Interpreting a Continent

Voices from Colonial America

Edited by Kathleen DuVal, John DuVal

Publication date:

16 March 2009

Length of book:

312 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

ISBN-13: 9780742551831

This reader provides students with key documents from colonial American history, including new English translations of non-English documents. The documents in this collection take the reader beyond the traditional story of the English colonies. Readers explore the Spanish, French, Dutch, Russian, German, and even Icelandic colonial efforts throughout North America, including California, New Mexico, Texas, the Great Plains, Louisiana, Florida, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New England. Throughout, the collection provides not only the perspectives of Europeans but also of Native Americans and Africans. By looking beyond traditional sources, students see the power and diversity of Native Americans and learn that European domination of the continent was not inevitable. They see different forms of slavery and ways that slaves dealt with their captivity. By considering multiple perspectives, students learn that colonial history was largely the attempts of various peoples to understand strangers and adapt them to their own will.

Section I: Exploration
Chapter 1: Cristóbal Colón a Luis de Santángel
Chapter 2: Greenlanders' Saga, c. 1000
Chapter 3: Christopher Columbus to Luis de Santángel, 1493
Chapter 4: Jacques Cartier's First Voyage, 1534
Chapter 5: Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca's Shipwreck off the Texas Coast, 1528–1536
Chapter 6: Jacques Marquette on Descending the Mississippi River with Louis Joliet, 1673
Chapter 7: Captain James Cook's Third Voyage, 1776–1780
Chapter 8: Osage Creation Account (Black Bear Clan Version), Recorded 1920s
Section II: Interpreting and Instructing New Peoples
Chapter 9: La Relation des Montagnais
Chapter 10: The Requerimiento, 1533 Version
Chapter 11: Pedro de Castañeda de Nájera on the Search for the Seven Cities of Cíbola, 1540
Chapter 12: Rock Painting, Pecos River Valley, Texas, 1500s
Chapter 13: Montagnais Indians on Their First Encounter with the French, Early 1500s
Chapter 14: John Smith on the Powhatans, 1607–1616
Chapter 15: John Eliot's Translation of the Bible into the Massachusett Language, 1663
Chapter 16: Olaudah Equiano on Encountering Europeans, 1740s
Chapter 17: Pontiac's Speech to an Ottawa, Potawatomi, and Huron Audience, 1763
Section III: Founding and Governing
Chapter 18: La Relation de Samuel de Champlain
Chapter 19: Great Law of the Iroquois League, c. 1300s (recorded late 1800s)
Chapter 20: Samuel de Champlain on Founding Quebec, 1608
Chapter 21: John Winthrop on Founding New England, 1630
Chapter 22: Laws for the Province of Pennsylvania, 1682
Chapter 23: Creek Leaders Meet the Trustees of Georgia, 1734
Chapter 24: Father Junípero Serra Writes from San Diego, 1770
Chapter 25: Catherine the Great's Response to a Petition to Establish a Russian Colony, 1788
Section IV: Social and Economic Life
Chapter 26: Método de Gobierno que se Observa en Esta Misión de la Purísima Concepción
Chapter 27: Thomas Campanius Holm's Engraving of New Sweden, 1640s
Chapter 28: Hans Sloane Observes Jamaica, 1687–1689
Chapter 29: Saukamappee on the Coming of Horses, Guns, and Smallpox, 1700s
Chapter 30: Benjamin Franklin Becomes a Printer, 1714–1723
Chapter 31: Eliza Lucas to Mrs. Boddicott, 1740
Chapter 32: Runaway Advertisements, Mid-1700s
Chapter 33: Mary Christina Martin's Case Before the German Society of Pennsylvania, 1772
Chapter 34: Spiritual and Temporal Guidelines for a Texas Mission, Late 1700s
Section V: Slavery
Chapter 35: Los Negros Fugitivos a le Rey de España
Chapter 36: François Froger's Plan of Fort Saint Jacques, Gambia, 1695
Chapter 37: New Netherland Act Emancipating Certain Slaves, 1644
Chapter 38: Virginia Codes Regulating Servitude and Slavery, 1642–1705
Chapter 39: Louisiana's Code Noir, 1724
Chapter 40: Venture Smith's Account of Slavery and Freedom, 1700s
Chapter 41: Afro-Floridians to the Spanish King, 1738
Chapter 42: George Whitefield Admonishes Southern Slaveholders, 1740
Chapter 43: Advertisement for a Slave Sale, Charleston, c. 1770s
Section VI: Women and Colonialism
Chapter 44: La Relation du Père Jacques Gravier
Chapter 45: Anne Bradstreet's Prologue to The Tenth Muse, 1650
Chapter 46: Marie de L'Incarnation to Her Son, 1667
Chapter 47: Deodat Lawson Describes Events at Salem, 1692
Chapter 48: Father Jacques Gravier Describes Indian Conversions at the Illinois Mission, 1694
Chapter 49: María de Jesús de Agreda and Catherine Tekakwitha, 1600s
Chapter 50: Susannah Johnson Recalls Her Captivity, 1754–1757
Chapter 51: Phillis Wheatley's "On Being Brought from Africa to America," 1773
Section VII: Violent Conflict
Chapter 52: Antonio de Otermín a Francisco de Ayeta
Chapter 53: Francisco López de Mendoza Grájales's Account of the Conquest of Florida, 1565
Chapter 54: Henri Joutel's Account of the Murder of La Salle, 1687
Chapter 55: Antonio de Otermín Describes the Pueblo Revolt, 1680
Chapter 56: Antoine Simon Le Page Du Pratz Describes French Conflict with the Natchez, 1729
Chapter 57: George Washington Recalls His Defeats at Fort Duquesne, 1754–1755
Chapter 58: Louis-Antoine de Bougainville's Journal of the Seven Years' War, 1756
Chapter 59: Ohio Indians Talk to the British, 1764

Interpreting a Continent unleashes a delightful cacophony of voices from colonial North Americans. From rock paintings to Norse sagas, from New France to Spanish Florida, from familiar men like Benjamin Franklin to obscure women like Mary Christina Martin, these source materials—many of them in translations far superior to those previously available—convey the rich textures of a world in which English-speakers were not yet the dominant group and in which no one yet imagined a nation called the United States. No other collection conveys a better appreciation of the complicated mix of peoples and cultures that jostled for power in the colonial world.