Radisson remembers captivity, kinship and the search for patronsPierre-Esprit Radisson; surviving English narrative, edited by G. D. Scull · c. 1669
II · The Shot and the Peace 1609–1652
Les Voyages du sieur de Champlain: the battle with the Iroquois at Lake ChamplainSamuel de Champlain · 1613
Champlain proposes one people; the Innu replyPaul Le Jeune, reporting Champlain and an Innu delegation through participants' accounts · Quebec, May 1633
Relation of what occurred in New France in the year 1634: Le Jeune's winter with the MontagnaisFather Paul Le Jeune, Jesuit superior at Quebec · 1634
Kiotsaeton's collars and the public peace at Trois-RivièresBarthélemy Vimont, recording Kiotsaeton through an interpreter · Trois-Rivières, 12–14 July 1645
The private proposition behind the public peaceJérôme Lalemant, reporting Governor Montmagny's account of the previous summer's conferences · Summer 1645, recalled in January 1646
IV · As Long As We Have Beavers 1653–1659
Conditional freedom for eleven Company men and their wivesWillem Kieft and the Council of New Netherland; translated by E. B. O'Callaghan · 25 February 1644
Mohawk propositions on brotherhood and the beaver tradeMohawk envoys, as summarized by the Dutch court clerk; translated by A. J. F. van Laer · 6 September 1659
V · The King's Share New France 1659–1673 · New Spain 1600–1660
The Montreal fur fleet, August 1660Journal des Jésuites, as cited by J.-B.-A. Ferland · August 1660
Isabel de Olvera petitions for proof of freedomIsabel de Olvera, recorded before alcalde mayor Pedro Lorenzo de Castilla by notary Baltasar Martínez; English translation in Hammond and Rey · 8 January 1600
Labor, tribute and missions in the Salinas pueblosJames E. Ivey, National Park Service · New Mexico · seventeenth century
Memorial of Fray Alonso de Benavides to Philip IVFray Alonso de Benavides, Franciscan custodian of New Mexico · 1630
VI · Fences 1607–1665
Reasons to be Considered for Justifying the Undertakers of the Intended Plantation in New EnglandJohn Winthrop · 1629
Passage in exchange for a term of serviceNational Park Service
Miantonomi's appeal on Long Island, as Lion Gardiner later reported itWords attributed to Miantonomi in Lion Gardiner's narrative · 1642 · retrospective account
New France’s corrected November 1681 censusCensus of Canada compilers, using the colonial enumeration · November 1681
Estimated population of the American colonies: 1610 to 1780 (Series Z 1–19)Stella H. Sutherland; U.S. Bureau of the Census · 1680
VII · Lords and Proprietors 1665–1692 · coda 1710
Tracy’s army destroys Mohawk towns and stored harvestsFrançois Le Mercier, Jesuit superior, reporting the French expedition · Autumn 1666
Royal charter of the Hudson's Bay CompanyCharles II, English Crown · May 2, 1670
Early Hudson’s Bay trade depends on Native customers and rival offersThomas Gorst’s journal as transmitted through John Oldmixon and quoted by G. D. Scull · Early Company trade · 1670s
Fray Juan Bernal reports the condition of New Mexico to the Holy OfficeFray Juan Bernal; English translation in Charles Wilson Hackett, ed. · April 1, 1669
Radisson’s later changes of service and deathLibrary and Archives Canada; Dictionary of Canadian Biography
Exam Room only
Petition of Francisco Vázquez de Coronado to the viceroy for a larger repartimientoFrancisco Vázquez de Coronado (petition summarized by a Spanish clerk) · c. 1547
Intendant Duchesneau to the Minister, on the coureurs de bois and the censusJacques Duchesneau, intendant of New France · November 13, 1680
Relation of what occurred in the Mission of the Hurons, June 1639 to June 1640Father Jérôme Lalemant, Jesuit superior of the Huron mission · 1640
Freedoms and Exemptions for the patroons of New NetherlandThe Dutch West India Company, Chamber of Amsterdam · 1629
Letter of John Pory on the wealth of VirginiaJohn Pory, secretary of the Virginia colony · September 30, 1619
Background
Deffaite des Yroquois au Lac de Champlain (Defeat of the Iroquois at Lake Champlain)Samuel de Champlain (sketch); probably engraved by David Pelletier · 1613
Sentence of Don Juan de Oñate on the prisoners of AcomaJuan de Oñate, governor of New Mexico · February 12, 1599
Casta painting series attributed to Juan Rodríguez JuárezJuan Rodríguez Juárez (attributed) · c. 1715
The Genízaro Pueblo of AbiquiúRussel Albert Daniels · Summer 2020
New Voyages to North-America: how Montreal's trade opened with a council and giftsLouis-Armand de Lom d'Arce, Baron de Lahontan · 1703
On Hudson's Voyage, by Emanuel van MeterenEmanuel van Meteren, Dutch merchant and historian in London · 1610
The Third Voyage of Master Henry Hudson: the journal of Robert JuetRobert Juet, mate of the Half Moon · September 19–22, 1609
Instructions to Bastiaen Jansz Krol for buying land for RensselaerswyckInstructions issued in Amsterdam for the patroon Kiliaen van Rensselaer · January 12, 1630
Letter of Pieter Schaghen to the States General on the ship Arms of AmsterdamPieter Schaghen, Dutch deputy to the States General · November 5, 1626
History of New Netherland; or, New York under the Dutch, vol. 1Edmund Bailey O'Callaghan · 1846
Novum Belgium: description of New NetherlandFather Isaac Jogues, Jesuit missionary · 1646
The Castello Plan: New Amsterdam in 1660Jacques Cortelyou (1660 survey); copy attributed to Johannes Vingboons · 1660 survey
The Dutch West India Company directors to Governor Stuyvesant on Jews in New NetherlandDirectors of the Dutch West India Company, Chamber of Amsterdam · April 26, 1655
The Planters PleaJohn White, minister of Dorchester · 1630
The council records mercy for Manuel de Gerrit de ReusDirector and Council of New Netherland; English translation by A. J. F. van Laer · January 24, 1641
Marie de l'Incarnation on making Indigenous pupils FrenchMarie de l'Incarnation, writing to her son Claude · 1 September 1668
Clemente's certification in the Aguilar Inquisition caseDon Esteban Clemente; copied and authenticated in the colonial record · 30 November 1660
The private proposition behind the public peaceJérôme Lalemant, reporting Governor Montmagny's account of the previous summer's conferences · Summer 1645, recalled in January 1646
Isaac Jogues to André Castillon before returning to Mohawk countryIsaac Jogues · September 12, 1646
Renewed warfare after the1645peaceEditorial chronology from scholarly and public-history sources · 1646–1649
Pueblo places in the Salinas regionNational Park Service · accessed 4 October 2026
The road from Querétaro to the Pueblo worldNational Park Service · accessed 4 October 2026
Three river posts and royal governmentCanadian Museum of History · accessed 4 October 2026
Algonquian peoples and English settlements around the ChesapeakeNational Park Service · accessed 4 October 2026
Native homelands around Massachusetts Bay and southern New EnglandMassachusett Tribe at Ponkapoag; Mohegan Tribe; National Park Service · accessed 4 October 2026
Hudson Bay drainage and Cree homelandsCommission for Environmental Cooperation; Archives of Manitoba; Parks Canada · accessed 4 October 2026
Shee inquired [of] mee whether I was Asserony, a french. I answering no, saying I was Panugaga, that is, of their nation, for which shee was pleased. … He offred me to buy me from them att what prise so ever, or else should save me, which I accepted not, for severall reasons.
[…]
I learned more of their maners in 6 weeks then if I had bin in ffrance 6 months. … Brother, cheare up, lett us escape, the 3 rivers are not a farre off. … I was sorry for to have ben in such an incounter, but too late to repent. … You senselesse, thou was my son, and thou rendered thyselfe enemy, and thou rendered thyself enemy, thou lovest not thy mother, nor thy father that gave thee thy life, and thou notwithstanding will kill me. Bee merry; Conharrassan, give him to eate. … wher we weare very well received, or rather our Castors, every one courting us … He offred me to buy me from them att what prise so ever, or else should save me, which I accepted not, for severall reasons. The one was for not to be behoulding to them, and the other being loathsome to leave such kind of good people. For then I began to love my new parents that weare so good & so favourable to me. The 3d reason was to watch a better opportunity for to retyre to the french rather then make that long circuit … My poore sisters cryed out & lamented through the town of the flemings, as I was tould they called me by my name
[…]
We weare Cesars, being nobody to contradict us.
