Skidmore College
LS 210

Travel Writers & Travel Liars in Latin America: 1500- 1900


Course Home

Schedule
Requirements

Bibliography Background Reading
Required Text/Books

Additional Reading
Travel Narratives

Resources

Professor: Jordana Dym
Email:jdym@skidmore.edu
Phone:580-5272
Office: TLC 326
Office Hours: T, 2-3:15 or by appointment

Bibliography

Columbus Leaving Palos
Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida (Spanish 1863-1923) Oil on canvas, 1910 Gift of Mr. Archer Huntington Museum Collection

The First Voyage of Columbus to India in the year of 1492 Engraving from Collections of Voyages to the East and West Indies 1594 by Theodore de Bry Museum Library Collection

Images courtesy of the Mariners' Museum

 

Background & bibliographic reading

General surveys of Latin American history available at Scribner Library:
Leslie Bethell, ed. Colonial Spanish America and Independent Latin America, or other volumes from the series.
Benjamin Keen. A History of Latin America Volumes I & 2
J. Lockhart & S. Schwartz. Early Latin America
M. Burkholder & L. Johnson, Colonial Latin America
Robert Skidmore, Modern Latin America

What is History? What is a primary source? See Yale University Library Primary Sources Research Page: www.library.yale.edu/ref/err/primsrcs.htm

See also Prof. A. Lauria-Santiago's website with an extensive list of travel works on Mexico & Central America & South America

Cornell's Making of America website has numerous travel accounts that appeared in journals & books from 1815-1926, that can be found by looking under country names and using other useful search words to narrow down findings (mule, adventures, travels, etc.),

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Required Texts

Required Texts:

* June A. Hahner, Women Through Women's Eyes: Latin American Women in 19th Century Travel Accounts
* William L. Herndon, Exploration of the Valley of the Amazon, 1851-1852 (Grove Press 2000)
* Louis A. Perez, Jr, ed., Impressions of Cuba in the Nineteenth Century: The Travel Diary of Joseph J. Dimock (e-library)
* Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation
* John Reed, Insurgent Mexico

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Additional Readings

 

 

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Bibliography of Travel Accounts

Science
Alexander von Humboldt, Personal narrative of travels to the equinoctical regions of the New Continent, during the years of 1799-1804 (7 vol), New York and London: 1966

Alexander von Humboldt and Aimé de Bonpland, Resesarches concerning the institutions and monuments of the ancient inhabitants of America (New York, 1971) (1711)

Edward Cooke, A Voyage to the South Seas and Round the World, perform'd in the years 1708-1711. (1971)

Charles Darwin, Voyage of the Beagle (Amherst, NY, 1999) (originally published as Journal of researches into the geology and natural history of the various countries visited by H.M.S. Beagle: under the command of Captain FitzRoy, R.N., from 1832-1836. (London, 1839)

Robert Fitzroy, Narrative of the surveying voyages of His Majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle…1826-1836 (London, 1939)
----, Darwin en Chile: 1832-1835, viaje de un naturalista aldredor del mundo, ed.

David Yudilevich Levy and Eduardo Castrlo Le-Fort (Santiago de Chile, 1996)

Richard Lee Marks, Three Men of the Beagle, (New York, 1991)
Thomas Vaughan, Voyages of Enlightenment, Malaspina on the Northwest Coast, 1791-1792.

Herbert K Beals, Juan Pérez on the Northwest Coast: Six Documents of His Expeditions in 1774. (Oregon, 1989)
Mexican Antiquities of Palenque and Mitlan, in the Provinces of Chiapa and Oaxaca: The United States Democratic Review, 1:1, 1837, pp. 37-47 URL: http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/moa-cgi?notisid=AGD1642-0001-10

Missionaries

Crawford, Mattie. On mule back through Central America: with the gospel. 2nd ed. Los Angeles: M. Crawford, 1922?.

Birchard, Russell and Margaret Anderson Birchard. Richard Simpson Anderson: pioneer missionary to Central America. Kansas City, Mo.: Beacon Hill Press, 1951.

Marnham, Patrick. So far from God: a journey to Central America. 1st American ed. N.Y.: Viking, 1985.

Comparative Travelers

Tempsky, Gustav Ferdinand von and James Stanislaus Bell. Mitla: a narrative of incidents and personal adventures on a journey in Mexico, Guatemala, and Salvador in the years 1853 to 1855; with observations on the modes of life in those countries. London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, & Roberts, 1858.

