Case 1: Central America Under Spanish Rule (1492-1821)
The Latin American Library houses a large number of rare and first edition books from the Colonial and National periods of Central America in its Rare Books Collection.
Case 1, a physical exhibit at The Latin American Library.
Contents
The texts and images below highlight the materials exhibited in Case 1 shown above.
Arte de la lengua del reyno Cakchiquel, o Guatemalico, 1758
Ildefonso José Flores (- 1772)
Arte de la lengua del reyno Cakchiquel, o Guatemalico.
Guatemala: Sebastián de Ayebalo, 1758
A notable strength of the Latin American Library is its unique holdings related to indigenous cultures and languages of the region, particularly of Mesoamerica. Flores’ Arte is the grammar of the Cakchiquel language, also known as “la lengua de Guatemala.” Copies of this work are very rare, to the point where its existence was doubted until French ethnographer Etienne Brasseur de Bourbourg located one in the mid-1800s. To date, only nine other holdings are recorded worldwide.
Gazeta de Guatemala, 1779-1807
Gazeta de Guatemala
1779-1807, weekly
One of Spanish America’s most important early newspapers, the Gazeta de Guatemala, provided a public forum, under the tutelage of Central American elites, where lettered society engaged in discussions of local and regional interest such as literature, the arts, items of scientific import, politics, while also broadcasting news from Europe and the other colonies, including the United States. An issue from 1801, discussing the state of the arts in the colony.
Breve descripción de la noble ciudad de Santiago de Los Caballeros de Guatemala…,1774
Felipe Cadena (1745 – 1806)
Breve descripción de la noble ciudad de Santiago de Los Caballeros de Guatemala, y puntual noticia de su lamentable ruina causada un terremoto el día veinte y nueve de julio de mil setecientos setenta y tres.
Mexico: Comunidad de Santo Domingo, 1774
At 3:50 in the afternoon on July 29, 1773 the old capital of Guatemala, Santiago de
los Caballeros, was destroyed by a 7.5 magnitude earthquake of such devastation that the capital was moved to its present location in Guatemala City, leaving behind the rubble of La (Capital) Antigua, the Old Capital. Cadena’s gripping eyewitness account provides a haunting description of the catastrophe, beginning with the moment of impact.
A New Survey of the West Indias Or, The English American His Travail by Sea and Land (2nd edition)., 1655
Nouvelle relation, content les voyages de Thomas Cage dans la Nouvelle Espagne…, 1720
Thomas Gage (1603 – 1656)
A New Survey of the West Indias Or, The English American His Travail by Sea and Land (2nd edition).
London: E. Cotes and John Sweeting, 1655
Nouvelle relation, content les voyages de Thomas Cage dans la Nouvelle Espagne, ses diverses avantures, et son retour par la Province de Nicaragua.
Amsterdam: Chez Paul Marret, 1720
An early classic of Central American travel literature. Thomas Gage was an English Dominican friar who migrated to Spain, and then traveled through Mexico and Guatemala from 1625 to 1687. On his return, he published his observations on the Spanish Empire specifically as an invitation to England to invade the region based on its purportedly superior morality. His work, first published in 1648 and then enlarged through several different editions and translated into various languages, is highly biased against Spain, particularly against the clergy. Nonetheless, Gage provides a fascinating account of late colonial life in Central America. A second expanded English edition from 1655, and a scene from a later French edition depicting Guatemalans casually going about their daily lives, as an active volcano spews forth lava in the background.