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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.