[…]
For then I began to love my new parents that weare so good & so favourable to me.
Those of new England in generall made profers unto us of what ship wee would if wee would goe on in our Designes; but wee answered them that a scalded cat fears the water though it be cold.
wee arrived in England in a very bad time for the Plague and the warrs.
[…]
A towne faire enough for a new country.
Performance policy: spoken passages retain the previously disclosed modernized spelling. The father’s repeated “and thou rendered thyself enemy” and opening rebuke are omitted from the expanded spoken excerpt; the full transcription above keeps them. The family speech is in the retrospective memoir. The commander’s two alternatives and one-word family exchanges are explicitly staged, not verbatim direct speech.
Performed selections with omissions marked (original spelling retained here):
Father, First Voyage: […] thou was my son, and thou rendered thyselfe enemy, […] thou lovest not thy mother, nor thy father that gave thee thy life, and thou notwithstanding will kill me. Bee merry; Conharrassan, give him to eate.
The first omission removes “You senselesse,” and the second removes the repeated “and thou rendered thyself enemy,”. The unabridged wording is preserved above. The two performed lines are consecutive clauses in Radisson's remembered speech, not a transcript in the father's language.
Western voyage, Fourth Voyage: […] we knewed what we weare, Discoverers before governors. […] We weare Cesars, being nobody to contradict us. […] no castors, no ship, […] leave to put our coat of armes upon it, […] Was not he a Tyrant to deal so with us, after wee had so hazarded our lives, […] From whence doe you come? For wee never saw the like. […]
New Amsterdam, First Voyage: […] a towne faire enough for a new country, […]
These are separate selected passages. “No castors, no ship” is Radisson's retrospective summary of the governor's excuse, not the governor's recorded speech or Radisson's direct reply to a merchant. The omitted continuation of the grievance contains Radisson's financial claims; we do not audit or perform those amounts. The shorter town description ends before the onward voyage. Performance modernizes spelling (for example weare/were, armes/arms, towne/town), expands numerals and ampersands, capitalizes fragment openings and supplies sentence punctuation. The source drawer preserves the original forms and marks internal omissions; modernization does not certify the remembered dialogue as unmediated testimony.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Radisson recalls captivity and adoption in 1652–1653, western trading journeys and later efforts to secure English patronage. His surviving narrative was written years after these events; the reported dialogue is mediated by his memory.
Intended audience
English patrons and prospective backers of his ventures.
Purpose
To tell his extraordinary experiences and establish his knowledge, endurance and usefulness as an intermediary.
Point of view
A French captive and trader describing his own choices retrospectively. His parents' and fellow captive's words reach us through him; he explicitly learned of his sisters' search from others.
Pierre-Esprit Radisson, Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson, ed. Gideon D. Scull (Boston: Prince Society, 1885), first voyage, p. 40 and pp. 79–80; electronic transcription, Project Gutenberg 6913. Ellipsis separates passages. Pierre-Esprit Radisson, Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson, ed. G. D. Scull (Boston: Prince Society, 1885), First Voyage: adoption and naming, p. 40; refusal and flight, pp. 79–84; escape and family speeches in the same voyage. Project Gutenberg ebook 6913 reproduces the English text. Pierre-Esprit Radisson, Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson, ed. Gideon D. Scull (Boston: Prince Society, 1885), Fourth Voyage, including p. 198 and paragraphs beginning During that time we made our proposition and The Governour, seeing us come back. Project Gutenberg ebook 6913. Pierre-Esprit Radisson, Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson, ed. Gideon D. Scull (Boston: Prince Society, 1885), first voyage, p. 80, and fourth voyage, p. 244, concluding New England/England paragraphs. Project Gutenberg 6913 supplies the transcription with expanded abbreviations.
Les Voyages du sieur de Champlain: the battle with the Iroquois at Lake Champlain
Samuel de Champlain · 1613
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
On screen: II · The Shot and the Peace
English translation (1925 edition)
I marched on until I was within some thirty yards of the enemy, who as soon as they caught sight of me halted and gazed at me and I at them. When I saw them make a move to draw their bows upon us, I took aim with my arquebus and shot straight at one of the three chiefs, and with this shot two fell to the ground and one of their companions was wounded who died thereof a little later. I had put four bullets into my arquebus. As soon as our people saw this shot so favourable for them, they began to shout so loudly that one could not have heard it thunder … (Earlier, on the winter of 1608–09 at Quebec:) Of our company now only eight of the twenty-eight remained and half of these were ailing.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Published in Paris in 1613, four years after a July 1609 skirmish on Lake Champlain, when Champlain went with about sixty Algonquin, Montagnais and Huron allies against a Mohawk war party. The events are his own account; no written Mohawk account of that day survives.
Intended audience
Readers in France: the king's court, merchants and investors, and possible backers of a colony on the St. Lawrence.
Purpose
To show that the colony was worth funding: a brave commander, useful Native allies and a route into the interior. It is also a promotion of Champlain himself.
Point of view
A French explorer and soldier describing his own part in a battle. He was one of three Frenchmen present and wrote only what he saw and wanted known.
Samuel de Champlain, Les Voyages du sieur de Champlain Xaintongeois (Paris, 1613); English translation in H. P. Biggar, ed., The Works of Samuel de Champlain, vol. 2 (Toronto: The Champlain Society, 1925), p. 99; winter of 1608–09 on p. 63.
The conclusion was that sieur de Champlain said to them: ‘When that great house shall be built, then our young men will marry your daughters, and we shall be one people.’ They began to laugh, answering: ‘Thou always sayest something cheering to rejoice us. If that should happen, we would be very happy.’
Sourcing
Historical situation
After Champlain's return to Quebec in 1633, a discussion of alliance includes a proposed great house and future marriages. The marriage proposal is conditional on the house being built.
Intended audience
The Jesuit superior and readers and supporters of the annual Relations in France.
Purpose
To report missionary and colonial prospects and demonstrate the intelligence of Indigenous interlocutors.
Point of view
Le Jeune was not present and reports what participants told him. The reply is collective. We assign its performance to the unnamed captain's cast voice; the English is Thwaites's edition, not a direct English transcript.
Paul Le Jeune, Relation of 1633, in Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, vol. V (Cleveland: Burrows Brothers, 1897), p. 211, with the audience beginning at pp. 203–205. Quotation marks normalized; wording unchanged.
The Savages say that it is the animal well-beloved by the French, English and Basques, — in a word, by the Europeans. I heard my host say one day, jokingly, Missi picoutau amiscou, “The Beaver does everything perfectly well, it makes kettles, hatchets, swords, knives, bread; and, in short, it makes everything.” He was making sport of us Europeans, who have such a fondness for this animal … (Elsewhere in the same winter, he showed Le Jeune a very beautiful knife and said:) “The English have no sense; they give us twenty knives like this for one Beaver skin.”
Sourcing
Historical situation
Le Jeune lived the winter of 1633–34 with a band of Montagnais (Innu) hunters near Quebec, then wrote the Relation of 1634 in Quebec and sent it to France.
Intended audience
The Jesuit superior in Paris and the French readers, donors and officials who read the yearly Jesuit Relations.
Purpose
To report on the mission and its costs, to show Native people as ready for conversion, and to keep French support for the colony.
Point of view
A French priest who recorded his Native host's joke in French. The speaker's tone and exact words passed through Le Jeune, who did not yet speak the language well.
Paul Le Jeune, Relation of 1634, in Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, vol. 6 (Cleveland: Burrows Brothers, 1897), pp. 297–299.
Kiotsaeton's collars and the public peace at Trois-Rivières
Barthélemy Vimont, recording Kiotsaeton through an interpreter · Trois-Rivières, 12–14 July 1645
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
On screen: II · The Shot and the Peace
Onontio, lend me ear. I am the mouth for the whole of my country; thou listenest to all the Iroquois, in hearing my words. … The tenth was given to bind us all very closely together. He took hold of a Frenchman, placed his arm within his, and with his other arm he clasped that of an Alguonquin. Having thus joined himself to them, ‘Here,’ he said, ‘is the knot that binds us inseparably; nothing can part us.’ … Adieu my brothers; I am one of your relatives. I am going to carry back good news to our country.
[…]
Onontio, lend me ear. I am the mouth for the whole of my country; thou listenest to all the Iroquois, in hearing my words.
