A Guide To The Manuscript Collections Manuscripts Relating Chiefly To Mexico And Central America

V.1: Pacific and Western manuscripts (except California).

In 1579 Philip II awarded a large territory in New Spain to a Portuguese man named Luis de Carvajal. That territory included a significant portion of present day Mexico, as well as portions of Texas and New Mexico. This remarkable man discovered, conquered, and settled most of that territory. He also brought a large group of settlers from Spain and Portugal whose impact on its cultural development was very significant. Many of those settlers were of Jewish descent and some of them were tried by the Inquisition for practicing the faith of their ancestors. This book is a biography of Carvajal and is based on documents that were written during his life or soon after his death. The narrative follows him from birth to death and describes the actions he took to give rise to Nuevo Reino de Le n. These included explorations and discoveries; battles with free Indians; pacifications of Indian uprisings; and legal fights with Crown officials who were determined to eliminate him and to end his government. In the end his enemies defeated him with the help of the Inquisition, but the political entity he gave rise to did not die with him. Samuel Temkin is Professor Emeritus, Rutgers University. He received a PhD in Engineering from Brown University and has been a visiting professor in Chile, Germany, Israel, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Spain. Professor Temkin is the author of "Elements of Acoustics and Suspension Acoustics: An Introduction to the Physics of Suspensions" as well as numerous research articles on Acoustics and Fluid Dynamics, and of many research articles, on the topic of this book. Dr. Temkin was born in Mexico City and was raised in Monterrey, Mexico, the capital city of what once was Nuevo Reino de Le n.

First published in 1981, Harry W. Crosby’s Last of the Californios captured the history of the mountain people of Baja California during a critical moment of transition, when the 1974 completion of the transpeninsular highway increased the Californios’ contact with the outside world and profoundly affected their traditional way of life. This updated and expanded version of that now-classic work incorporates the fruits of further investigation into the Californios’ lives and history, by Crosby and others. The result is the most thorough and extensive account of the people of Baja California from the time of the peninsula’s occupation by the Spaniards in the seventeenth century to the present. Californio Portraits combines history and sociology to provide an in-depth view of a culture that has managed to survive dramatic changes. Having ridden hundreds of miles by mule to visit with various Californio families and gain their confidence, Crosby provides an unparalleled view of their unique lifestyle. Beginning with the story of the first Californios—the eighteenth-century presidio soldiers who accompanied Jesuit missionaries, followed by miners and independent ranchers—Crosby provides personal accounts of their modern-day descendants and the ways they build their homes, prepare their food, find their water, and tan their cowhides. Augmenting his previous work with significant new sources, material, and photographs, he draws a richly textured portrait of a people unlike any other—families cultivating skills from an earlier century, living in semi-isolation for decades and, even after completion of the transpeninsular highway, reachable only by mule and horseback. Combining a revised and updated text with a new foreword, introduction, and updated bibliography, Californio Portraits offers the clearest and most detailed portrait possible of a fascinating, unique, and inaccessible people and culture.

Includes sections "Reviews of books" and "Abstracts of archive publications (Western and Eastern Europe)."

In two decades of traveling throughout Mexico, Central America, and Europe, French priest Charles Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg (1814–1874) amassed hundreds of indigenous manuscripts and printed books, including grammars and vocabularies that brought to light languages and cultures little known at the time. Although his efforts yielded many of the foundational texts of Mesoamerican studies—the pre-Columbian Codex Troana, the only known copies of the Popol Vuh and the indigenous dance drama Rabinal-Achi, and Diego De Landa’s Relación de la cosas de Yucatán—Brasseur earned disdain among scholars for his theories linking Maya writings to the mythical continent of Atlantis. In The Manuscript Hunter, translator Katia Sainson reasserts his standing as the founder of modern Maya studies, presenting three of his travel writings in English for the first time. While civil wars raged throughout Mexico and Central America and foreign interests sought access to the region’s rich resources, Brasseur focused on uncovering Mesoamerica’s mysterious past by examining its ancient manuscripts and living oral traditions. His “Notes from a Voyage in Central America,” “From Guatemala City to Rabinal,” and Voyage across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec document his travels in search of these texts and traditions. Brasseur’s writings weave vivid geographical descriptions of Central America and Mexico during the mid-1800s with keen social and political analysis, all steeped in vast knowledge of the region’s history and interest in its indigenous cultures. Coupled with Sainson’s thoughtful introduction and annotations, these captivating, accessible accounts reveal Brasseur de Bourbourg’s true accomplishments and offer an unrivaled view of the birth of Mesoamerican studies in the nineteenth century. Brasseur’s writings not only depict Central America and Mexico through the eyes of a European traveler at a key moment, but also illuminate the remarkable efforts of one man to understand and preserve Mesoamerica’s cultural traditions for all time.