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American Passages: A Literary Survey

Exploring Borderlands – Timeline

1490s

1492

Columbus sails from Spain for the New World, arrives in the Bahamas and claims the land for Spain

Jews expelled from Spain by order of Ferdinand and Isabella

Publication of the first Spanish Grammar, Gramática de la Lengua Castellana, by Antonio Nebrija

1493

Christopher Columbus, “Letter to Luis de Santangel Regarding the First Voyage”

1494

New World divided between Spain and Portugal by the Treaty of Tordesillas

1498

Bartolomé de las Casas sails with Columbus on his third voyage to America after receiving a law degree from the University of Salamanca

1500s

1507

Martin Waldseemüller coins the name “America” on a map of the New World

1510s

1516

Bartolomé de las Casas named “Protectorate to the Indians” after returning to Spain to petition the Crown for humane treatment of Native Americans

1519-21

Spanish-Aztec wars; Cortés conquers the Aztecs in Mexico

1520s

c. 1521-40?

Codex Boturini

1524

Explorer Giovanni da Verrazano is first European to enter New York Harbor

1526

Spanish explorers import first Africans as slaves to America, South Carolina

1530s

1531

Huejotzingo Codex

La Virgen de Guadalupe appears to Juan Diego, an Incan Indian who had recently converted to Catholicism

1540s

1542

Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, The Relation of Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca

1550s

c. 1550

Diego Muñoz de Camargo transcribes the Lienzo de Tlaxcala

1550-51

Bartolomé de las Casas debates with Juan Gines de Sepulveda; Casas argues that the Spanish conqests in the New World are unjust and inhumane

1552

Bartolomé de las Casas, “The Very Brief Relation of the Devastation of the Indies”

1560s

c. 1568

Bernal Díaz del Castillo begins his three-volume work The True History of the Conquest of New Spain (published in 1632)

1570s

1577

Fray Bernardino de Sahagún completes the Florentine Codex

1580s

1584

Sir Walter Raleigh and his English expedition reach “an island” and name it “Virginia” in honor of Queen Elizabeth

1587

John White named governor of colony at Roanoke Island, founded by Walter Raleigh

[2877] Mercator, Orbis Terrae Compendios Descripto (1587),
courtesy of the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library/University of Georgia Libraries.
Gerard Mercator was the most famous mapmaker after Ptolemy. His “Mercator Projection,” while no longer considered good for global viewing, is still useful for navigation.

1588

Thomas Harriot, A Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia

1590s

1590-96

Theodor de Bry’s Grand Voyages (six volumes)

1600s

1603

Samuel de Champlain makes his first voyage from France to Eastern Canada

1605

Garcilaso de la Vega, The Florida of the Inca

1607

Jamestown colony established in Virginia

1608

Champlain founds Québec, to become the French capital in North America

1610s

1613

Samuel de Champlain, The Voyages of Sieur de Champlain

[2846] Samuel de Champlain, Illustration from Les Voyages du Sieur de Champlain Capitaine Ordinaire pour Le Roy en la Nouvelle France es Années 1615 et 1618 (1619),
courtesy of the Robert Dechert Collection, Annenberg Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Pennsylvania.

1620s

1624

John Smith, The General History of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles

First Dutch settlers arrive in New Netherland

1640s

c. 1645

Adriaen Van der Donck, A Description of New Netherland

1648

First publication of the story of the legend of La Virgen de Guadalupe

1763

French cede Canada and claims to Indian lands east of Mississippi River to British

1890s

1890

Lienzo de Tlaxcala

1890-1900

Chicanos forced from their lands due to settlers arriving in Southwest to mine and develop land

1895-1902

Spanish-American War

1940s

1940

Americo Paredes, George Washington Gomez: A Mexicotexan Novel (published in 1991)

1941

The Fair Employment Practices Act helps eliminate discrimination in employment

1943

“Zoot Suit” riots take place in southern California

1980s

1986

The Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) creates a means through which some undocumented workers can become legal

1987

Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza

70 percent of Hispanic female-headed households have children living in poverty

[6708] Judith F. Baca, Pieces of Stardust (1992),
courtesy of the Social and Public Art Resource Center.
Baca is an acclaimed muralist whose work is based on the belief that art can be a forum for social dialogue.

Units