[…]
It is this Collar that brings you back this prisoner.
[…]
Here is something to make it smooth as ice, to appease the winds, and to allay the anger of the waves.
[…]
Here is the knot that binds us inseparably; nothing can part us.
[…]
On condition that they should commit no act of hostility against the Hurons, or against the other Nations who are our allies, until the chiefs of those Nations who were not present had treated with them.
[…]
I gathered only some disconnected fragments, taken from the mouth of the interpreter who spoke only in a desultory manner and did not follow the order observed by the Barbarian.
Sourcing
Historical situation
A Mohawk delegation negotiates at Trois-Rivières. Kiotsaeton presents collars on 12 July; the public peace proclaimed on 14 July includes the French allies. The later private conferences are a different source and occasion.
Intended audience
French readers, Jesuit superiors and supporters of the colony and missions.
Purpose
To describe and commend a public peace that could protect the colony, its allies, trade and missions.
Point of view
Vimont acknowledges gathering disconnected fragments from an interpreter. The English is the nineteenth-century edition's translation. The Frenchman and Algonquin in the tenth-collar gesture are unnamed; neither is identified as the governor.
Barthélemy Vimont, Relation of 1644–45, in Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, vol. XXVII (Cleveland: Burrows Brothers, 1898), pp. 251–253 (seating and opening), p. 261 (tenth collar), p. 265 (mediation), pp. 267–269 (public terms), pp. 271–273 (departure). Ellipsis separates passages; quotation marks normalized. Council scene excerpts also include the returned prisoner (p.255), smooth waters (p.259), interpreter limitations (p.265) and public alliance condition (p.267). Ellipses separate excerpts.
Jérôme Lalemant, reporting Governor Montmagny's account of the previous summer's conferences · Summer 1645, recalled in January 1646
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
On screen: II · The Shot and the Peace
English translation
This man thought that a considerable present should be made to Monsieur the Governor, that, if he desired peace for both himself and the Hurons, he should abandon the Algonquins without shelter. When Onontio was informed of this, he would not even look at any such present, nor would he suffer it to be delivered; and he said that the thing was impossible. … Monsieur the Governor said that there were two kinds of Algonquins, — one like ourselves, recognized as Christians; the other, unlike us. Without the former, it is certain, we do not make a peace; as for the latter, they themselves are the masters of their own actions, nor are they united with us like the others.
Sourcing
Historical situation
In January 1646, reports of an agreement at Algonquin expense prompt the governor to explain two private conferences during the previous summer. The journal names the envoy le Crochet and Couture as the other participants.
Intended audience
Jesuit colleagues keeping an internal record, rather than the wider audience of the printed Relation.
Purpose
To record a politically sensitive negotiation and explain the rumors surrounding it.
Point of view
The journal reports Montmagny's explanation; its Latin passage is translated in the edition's note 16. Identification of le Crochet with Kiotsaeton is an inference. Initial refusal is followed by a qualification concerning Christian and other Algonquins; neither the public ceremony nor the later painted-face retort is this meeting.
Jérôme Lalemant, Journal des PP. Jésuites, January 1646, in Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, vol. XXVIII (Cleveland: Burrows Brothers, 1898), pp. 148–151, Latin passage; English translation in note 16, pp. 314–315. Ellipsis separates the first refusal from the account of a second conference.
Conditional freedom for eleven Company men and their wives
Willem Kieft and the Council of New Netherland; translated by E. B. O'Callaghan · 25 February 1644
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
On screen: IV · As Long As We Have Beavers
English translation by E. B. O'Callaghan, 1868
We the Director and Council do release, for the term of their natural lives, the above named and their Wives from Slavery, hereby setting them free and at liberty, on the same footing as other Free people here in New Netherland … thirty skepels of Maize, or Wheat, Pease or Beans, and one Fat hog, valued at twenty guilders … on pain, if any one of them shall fail to pay the yearly tribute, he shall forfeit his freedom and return back into the said Company's slavery. With express condition, that their children at present born or yet to be born, shall be bound and obligated to serve the Hon’ble West India Company as Slaves; Likewise that the abovenamed men shall be obliged to serve the Hon’ble West India Company here, by water or on land, where their services are required, on receiving fair wages from the Company.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Eleven named enslaved Company men petitioned after long service, citing promised freedom and the need to support wives and children. On 25 February 1644 the council granted conditional freedom to the men and their wives.
Intended audience
The petitioners and colonial officials enforcing the grant and its annual obligations.
Purpose
To grant release and farming rights while retaining annual dues, a claim to the men's paid service and the enslavement of their children.
Point of view
Company officials define the terms of freedom. The text records the men's petition through the council's legal language; it supplies no verbatim speeches by petitioners or wives.
E. B. O'Callaghan, trans., Laws and Ordinances of New Netherland, 1638–1674 (Albany: Weed, Parsons and Company, 1868), pp. 36–37, grant dated 25 February 1644. Compare Van Laer's translation reproduced by the New York State Archives Partnership Trust.
They say, we have been here before and made an alliance. The Dutch, indeed, say we are brothers and are joined together with chains, but that lasts only as long as we have beavers. After that we are no longer thought of, but much will depend upon it when we shall need each other. They thereupon give two beavers.
Performance divides the sentence at “But” and supplies punctuation; the lexical wording is unchanged. The proposition survives through a Dutch clerk and translation, not an audio transcript.
The excerpt omits the opening alliance reminder and the continuation after “thought of”; the complete proposition above preserves both. The performance is the nation’s proposition through the clerk, voiced by an unnamed representative.
Sourcing
Historical situation
At an extraordinary joint session at Fort Orange, Mohawk envoys raised alliance, trade, alcohol and military assistance amid concern about French enemies.
Intended audience
The Dutch officials and former magistrates assembled at Fort Orange.
Purpose
To insist that an alliance required reciprocal assistance beyond transactions for pelts.
Point of view
Mohawk diplomacy reaches us through a Dutch clerk's summary and a later English translation. We use an unnamed representative speaker and quote the record, not an original-language transcript.
A. J. F. van Laer, trans. and ed., Minutes of the Court of Fort Orange and Beverwyck, vol. II, 1657–1660 (Albany: University of the State of New York, 1923), pp. 211–212, extraordinary session of 6 September 1659, proposition 3.
Journal report through a later historian · narrated summary
The Montreal fur fleet, August 1660
Journal des Jésuites, as cited by J.-B.-A. Ferland · August 1660
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
On screen: V · The King's Share
Sixty canoes and about three hundred Native traders reach Montreal with furs; Groseilliers is among them.
Sourcing
Historical situation
A fur fleet reaches Montreal while the bishop is visiting in August 1660.
Intended audience
The journal’s institutional readers and later readers of Ferland’s history.
Purpose
Record the arrival and the colony’s dependence on Native trade.
Point of view
A French institutional report transmitted through a later historian. The traders are participants in their own networks; their number is not Radisson’s later financial boast.
J.-B.-A. Ferland, Cours d’histoire du Canada, citing the Journal des Jésuites for the bishop’s August 1660 visit to Montreal. Internet Archive microfiche cihm_44500. The audit retains the source supplement’s approximate three-hundred qualification. The exact August day and an independently opened journal folio are not claimed. Radisson’s presence is supported by his voyage narrative; its larger financial boast is not used as an audited fleet figure.
Isabel de Olvera, recorded before alcalde mayor Pedro Lorenzo de Castilla by notary Baltasar Martínez; English translation in Hammond and Rey · 8 January 1600
[Performed selection retained from the locked script; omissions marked:]
I […] have reason to fear that I may be annoyed by some individual since I am a mulatto […] I demand justice.
[Editorial context and edition check:]
The performed extract omits intervening affidavit language and supplies sentence punctuation. Olvera asks for legal protection before traveling north, referring to her African and Indigenous ancestry using the historical term retained in the excerpt. She states that she is free; we do not treat ancestry alone as proof of enslavement. The exact extract follows Hammond and Rey, pp.560–562, reproduced by the New Mexico Historic Preservation Division.
The linked 2021 state report, p. 45, supplies the surrounding petition: she identifies herself as a free, unmarried woman, requests a certified copy with legal authority, and seeks protection before traveling north. Its transcription differs from the performed selection: it adds “some” before “reason” and prints “mulatta” instead of “mulatto.” It therefore corroborates the petition’s meaning, not every performed word. The Hammond–Rey-derived transcription in The African American Experience, hosted by IOHS, agrees with the performed clauses in the searchable indexed text, but its live PDF returned 404 on this review. The 1953 page image has not been independently opened. Do not silently combine these English versions.