Bagot, Arthur Greville, 1849-1915. Sport and travel in India and Central America. London: Chapman & Hall, 1897

Kagle, Steven E., ed. America :exploration and travel Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1979.

Late 19th C/Rise of the "Tourist"

Butterworth, Hezekiah. Lost in Nicaragua; or, Among coffee farms and banana lands, in the countries of the great canal. Boston and Chicago: W.A. Wilde & company, 1898. Nicholas, Francis Child, Across Panama and around the Caribbean. [3d ed.] ed. Boston& New York: H. M. Caldwell company, 1909.

Scherzer, Karl, Ritter von. Travels in the free States of Central America: Nicaragua, Honduras, and San Salvador. [New York]: AMS Press, 1970.

Babson, Roger Ward. A Central American journey. Yonkers-on-Hudson, N. Y.: World book cmpany, 1920.

Davis, Richard Harding. Three gringoes in Venezuela and Central America. (New York, 1904) William Cameron Townsend, , 1896- , [compiled and edited by Hugh Steven]. A thousand trails : the personal journal of William Cameron Townsend, 1917-1919, (White Rock, 1984).

Horation S. Rubens, Liberty, or the Story of Cuba, [New York]: AMS Press, 1970 (1932).

Samuel Haigh, "Bosquejos del Perú, 1825-1827" in Alberto Tauro, ed, Viajeros en el Perú republicano (Liima: Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, 1967)
Travels in La Plata & Chile (1827), review & summary of travels of Captain F. B. Head, North American Review, 24:55, April 1827; URL: http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/moa-cgi?notisid=ABQ7578-0024-30

"German interest in Guatemala." Board of Trade Journal 29 (1900): 163-166.

Women

Flora Tristan, Peregrinations of a Pariah, 1833-1834, trans. Jean Hawkes (1874; reprint, Boston: Beacon Press, 1986) (to Arequipa)

Mrs. Kindersley, Letters from the Islands of Teneriff, Brazil, the Cape of Good Hope and the Indies (London, 1777) (Microfiche. Louisville [Ky.] : Lost Cause Press, 1982. 5 microfiches : negative ; 11 x 15 cm. (Selected Americana from Sabin's Dictionary ... ) Translated into Spanish, 1990 Cartas desde la isla de Tenerife y otros relatos , traduccion, Jose A. Delgado Luis, [La Orotava, Tenerife] : J.A. Delgado Luis, [1990] (original at NYPL)
Callcott, Maria, Lady, 1785-1842., The captain's wife : the South American journals of Maria Graham 1821-23, compiled and edited by Elizabeth Mavor (London : Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1993). 1 NYUG New York University , SUNY Albany

MISCELLANEOUS

Hall, Basil, 1788-1844, Extracts from a journal, written on the coasts of Chili, Peru, and Mexico, in the years 1820, 1821, 1822, (Saddle River, N. J., Gregg Press, 1968)

Walpole, F. (Frederick), 1822-1876, Four years in the Pacific : in Her Majesty's ship "Collingwood," from 1844 to 1848 [microform] / by Lieut. the Hon. Fred. Walpole (London : R. Bentley, 1849) Library of Congress - NRMM

Johnston, Samuel B. (Samuel Burr) Letters written during a residence of three years in Chili [microform] : containing an account of the most remarkable events in the revolutionary struggles of that province : with an interesting account of the loss of a Chilian ship, and brig of war, by mutiny, and the consequent imprisonment and sufferings of several citizens of the United States, for six months, in the dungeons of Callao (Erie, Pa. : R.I. Curtis, 1816.) Microform at NYU, Stanford U. PHYSICAL DETAILS: 205 p. ; 20 cm.

Smith, Edmond Reuel. : The Araucanians : or, Notes of a tour among the Indian tribes of Southern Chili(London : S. Low ; New York : Harper, 1855 ; New York : Kraus Reprint Co., 1971.) SUNY Albany, SUNY Binghamton Brigham, William Tufts.
Guatemala: the land of the quetzal. A facsimile reproduction of the 1887 edition. Introduction by Wilson Popenoe. Gainesville, Fla., Univ. of Florida Press, 1965. 453 p., facsims., illus., maps, plates (Latin American gateway series). Annotation: Concerns a Bostonian's trips through Central America in 1869 and in the 1880's. Describes the geographical features of the area, its population, and its natural resources. First published in 1887.

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