source Documents
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GENERAL
:
"The Connection Between Medieval and Renaissance Expansion" - historian, Seymour Phillips
map
- "
The Americas Before Columbus: 1450"
"A New Europe" - lecture notes by Prof. Gerhard Rempel (Western New England College)
NM's Creative Impulse - The Development of Civilization - The Americas (mucho links)
Sir Francis Drake
DISCOVERY PHASE
:
1492 - An Ongoing Voyage
Cities of Gold - The Search for El Dorado (PBS series on "The West")
The Columbian Exchange
Columbus & the Age of Discovery
The Columbus Navigation Home Page
The Conquistadors (PBS)
"The 'Crimes' of Christopher Columbus" - Dinesh D'Souza
Discoverers Web
European Voyages of Exploration - The 15c and 16c
Incas and Conquistadors
Latitude - The Art & Science of 15c Navigation
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- "
Portuguese Explorations"
map
- "
The First Voyage of Columbus"
map
- "Spanish & Portuguese Exploration, 1400-1600"
map
- "
Voyages of Discovery and World Empires, 1550"
"Measles and Smallpox as an Allied Army of the Conquistadors of America"
"Plagues & Peoples - The Columbian Exchange" - essay by Dr. Ian Carr
Prince Henry, the Navigator
Spanish Exploration & the Conquest of Native America
EARLY COLONIZATION
:
"The Conquest of the New World- A 19th Century View" - historian, William Smyth
"The Conquest of the New World- A Late 20th Century View" - historian, Norman Davies
Cultural Readings - Colonization and Print in the Americas
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- "
Audiencias
of the Viceroyalty of New Spain: 1650"
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- "
Audiencias
of the Viceroyalty of Peru: 1650"
map
- "European Empires-1660"
New Spain - The Frontiers of Faith
Spanish Colonial Administration (web chart)
Spanish Conquest
NEW GLOBAL TRADE NETWORK
:
The Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas: A Visual Record
"Beginning of the Transatlantic Slave Trade" - historian, Paul Lovejoy
"The Great Food Migration" -
Newsweek
, 1991 (special issue)
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- "The African Diaspora"
map
- "The Atlantic Slave Trade"
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- "The Dutch Empire and Trade Routes"
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- "Portuguese Empires in Asia: 1600s"
The Slave Trade (Spartacus)
Sub-Saharan Africa, Slavery and European Trade
Trade Products in Early Modern History
"A Traditional Analysis of the Slave Trade" - historian, James Pope-Hennessy
Where Food Crops Originated - Seeds of Change Garden
Web Links
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How to read a primary source document
Why Study History Through Primary Sources
1400:
Painting, "Pepper Harvest" - African slaves at Work in the East Indies
1466:
Mid-15c European World Map
1489:
Map of the World (British Museum)
1492:
Privileges and Prerogatives Granted by Their Catholic Majesties to Christopher Columbus
1494:
Columbus' Letter to the King and Queen of Spain
1497-98:
Vasco da Gama: Round Africa to India
16c:
Theodore De Bry's Copper Engravings
1511-20:
King Ferdinand's Letter to the Tainos
1512-13:
Laws of Burgos
1519:
An Aztec Account of the Spanish Conquest of America
1519-1522:
Magellan's Voyage Round the World
1520:
Cortez' Second Letter to Charles V
1526:
Map of South America in the time of Pizarro
1529:
Royal Contract for the Conquest of Peru
1537:
Sublemus Dei
- Pope Paul III's encyclical on slavery
1542:
The New Laws of the Indies
1543:
Letter from India, to the Society of Jesus at Rome - St. Francis Xavier
1550:
Silver at Potosi
1560:
"In Defense of the Indians-The Sermon of Father Montesinos" - Bartolomé de Las Cásas in his book,
History of the Indies
1564-1565:
The English Enter the Atlantic Slave Trade
1580s:
various engravings of Theodor De Bry - click on each title midway down the page
1580:
"On Cannibals" - Michel de Montaigne
1595:
Letter from a Basque Miner in Potosí to a Merchant in Seville
late 16c:
Matteo Ricci - A Jesuit Mission to China
1613:
An Englishman's Perception of Southern Africa
1614:
A Contract for African Slaves
1700:
An Eyewitness Describes the Slave Trade in Guinea
1713:
"The Geographer" - painting by Johannes Vermeer
Ten Commandments of Good Historical Writing