Sourcing
Historical situation
At Querétaro before joining a northward expedition, a free woman of African and Indigenous parentage requests legal evidence of her freedom.
Intended audience
A colonial magistrate and future officials or others who might challenge her rights.
Purpose
Secure an authenticated copy carrying legal authority to protect her freedom.
Point of view
A free petitioner asserting rights within an unequal colonial society. The surviving words are a legal record, performed here in an English translation, not an eyewitness transcript of a 1660 mission-yard conversation.
Affidavit of Isabel de Olvera, Querétaro, 8 January 1600, George P. Hammond and Agapito Rey, eds./trans., Don Juan de Oñate, Colonizer of New Mexico, 1595–1628 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1953), pp. 560–562. Performed wording follows the reproduction in The African American Experience: https://www.iohs.education/uploads/1/8/6/5/18653164/african_american_experience.pdf. The linked New Mexico Historic Preservation Division report (2021), p. 45, was downloaded and read independently; it quotes through Dedra S. Macdonald and uses “some reason” and “mulatta.” It is an alternate transcription, not the exact source of the longer performed clause. “I demand justice” agrees in both. Original omissions and our excerpt remain disclosed.
Labor, tribute and missions in the Salinas pueblos
James E. Ivey, National Park Service · New Mexico · seventeenth century
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
On screen: V · The King's Share
Encomienda in New Mexico claimed Pueblo tribute in goods. Repartimiento separately compelled labor, legally for pay that often went unpaid. Missions demanded conversion and work; civil and religious officials contested authority.
Sourcing
Historical situation
A modern National Park Service architectural history reconstructs the social and institutional conditions of the Salinas missions.
Intended audience
Historians, preservation specialists, educators and visitors.
Purpose
Explain mission structures through the relationships among Pueblo communities, settlers, officials and friars.
Point of view
A modern synthesis of documentary and architectural evidence. The combined courtyard is a teaching reconstruction, not another primary witness or a documented simultaneous event.
James E. Ivey, In the Midst of a Loneliness: The Architectural History of the Salinas Missions, Historic Structures Report (National Park Service, 1988), chapter 2, Indian, Encomendero, and Missionary, especially The Encomienda.
English translation by Mrs. Edward E. Ayer (1916 edition)
Since, as has been said, in [one] sole stretch of one hundred leagues it has baptized more than eighty thousand souls, and built more than fifty very beautiful churches and monasteries. (A royal order printed earlier in the same book, quoting a report by Fray Juan de Santander, counts: “the Indians that are there being 34,320”.)
[Separate selection, Ayer translation, p. 33; the mission-yard and evidence-grid cards paraphrase this passage:]
For among these nations it is the custom for the women to build the walls; and the men spin and weave their mantas, and go to war and the chase; and if we [try to] oblige some man to build wall, he runs away from it, and the women laugh.
[Benavides generalizes about work and presents mission construction as a success. This is not testimony from the women or a record of the specific reconstructed yard in 1660. His separate baptism/building totals above are claims in a funding appeal, not an independently verified population census.]
Sourcing
Historical situation
Printed in Madrid in 1630 after Benavides came home from New Mexico, where he had led the Franciscans since 1626. The colony's mission funding was in doubt.
Intended audience
King Philip IV and the Council of the Indies, who paid for the missions.
Purpose
To keep the Crown paying: to show that the missions saved souls and that New Mexico was worth its cost.
Point of view
A friar with every reason to raise the numbers. The figure of 80,000 baptisms is far higher than the 34,320 in the older royal count quoted in the same book.
Fray Alonso de Benavides, Memorial (Madrid, 1630), trans. Mrs. Edward E. Ayer (Chicago, 1916), p. 62; the 34,320 figure is on p. 6, in a royal order (cédula) of Philip IV to the viceroy that recites Fray Juan de Santander's report. We also use p. 33, on women building walls. No headcount is inferred from the work passage.
This Land growes weary of her Inhabitants, soe as man, whoe is the most pretious of all creatures, is here more vile & base then the earth we treade upon, & of lesse prise among us then an horse or a sheepe … As for the Natives in New England, they inclose noe Land, neither have any setled habytation, nor any tame Cattle to improve the Land by, & soe have noe other but a Naturall Right to those Countries. Soe as if we leave them sufficient for their use, we may lawfully take the rest, there being more then enough for them & us
[Separate selections from the migration argument and the answer to the land-right objection. We modernize spelling, expand the ampersand and change punctuation at excerpt boundaries; the source spelling is retained above. The assertions about Native land use are Winthrop’s justification, not our description of Native farms or settlements.]
Sourcing
Historical situation
Written in 1629 in England as Winthrop and other Puritans prepared the Massachusetts Bay venture. Winthrop, a Suffolk lawyer, would lead the migration and govern in Massachusetts.
Intended audience
Fellow Puritans and possible backers who doubted that the English had a right to settle land already lived on.
Purpose
To answer the objection that the plan was unjust to Native people and to argue it was lawful and godly.
Point of view
An English lawyer with a stake in the venture. The argument that Native people had “noe other but a Naturall Right” ignores the farms, towns and hunting lands they had.
John Winthrop, “Reasons to be Considered for Justifying the Undertakers of the Intended Plantation in New England” (1629), in Robert C. Winthrop, Life and Letters of John Winthrop, vol. 1 (Boston, 1864), pp. 309, 312.
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
On screen: VI · Fences
Indentured servants exchanged a term of labor for passage. Surviving a contract did not guarantee prosperity.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Labor demand in the Chesapeake’s tobacco colonies encouraged indentured migration.
Intended audience
Visitors and students of colonial history.
Purpose
Explain the exchange of passage for labor and its unequal terms.
Point of view
A later public-history summary, not an individual servant’s contract or a uniform census of Virginia and Maryland.
National Park Service, “2. Rise of the Colonial Plantation System,” Human Labor section, https://www.nps.gov/articles/plantationsystem.htm. The linked McCartney study of Africans and African Americans on Jamestown Island returned 404; its indexed male-servant claim was not reverified from the PDF. No gender ratio is authorized.
[…] so must we be one as they are, otherwise we shall be all gone shortly, for you know our fathers had plenty of deer and skins, our plains were full of deer, as also our woods, and of turkies, and our coves full of fish and fowl. But these English having gotten our land, they with scythes cut down the grass, and with axes fell the trees; their cows and horses eat the grass, and their hogs spoil our clam banks, and we shall all be starved […]
Gardiner reports the speech through information from others and writes in1660. Our excerpts reverse the order of these two passages for the refrain, omit introductory/connective words, and supply capitalization and final punctuation. They remain separate excerpts, not a newly continuous historical speech. The warning is part of Gardiner’s account of an attempted alliance against the settlers.
Sourcing
Historical situation
English settlement, livestock and land use threaten Native resources. Gardiner describes Miantonomi seeking an alliance on Long Island in the early 1640s.
Intended audience
English colonial readers of Gardiner's retrospective account.
Purpose
Gardiner explains a reported anti-English alliance and his own role in frustrating it; the attributed speaker urges collective action against dispossession.
Point of view
An English settler allied with Wyandanch, hostile to Miantonomi's plan, writing later and reporting information obtained through others. These excerpts are words in that mediated English record, not a direct transcript.
Lion Gardiner, narrative written 1660, Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, third series, vol. 3 (1833), pp. 152–155; excerpt transcribed by History Matters, Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media. Plimoth supports the longer land/livestock passage, but its refrain reads “so we must” rather than this edition’s “so must we”; Its introductory chronology was not used.
Census of Canada compilers, using the colonial enumeration · November 1681
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
On screen: VI · Fences
The same 1876 compilation supplies both French bars. The February–March 1666 nominal census is corrected from 3,236 to 3,215 after removing 21 duplicated names. It excludes royal troops; about thirty clergy are missing from the manuscript. The corrected November 1681 total is 9,677. It does not include the 960 Indigenous people in Duchesneau’s separate 1680 total or about 800 coureurs de bois the compilers say were no longer enumerated. Neither bar counts surrounding Native nations. Different years, methods and coverage prohibit treating the comparison with Sutherland’s estimates as an exact population or migration ratio.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Taken in the colony of New France in 1681, one of a series of counts the Crown asked for from the 1660s on.
Intended audience
Ministers in Paris, who wanted to know how many subjects the colony had.
