3. Era of Exploration and Conquest (1492-1700)
Barclay, Donald A., and others, eds. Into the Wilderness Dream: Exploration Narratives of the American West, 1500-1805. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1994. (Excerpts from thirty-three accounts by Spanish, French, English, and American explorers who came into the West before Lewis and Clark.) CYP, RVS: F 592 .I68 1994.
Betanzos, Juan de. Narrative of the Incas. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996. RVS: F 3429 .B5413 1996
Casas, Bartolome de las. The Devastation of the Indies: A Brief Account. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992. (Eyewitness account of Spanish mistreatment of Native Americans in the Americas. First published in 1552. Read introduction before using.) RGC: F 1411 .C43 1992
Chapa, Juan Bautista. Texas and Northeastern Mexico, 1630-1690. Edited by William C. Foster. Translated by Ned F. Brierley. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1997. PIN: F 1316 .C4613 1997
Columbus, Christopher. The Diario of Christopher Columbus’s First Voyage to America, 1492-1493. (The American Exploration and Travel Series.) Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1988. RVS: E 118 .C725 1988
Columbus, Christopher. The Four Voyages of Columbus: A Documentary History. Edited by Cecil Jane. New York: Dover Publications, 1988. RGC: E 114 .J36 1988
Columbus, Christopher. The Log of Christopher Columbus. Translated by Robert H. Fuson. Camden, Me.: International Marine Pub. Co., 1987. RVS: E 118 .C725 1987
Columbus, Ferdinand. The Life of the Admiral Christopher Columbus. Rutgers University Press, 1992. (Author was Christopher Columbus’ son.) NRG: E 111 .C713 1992.
Cortés, Hernán. Letters from Mexico. Translated and edited by Anthony Pagden. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1986. (Six long reports, addressed to Emperor Charles V, written between 1519 and 1526. They provide a narrative account of the conquest of Mexico, etc. Read translator’s introduction before using.) RGC: F 1230 .C83313 1986
Cortés y de Olarte, José Maria. Views from the Apache Frontier: Report on the Northern Provinces of New Spain. Edited by Elizabeth A. H. John. Translated by John Wheat. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989. (Author was a lieutenant of the Spanish Royal Corps of Engineers. Written in 1799. Best on Arizona and California; poorest on Texas.) PIN, RGC: E 99 .A6 C6413 1989
De Fuentes, Patricia, ed. The Conquistadors: First Person Accounts of the Conquest of Mexico. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993. RGC: F 1230 .F9 1993
Diaz del Castillo, Bernal. The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico. New York: Straus, and Cudahy, 1956. NRG, RGC: F 1230 .D5442 1956 (Another edition, with a slightly different title and with the call number F 1230 .D5378, is at RGC. Another edition with the call number F 1230 .D56513 1996, is at RVS.)
Durán, Diego, Fray. The History of the Indies of New Spain. Translated and annotated with an introduction by Doris Heyden. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1994. (Technically, this is a secondary source, but the author, a sixteenth-century Dominican friar who lived in Mexico from his childhood, based much of this work on a Nahuatl chronicle now lost and on interviews with living Aztec informants. Therefore, one can use it as a primary source.) RVS: F 1219.73 .D8713 1993
Espinosa, J. Manuel, ed. The Pueblo Indian Revolt of 1696 and the Franciscan Missions in New Mexico: Letters of the Missionaries and Related Documents. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1988. RGC: E 99 .P9 P86 1991
Gómara, Francisco López de. Cortéz: The Life of the Conqueror by His Secretary. Translated and edited by Lesley Byrd Simpson. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964. (Technically a secondary source, but comes close to being an “as told to” autobiography. Author was Cortés’ secretary and chaplain in Spain from 1541 to1547, many years after the conquest of Mexico. Supplements Bernal’s account.) RVS: F 1230 .C9213 1964
Hodge, Frederick W., ed. Spanish Explorers in the Southern United States, 1528-1543. Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1990. (Reprint of 1907 edition. Contains the narrative of Cabeza de Vaca and narratives relating to the expeditions of De Soto and Coronado.) RGC: E 123 .S75 1990
Joutel, Henri. A Journal of LaSalle’s Last Voyage. New York: Corinth Books, 1962. EVC, PIN, RVS: F 1030.5 .J863 1962
Joutel, Henri. The La Salle Expedition to Texas: The Journal of Henri Joutel, 1684-1687. Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1998. (Different translation and edition of the same work in the preceding entry.) NRG, RGC, RVS: F 352 .J68 1998
Leon-Portilla, Miguel, ed. The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico. Expanded and updated edition. Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press, 1992. RVS: F 1230 .V5713 1992. (Also, there are copies of the 1966 edition at NRG and RGC.)
Lockhart, James, transl. and ed. We People Here: Nahauatl Accounts of the Conquest of Mexico. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. RGC, RVS: F 1219.73 .W4 1993
Lunenfeld, Marvin, ed. 1492-Discovery, Invasion, Encounter: Sources and Interpretation. (Sources in Modern History Series.) Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath, 1991. RVS: E 101 .A15 1991
Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, Alvar. The Account: Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca’s Relacion. Annotated translation by Martin A. Favata and José A. Fernandez. Houston, Tex.: Arte Publico Press, 1993. (Narrative of Spanish expedition to the Americas in 1527 and jouney in succeeding years to Florida, Texas, and beyond.) PIN: E 125 .N9 A3 1993b
Vargas, Diego de. Letters from the New World: Selected Correspondence of Don Diego de Vargas to His Family, 1615-1706. Edited by John L. Kessell, Rich Hendricks, and Meredith D. Dodge. Albuquerque, N.M.: University of New Mexico Press, 1992. (Covers the period of the reestablishment of Spanish rule in New Mexico following the Pueblo Revolt in the later part of the seventeenth century. First half of the book is a secondary source account of the career of Vargas. There are twenty-two letters in this collection.) RGC: F 799 .V284 1992
Vega, Garcilaso de la. The Florida of the Inca: A History of Adelantado, Hernando de Soto, Governor and Captain General of the Kingdom of Florida, and Other Heroic Spanish and Indian Cavaliers. Translated and edited by Jeanette Johnson Varner. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1980. (Author, an Inca native of Cuzco, Peru, was one of De Soto’s officers.) NRG, RGC: E 125 .S7 V413 1980
Vespucci, Amerigo. Letters from a New World: Amerigo Vespucci’s Discovery of America. New York: Marsilio, 1992. NRG: E 125 .V5 A3 1992
Weddle, Robert S., ed. La Salle, the Mississippi, and the Gulf: Three Primary Documents. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1987. RGC: F 352 .L344 1987
Winship, George Parker, transl. & ed. The Journey of Coronado, 1540-1542. Golden Col.: Fulcrum Publishing, 1990. (Several documents written by participants in the expedition, including Coronado.) RGC: E 125 .V3 C69 1990