Purpose
To measure the size of the colony, which was very small next to the English colonies.
Point of view
Royal officials counting settled French colonists. Coureurs de bois in the woods and Native allies are not in the total.
Census of Canada, 1870–71, vol. IV, Censuses of Canada, 1665 to 1871 (Ottawa, 1876), introduction and summary p. 11, November 1681 enumeration corrected in compilation. The corrected 1666 census and introductory methodology in the same volume support the earlier 3,215 bar; see the dated primary-source research notes. No compatible 1681 sex split is released.
Sutherland’s series Z 1–19 combines colonial records using the later thirteen-colony geography. The 1660 total of 75,058 includes the New York column when that territory was Dutch New Netherland; it cannot all be labeled English population in 1660. The 1680 total is 151,507. The table combines white and Black inhabitants and notes Indigenous residents in some cells. Neither total enumerates the surrounding Native nations. These are population stocks, not immigrant arrivals. The underlying records vary in method and quality; do not compute an exact ratio to New France or a cross-empire sex ratio. The Census Bureau’s 1960 printing, chapter Z, series Z 1–19 (PDF p. 14), was reopened in this audit.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Twentieth-century compilers assembled uneven colonial reports into a retrospective series; this edition appeared in 1960.
Intended audience
Historians, economists and other researchers using long-run American statistics.
Purpose
Provide a historical estimate series while identifying its underlying records and limitations.
Point of view
A reconstructed government statistical series using colonial racial categories. Coverage and methods differ; Native nations are not counted as populations in their own right.
U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1957 (Washington, 1960), series Z 1–19, Estimated Population of American Colonies: 1610 to 1780, compiled by Stella H. Sutherland. Later estimate based on heterogeneous colonial records; not a census of all peoples on the land.
So our people were forced to content themselves, after erecting the Cross, saying Mass, and chanting the Te Deum on that spot, with setting fire to the palisades and cabins, and consuming the entire supply of Indian corn, beans, and other produce of the country, which was found there. Then they turned back to the other villages and wrought the same havoc there, as well as in all the outlying fields.
[Selection from the autumn expedition, not Courcelles’s earlier winter march. The preceding passage says most inhabitants fled, with some elderly people remaining. The following passage predicts hunger will enforce peace; that prediction is the report’s argument, not a verified death count. No particular house is identified as Radisson’s adoptive family’s home.]
Sourcing
Historical situation
Tracy leads a French expedition against the Mohawks in autumn 1666 after earlier military and diplomatic encounters.
Intended audience
Jesuit superiors, supporters and readers of the published Relations in France.
Purpose
Present military destruction as securing peace and advancing the colony and missions.
Point of view
A French missionary report celebrates a campaign against Native opponents. It reports flight and destroyed food stores, but does not speak for the displaced households. We use the event to qualify a benevolent-France interpretation.
François Le Mercier, Relation of 1665–66, Quebec, 12 November 1666, in Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, vol. L (Cleveland: Burrows Brothers, 1899), pp. 139–145, especially pp. 143–145.
[Separate charter selections; omissions marked. The first is from the territorial trade grant; the existing lordship and rent selections follow.]
the sole Trade and Commerce of all those Seas, Streights, Bays, Rivers, Lakes, Creeks, and Sounds, in whatsoever Latitude they shall be, that lie within the entrance of the Streights commonly called Hudson’s Streights […]
the true and absolute Lords and Proprietors
[…]
YEILDING AND PAYING yearly to Us, Our Heirs and Successors, for the same, two Elks and two black Beavers, whensoever, and as often as We, Our Heirs and Successors, shall happen to enter into the said Countries, Territories and Regions hereby granted.
[The charter establishes the Crown’s claims, not how trade worked or whether Native nations consented. For early Company dependence on Native trading decisions, see the separately dated gorst-hudson-bay-trade-1670s record. The English land-and-trade comparison is historical analysis across sources, not a quotation from this charter.]
Sourcing
Historical situation
The Crown incorporates the Governor and Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson's Bay after voyages and negotiations to establish a northern trade.
Intended audience
The chartered proprietors and people subject to the Crown's asserted commercial and territorial authority.
Purpose
Grant a trading monopoly, governmental powers and territorial claims, subject to reserved royal sovereignty and conditions.
Point of view
An English legal claim that does not establish Native consent or actual control over every place it describes. The rent clause says yearly but limits delivery to occasions when the sovereign enters the granted territory. Radisson helped bring the venture about but is absent from the named charter proprietors.
Charter of Charles II, 2 May 1670, in Charter and Supplemental Charter of the Hudson's Bay Company, reproduced as Project Gutenberg 6580 (released 2004); territorial grant and rent clauses. Check the named grantees in the full text, not merely the excerpt.
Early Hudson’s Bay trade depends on Native customers and rival offers
Thomas Gorst’s journal as transmitted through John Oldmixon and quoted by G. D. Scull · Early Company trade · 1670s
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
On screen: VII · Lords and Proprietors
The French used many artifices to hinder the natives trading with the English; they gave them great rates for their goods, and obliged Mr Baily to lower the price of his to oblige the Indians who dwelt about Moose river, with whom they drove the greatest trade.
[Scull quotes this account in his introduction, after identifying Gorst as Charles Baily’s secretary and Oldmixon’s journal source. The passage supports the importance of Native trading choices and European competition after incorporation. It is not a 1670 charter clause, a Native transcript, or evidence that English claims established territorial control. The excerpt does not itself identify every community by nation; it should not be used alone to identify all trading partners as Cree.]
Sourcing
Historical situation
The young English Company competes for Native trade around James Bay and Moose River in the early 1670s.
Intended audience
The secretary’s official readers, then readers of Oldmixon’s imperial history and Scull’s edition.
Purpose
Describe difficulties and competition confronting English trade.
Point of view
An English commercial perspective portrays French competition as interference.
G. D. Scull, introduction to Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson (Boston: Prince Society, 1885), paragraphs beginning “Oldmixon says” and “The following extracts,” quoting Thomas Gorst’s account through John Oldmixon, The British Empire in America, 1741 edition, vol. I, pp. 549–552. Project Gutenberg 6913 reproduces the introduction. The evidence supplements the 1670 charter and does not date these transactions to the charter day.
The second misfortune is that for three years no crops have been harvested. In the past year, 1668, a great many Indians perished of hunger, lying dead along the roads, in the ravines, and in their huts. There were pueblos (as instance Humanas) where more than four hundred and fifty died of hunger. The same calamity still prevails, for, because of lack of money, there is not a fanega of corn or of wheat in the whole kingdom…
Bernal reports these deaths while explaining why a prisoner cannot be sent to Mexico City. We attribute the estimate to him; it is not a separately audited count for Las Humanas. Letter1April1669, reporting1668. Hackett III,p.272.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Bernal, the Inquisition's agent in New Mexico, reports famine and insecurity in explaining why the prisoner Bernardo Gruber could not be sent to Mexico City. The famine sentence concerns 1668, not the date of the letter.
Intended audience
The Tribunal of the Holy Office in Mexico City.
Purpose
Explain administrative difficulties and the distressed condition of the province.
Point of view
A Franciscan official describing colonial crisis to superiors. His report is evidence of suffering and of his argument, not a modern census of mortality. We quote Hackett’s published English rendering and narrate the figure as Bernal’s report about some pueblos, with Humanas his example. We show no bodies and assert no independently audited death count.
Bernal to the Holy Office, Santo Domingo, 1 April 1669, Archivo General de la Nación, Inquisición, 666, exp. Charles Wilson Hackett, ed., Historical Documents Relating to New Mexico, Nueva Vizcaya, and Approaches Thereto, to 1773, III (Washington: Carnegie Institution, 1937), heading p. 271, quoted text p. 272. Spanish autograph not opened.
Archival collection description and scholarly biography
Radisson’s later changes of service and death
Library and Archives Canada; Dictionary of Canadian Biography
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
On screen: VII · Lords and Proprietors
The archival collection description documents the later French and English service used in the epilogue. The current Dictionary of Canadian Biography entry places his death inLondon inJune1710. No statement that he never met his Mohawk family again is established; we state the limit of our knowledge.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Retrospective descriptions of records concerning Radisson’s later service.
Intended audience
Researchers using archival collections and scholarly biographies.
Purpose
Identify the chronology and surviving documentation of his career.
Point of view
These are later archival and scholarly summaries, not Radisson’s own testimony. The last family reunion is not documented here.
Library and Archives Canada, Pierre-Esprit Radisson archival collection description99469; Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Pierre-Esprit Radisson, current revision31939. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/1052?revision_id=31939
He asks, in recognition of his great services to his Majesty, the dignity of his employments, and his personal qualifications, as well as of the fact that he cannot subsist with the Indians which he has, that he be granted some remuneration and an increase in his repartimiento. (The same paper says he spent “more than fifty thousand ducats” on the expedition. NOTE: in this source “repartimiento” means an allotment of Native families whose tribute a Spaniard could collect, what later New Mexico called an encomienda. It is not the rotating labor draft we explain next.)
Sourcing
Historical situation
Written after Coronado's expedition to the pueblos (1540–42), which he says cost him more than fifty thousand ducats. He held Native families in New Spain under an allotment and wanted more.
Intended audience
The viceroy of New Spain and the royal officials who granted Native tribute.
Purpose
To be paid for his service by receiving more Native families to collect tribute from.
Point of view
A Spanish conqueror treating Native people as a form of pay. The document counts them; it does not speak for them.
Petition in the section “Explorers and Conquerors of New Spain,” in Charles Wilson Hackett, ed., Historical Documents Relating to New Mexico, Nueva Vizcaya, and Approaches Thereto, to 1773, vol. 1 (Washington: Carnegie Institution, 1923), p. 33. The petition is undated; c. 1547 is from its contents. We use its wording as evidence that Spaniards asked for Native labor and tribute as payment.
I have not been able to make up my mind to send you the census of this year, because I dare not certify it to be correct. … There are eight hundred persons or more in the bush, whatever may be stated to you to the contrary, and I have not been able to obtain the precise number, inasmuch as all those who are interested with them conceal it. The country suffers so seriously from the scarcity of people, that many farms lie uncultivated.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Written from Quebec in November 1680, in the middle of a feud between the intendant and Governor Frontenac. Each accused the other of profiting from the illegal fur trade.
Intended audience
The minister at Versailles who ran the colony for the king.
Purpose
To report that men were leaving the farms for the woods and the fur trade, and that the people who profit from them hide their numbers. It is also a move in Duchesneau's fight with Frontenac.
Point of view
A royal official who was one side of a quarrel. The number 800 is his estimate, and he says himself that the count is uncertain.
Duchesneau to the Minister, November 13, 1680, in E. B. O'Callaghan and B. Fernow, eds., Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New-York, vol. 9 (Albany, 1855), p. 142.
In these five missions there are thirty-two hamlets and straggling villages, which comprise in all about seven hundred cabins, about two thousand fires, and about twelve thousand persons. These villages and cabins were much more populous formerly, but the extraordinary diseases and the wars within some years past, seem to have carried off the best portion … (For comparison, Jean de Brébeuf wrote in 1635 of the same people: “There are twenty Towns, which indicate about 30,000 souls speaking the same tongue.”)
Sourcing
Historical situation
Written in Huronia (Wendake) in 1640, a few years after epidemics had begun to strike the Huron towns. The Jesuits counted the villages themselves.
Intended audience
Jesuit superiors and French readers who followed the yearly Relations in Paris.
Purpose
To report on the mission's progress and its needs, with a count of the people the mission served.
Point of view
A French priest counting a Native nation's villages by cabins and fires. His numbers are estimates, and he was a partner in the mission, not a neutral observer.
Jérôme Lalemant, Relation of the Hurons, 1639–40, in Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, vol. 19 (Cleveland: Burrows Brothers, 1898), p. 125. The Brébeuf comparison is from vol. 8 (1898), p. 115.
All such shall be acknowledged patroons of New Netherland who shall undertake, within the space of four years next after they have given notice to any of the chambers of the Company here, or to the commander or council there, to plant a colony there of fifty souls, upwards of fifteen years old; one-fourth part within one year, and within three years after the sending of the first, making together four years, the remainder, to the full number of fifty persons, to be shipped from hence, on pain, in case of manifest neglect, of being deprived of the privileges obtained; but it is to be observed that the Company reserve the island of the Manhattes to themselves.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Issued by the Company's directors in 1629 to fill New Netherland with settlers, which the Company's fur-trade posts had not done. It was printed as a pamphlet in 1630.
Intended audience
Wealthy Company shareholders and investors in Amsterdam, who could become patroons.
Purpose
To attract private money to colonization by offering large grants, on condition that each patroon plant fifty settlers in four years. The Company kept Manhattan.
Point of view
A trading company writing rules for its own investors. The charter treats Native land as something to be bought and settlers as something to be shipped.
“Freedoms and Exemptions” (“Privileges and Exemptions for Patroons, Masters and Private Individuals”), Article III, 1629, in J. Franklin Jameson, ed., Narratives of New Netherland, 1609–1664 (New York, 1909), p. 90. Jameson's translation is corrected from the Dutch original and from A. J. F. van Laer's translation in the Van Rensselaer Bowier Manuscripts (1908).
All our riches for the present doe consiste in Tobacco, wherein one man by his owne labour hath in one yeare raised to himselfe to the value of 200£ sterling; and another by the meanes of sixe servants hath cleared at one crop a thousand pound English. These be true, yet indeed rare examples, yet possible to be done by others. Our principall wealth (I should have said) consisteth in servants: But they are chardgeable to be furnished with armes, apparell and bedding … But if they escape, they prove very hardy, and sound able men.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Written from Virginia on September 30, 1619, a few months after Pory presided at the first meeting of the colony's assembly. Tobacco had become the colony's cash crop.
Intended audience
A nobleman in England, whom the editors identify as Sir Dudley Carleton, who was a possible patron.
Purpose
To report on the colony, to show what it could earn, and to win a friend at home.
Point of view
A colonial official who praises tobacco profits and then corrects himself: the real wealth was in the labor of servants. It is a planter's view, and the servants say nothing here.
John Pory to Sir Dudley Carleton, September 30, 1619, in Lyon G. Tyler, ed., Narratives of Early Virginia, 1606–1625 (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907), p. 285. The missing words in the ellipsis concern the servants' passage and “casual(l)” costs.
Deffaite des Yroquois au Lac de Champlain (Defeat of the Iroquois at Lake Champlain)
Samuel de Champlain (sketch); probably engraved by David Pelletier · 1613
Image. An image of the source. The accompanying description is editorial.
Background: not shown on screen.
[Engraving from Champlain's Les Voyages (1613), Biggar edition vol. 2, Plate V, facing p. 101. Champlain is shown alone at the centre. The trees look more like palms than northern forest, and the camp shows hammocks. The historian Bruce Trigger reads details like these as errors made by a European artist who had never seen the place, and not as a record of how the scene looked.]
Sourcing
Historical situation
Made for the 1613 book, probably from Champlain's own sketch, by an engraver in Paris who had not been to Lake Champlain.
Intended audience
French readers and investors who wanted to see the fight.
Purpose
To turn one skirmish into an emblem: a lone European commander with a gun, Native allies at his side, an enemy in flight.
Point of view
Champlain's, filtered through a Paris workshop. It is a self-portrait of the event and not a record of how it looked.
Champlain, Les Voyages du sieur de Champlain (Paris, 1613), engraving “Deffaite des Yroquois au Lac de Champlain”; reproduced as Plate V in H. P. Biggar, ed., The Works of Samuel de Champlain, vol. 2 (Toronto: The Champlain Society, 1925), facing p. 101. The engraver's attribution is probable, not certain; the ethnographic errors follow Bruce G. Trigger's discussion. Image: John Carter Brown Library scan, reproduced via Wikimedia Commons (public domain); the image-only crop is shown.
Sentence of Don Juan de Oñate on the prisoners of Acoma
Juan de Oñate, governor of New Mexico · February 12, 1599
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
Background: not shown on screen.
The males who are over twenty-five years of age I sentence to have one foot cut off and to twenty years of personal servitude. [CONTENT NOTE: the same sentence gives the women over twelve and the young men from twelve to twenty-five twenty years of servitude, declares children under twelve free and innocent, orders the right hand cut off two Hopi men who were then freed to carry the news, and gives the old and disabled to the Querechos.]
Sourcing
Historical situation
Given at Santo Domingo pueblo on February 12, 1599, about three weeks after the Spanish army took Acoma. The pueblo had killed a party of soldiers led by Juan de Zaldívar in December 1598.
Intended audience
Oñate's own officers and the Native peoples of the Rio Grande, who were meant to hear of it. Later, the Spanish courts that reviewed it.
Purpose
To punish Acoma and terrorize other pueblos into obedience. In 1614 a Spanish court convicted Oñate of excessive force for it.
Point of view
The governor and conqueror, pronouncing the sentence himself. No Acoma record of the trial survives, and the record of the punishment gives no count; historians say about two dozen men lost a foot.
Trial and sentence at Santo Domingo, February 12, 1599, in George P. Hammond and Agapito Rey, Don Juan de Oñate, Colonizer of New Mexico, 1595–1628 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1953), pp. 477–478. This sentence is repeated verbatim in modern histories; the Hammond and Rey volume itself could not be opened for this check.
Casta painting series attributed to Juan Rodríguez Juárez
Juan Rodríguez Juárez (attributed) · c. 1715
Image. An image of the source. The accompanying description is editorial.
Background: not shown on screen.
[The displayed canvas shows a woman in an embroidered garment, a man playing a guitar, and a child. It is one of fourteen paintings in the early casta series at Breamore House, each classifying a family by ancestry. Its historical title is “De mulato y mestiza, produce mulato, es torna atrás.” These are the painter’s racial labels, not neutral descriptions of people. The set is said to have been commissioned through the Duke of Linares, viceroy of New Spain.]
Sourcing
Historical situation
Painted in Mexico City about 1715, roughly two centuries after Spanish rule began and about thirty-five years after the Pueblo Revolt. It shows an order already in place. It is not a law.
Intended audience
Elite collectors in New Spain and in Spain, who commissioned or bought the sets.
Purpose
To classify people by ancestry in a neat grid and to show a tidy, ranked society.
Point of view
An elite painter working for wealthy buyers. The people pictured did not choose the labels, and daily life mixed far more than the boxes suggest.
Attributed to Juan Rodríguez Juárez, De mulato y mestiza, produce mulato, es torna atrás, c. 1715, oil on canvas, Breamore House, Hampshire, England. Faithful public-domain reproduction via Wikimedia Commons, from Ilona Katzew, Casta Painting: Images of Race in Eighteenth-Century Mexico (2004). One canvas from the series is displayed.
The colonists took these individuals to their households, where they were taught Spanish and converted to Catholicism. They were forced to work as household servants, tend fields, herd livestock and serve as frontier militia to protect Spanish settlements. … In 1754, through a land grant, the Spanish gave Genízaro and Hopi families 16,000 acres of land about a mile away.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Written in 2020 for the National Museum of the American Indian's magazine, about a town founded in 1754 and still lived in by Genízaro descendants.
Intended audience
A general public reading a Smithsonian magazine, and Native readers whose ancestors were Genízaros.
Purpose
To explain who the Genízaros were and to record that their descendants still live at Abiquiú.
Point of view
A modern Native journalist writing about a Native community. It is a secondary source, not an 18th-century record.
Russel Albert Daniels, “The Genízaro Pueblo of Abiquiú,” American Indian magazine, vol. 21, no. 2 (Summer 2020), National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution.
New Voyages to North-America: how Montreal's trade opened with a council and gifts
Louis-Armand de Lom d'Arce, Baron de Lahontan · 1703
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
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English translation
… That in confirmation of their words, they throw a Porcelain Collar with some Beaver-skins to the Kitchi-Okima (so they call the Governour-General) whose Protection they lay claim to in case of any Robbery or Abuse committed upon 'em in the Town. The Spokesman having made an end of his Speech, returns to his Place, and takes up his Pipe; and then the Interpreter explains the Substance of the Harangue to the Governor, who commonly gives a very civil Answer, especially if the Present be valuable: in consideration of which, he likewise makes them a Present of some trifling things.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Lahontan, a young French army officer, wrote about the annual trade fair at Montreal in a letter dated June 28, 1685. It was polished and published in a book in 1703, so the wording is not from the day.
Intended audience
Readers in France and England, who bought travel books about the New World.
Purpose
To entertain and inform, and to argue in his other letters that Native societies were freer and fairer than European ones. He also had a grievance against the French government.
Point of view
A French officer describing Native diplomacy for a European audience. Elsewhere in the letter he calls captives held by some nations “Slaves”, a word that hides how many people were taken in war.
Louis-Armand de Lom d'Arce, Baron de Lahontan, New Voyages to North-America (London, 1703), vol. 1, Letter VIII (Montreal, June 28, 1685). The English text is the 1703 translation; the page is not pinned.
Emanuel van Meteren, Dutch merchant and historian in London · 1610
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
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… the Directors of the East India Company in Holland had sent out in March last on purpose to seek a passage to China by northeast or northwest, a skilful English pilot, named Herry Hutson, in a Vlie boat, having a crew of eighteen or twenty men, partly English, partly Dutch, well provided. This Henry Hutson left the Texel on the 6th of April, 1609…
Sourcing
Historical situation
Written in 1610, a year after Hudson's voyage, as part of Van Meteren's history of the Netherlands, while the news was fresh in London.
Intended audience
Dutch and English readers and merchants interested in trade routes.
Purpose
To report the voyage and what it might mean for trade with Asia.
Point of view
A Dutch merchant living in London, writing from reports. He was not on the ship.
Emanuel van Meteren, “On Hudson's Voyage” (1610), in J. Franklin Jameson, ed., Narratives of New Netherland, 1609–1664 (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1909), pp. 5–6.
The Third Voyage of Master Henry Hudson: the journal of Robert Juet
Robert Juet, mate of the Half Moon · September 19–22, 1609
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
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The people of the Countrie came flocking aboord, and brought us Grapes and Pompions, which wee bought for trifles. And many brought us Bevers skinnes, and Otters skinnes, which wee bought for Beades, Knives, and Hatchets. (September 19, 1609.) … This night at ten of the clocke, our Boat returned in a showre of raine from sounding of the River; and found it to bee at an end for shipping to goe in. (September 22.)
Sourcing
Historical situation
Kept aboard the Half Moon as it went up the river in September 1609. Juet was Hudson's mate, and the journal was published by Samuel Purchas in 1625. Hudson was looking for a Northwest Passage: a sea route to Asia through North America.
Intended audience
The ship's officers and the Dutch East India Company that paid for the voyage. Later, Purchas's English readers.
Purpose
To log the ship's progress, the water and the trade, so the sponsors could judge whether the river was a passage to Asia.
Point of view
An English sailor in Dutch pay. He notes what was bought and how little it cost, and names the traders only as “the people of the Countrie”.
Robert Juet, journal of Hudson's voyage, printed in Samuel Purchas, Purchas his Pilgrimes (London, 1625); reprinted in J. Franklin Jameson, ed., Narratives of New Netherland, 1609–1664 (New York, 1909), pp. 22–23.
Instructions to Bastiaen Jansz Krol for buying land for Rensselaerswyck
Instructions issued in Amsterdam for the patroon Kiliaen van Rensselaer · January 12, 1630
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
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First, Crol shall try to buy the lands hereafter named for the said Rensselaer, from the Mahijcans, Maquaas or such other nations as have any claim to them, giving them no occasion for discontent, but treating them with all courtesy and discretion. (In the document Krol's name is spelled “Crol.”)
Sourcing
Historical situation
Written in Amsterdam in January 1630 for Bastiaen Krol, a Company commissary who was going to New Netherland. The Dutch called the river peoples “Mahijcans” (Mahicans) and “Maquaas” (Mohawks).
Intended audience
Krol, who would carry out the purchase.
Purpose
To buy a large tract on the upper Hudson by deed and to keep the peace with the peoples who lived there, because the fur trade and the patroonship depended on them.
Point of view
European investors in Amsterdam who thought of land as something that could be bought from whoever had a claim to it. The Mahican and Mohawk view of what a sale meant is not in this document.
Instructions to Bastiaen Jansz Krol, Amsterdam, January 12, 1630, in A. J. F. van Laer, ed., Van Rensselaer Bowier Manuscripts (Albany: University of the State of New York, 1908), p. 159.
Letter of Pieter Schaghen to the States General on the ship Arms of Amsterdam
Pieter Schaghen, Dutch deputy to the States General · November 5, 1626
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
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They have purchased the Island Manhattes from the Indians for the value of 60 guilders; 'tis 11,000 morgens in size. They had all their grain sowed by the middle of May, and reaped by the middle of August. [The letter then lists the cargo of the ship Arms of Amsterdam:] 7246 Beaver skins. 178½ Otter skins. 675 Otter skins. 48 Minck skins. 36 Wild cat skins. 33 Mincks. 34 Rat skins. Considerable Oak timber and Hickory.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Written at Amsterdam in early November 1626, right after the ship Arms of Amsterdam arrived from New Netherland. It is the earliest surviving document that mentions a purchase of Manhattan.
Intended audience
The States General, the Dutch national government, which chartered the West India Company.
Purpose
To report the colony's news and its first cargo. The States General's minute on the letter says it required no action.
Point of view
A Dutch official relaying what he heard from the ship, and not a witness. The letter does not name the sellers, describe the deal, or say what the 60 guilders bought in their eyes.
Pieter Schaghen to the States General, Amsterdam, November 5, 1626 (received November 7), in E. B. O'Callaghan, ed., Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New-York, vol. 1 (Albany, 1856), pp. 37–38.
History of New Netherland; or, New York under the Dutch, vol. 1
Edmund Bailey O'Callaghan · 1846
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
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The island of Manhattans, estimated then to contain twenty-two thousand acres of land, was therefore purchased from the Indians, who received for that splendid tract the trifling sum of sixty guilders, or twenty-four dollars. [In 1626 the only evidence is Schaghen's letter (60 guilders; 11,000 morgens). The famous “$24” is O'Callaghan's own conversion of guilders to dollars, which he first printed in 1844.]
Sourcing
Historical situation
Written in the 1840s by a New York historian who had translated the Dutch archives, two centuries after the event.
Intended audience
American readers, in a period of rapid growth in New York City, who liked a story about a small price for a great place.
Purpose
To tell the history of the Dutch colony from the Dutch records. His “twenty-four dollars” turned a 1626 report of 60 guilders into a lasting punchline.
Point of view
An Irish-born New York historian writing when American settlement had long since taken Native land.
E. B. O'Callaghan, History of New Netherland; or, New York under the Dutch, vol. 1 (New York: D. Appleton, 1846), p. 104 (page approximate).
On the island of Manhate, and in its environs, there may well be four or five hundred men of different sects and nations: the Director General told me that there were men of eighteen different languages; they are scattered here and there on the river, above and below … No religion is publicly exercised but the Calvinist, and orders are to admit none but Calvinists, but this is not observed…
Sourcing
Historical situation
Written in 1646, three years after Jogues passed through New Amsterdam. He had been a captive of the Mohawk and was helped to Europe by Dutch settlers.
Intended audience
French Jesuit superiors and readers of the Jesuit reports.
Purpose
To describe the colony for his order, and to record who lived there and what they believed.
Point of view
A French Catholic priest, a guest in a Calvinist colony. He returned to the Mohawk country in 1646 and was killed there.
Isaac Jogues, Novum Belgium (1646), in J. Franklin Jameson, ed., Narratives of New Netherland, 1609–1664 (New York, 1909), pp. 259–260.
Jacques Cortelyou (1660 survey); copy attributed to Johannes Vingboons · 1660 survey
Image. An image of the source. The accompanying description is editorial.
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[Hand-drawn plan of New Amsterdam as it stood in 1660, showing the fort, the streets, the canal, the wall and the houses, about 250 by a modern count. The original survey by Jacques Cortelyou is lost. This copy, c. 1665–1670, is attributed to Johannes Vingboons of Amsterdam. It was identified in 1910 among the Medici drawings at the Villa di Castello, near Florence, and is now in the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana. The gallows in reproductions is an addition made in a 1916 redraft.]
Sourcing
Historical situation
Surveyed in 1660, when New Amsterdam was a busy port, and copied a few years later, after the English took the town in 1664.
Intended audience
Probably Dutch officials and mapmakers in Amsterdam. The copy later went into an atlas owned by the Medici of Florence.
Purpose
To show the town's streets, fort and defences, as a record and as a plan for a town whose future was in doubt.
Point of view
A Dutch surveyor's and a copyist's view. It shows buildings, not people: no Native towns, no enslaved Africans' quarters, no labels for who lived where.
Castello Plan (Cortelyou survey of 1660; copy attributed to Johannes Vingboons, c. 1665–1670), Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence; I. N. Phelps Stokes, The Iconography of Manhattan Island, vol. 2 (New York, 1916). The house count is a modern estimate. Image: the manuscript copy in Florence, reproduced via New York Public Library (digital ID 54682) and Wikimedia Commons, CastelloPlanOriginal.jpg (public domain), not the 1916 redraft.
The Dutch West India Company directors to Governor Stuyvesant on Jews in New Netherland
Directors of the Dutch West India Company, Chamber of Amsterdam · April 26, 1655
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
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English translation (1909 edition)
… we observe that this [barring Jewish settlers] would be somewhat unreasonable and unfair, especially because of the considerable loss sustained by this nation, with others, in the taking of Brazil, as also because of the large amount of capital which they still have invested in the shares of this company. … provided the poor among them shall not become a burden to the company or to the community, but be supported by their own nation. [The letter's opening sentence uses Stuyvesant's word “infected” for Jewish settlers and says the directors foresee the same difficulties he fears.]
Sourcing
Historical situation
Sent in April 1655, after Stuyvesant wrote that he wanted to bar the Jewish refugees who had arrived from Recife in Brazil in 1654.
Intended audience
Peter Stuyvesant, the Company's governor in New Amsterdam.
Purpose
To overrule him. The directors decide on money grounds: Jewish investors owned Company shares and had lost property when Brazil fell. The letter does not defend religious freedom.
Point of view
Company directors who share Stuyvesant's fears, as the letter's own opening says, but decide on business grounds. The refugees are discussed, not heard.
Directors of the West India Company to Stuyvesant, April 26, 1655, as translated and printed in Samuel Oppenheim, “The Early History of the Jews in New York, 1654–1664,” Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society 18 (1909), p. 8; the official printing is in Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New-York 14, p. 315.
if they desire that Piety and godlinesse should prosper; accompanied with sobriety, justice and love, let them choose a Countrey such as this is; even like France, or England, which may yeeld sufficiency with hard labour and industry: the truth is, there is more cause to feare wealth then poverty in that soyle.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Published in London in 1630 as the Massachusetts Bay Company was sending its first large fleet. White, a Dorchester minister, had helped launch the earlier Dorchester Company's fishing colony.
Intended audience
English readers who might invest in or join the New England venture, and critics who thought the plan foolish.
Purpose
To promote New England as a place where families could live godly, sober lives on hard work.
Point of view
A minister recruiting for a colony he favored, who describes the country by what English families could get from it and says little of who already lived there.
John White, The Planters Plea (London, 1630), p. 18; reprinted in Peter Force, ed., Tracts and Other Papers, vol. 2, no. 3 (Washington, 1838).
The council records mercy for Manuel de Gerrit de Reus
Director and Council of New Netherland; English translation by A. J. F. van Laer · January 24, 1641
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
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English translation by A. J. F. van Laer
[Two selections from the 24 January 1641 minute; omissions marked:]
two good ropes, both of which broke […] the Inhabitants and bystanders called for mercy […] on promise of good behavior and willing service.
[Editorial context: the first selection describes the failed execution and appeal; the last belongs to the council’s conditional pardon. The pardon spared the men’s lives without freeing them from Company service. These selections are not one uninterrupted sentence.]
Editorial excerpt, with a marked omission: the clerk joins the broken-rope detail to the appeal for mercy. The council pardoned Manuel and the others on conditions of behavior and service; this was not a grant of freedom. Source: Van Laer translation of the24January1641 minute, manuscriptp.85. Initial capitalization and terminal punctuation in performance are editorial.
Sourcing
Historical situation
After Manuel de Gerrit de Reus survived an attempted execution, the council recorded community requests for mercy and a pardon for him and the other accused men.
Intended audience
Colonial officials preserving a record of the council's decisions.
Purpose
To document why the council spared Manuel's life and pardoned the accused on conditions.
Point of view
The government that enslaved and prosecuted the men records its own decision. Our clerk is a documentary performer.
New York State Archives, Dutch colonial council minutes, series A1809-78, vol. 4, manuscript p. 85, 24 January 1641; A. J. F. van Laer, trans., New York Historical Manuscripts: Dutch, vol. IV, Council Minutes, 1638–1649, ed. Kenneth Scott and Kenn Stryker-Rodda (1974), pp. 97–100 for the case; official translation reproduced by Mapping Early New York.
Marie de l'Incarnation on making Indigenous pupils French
Marie de l'Incarnation, writing to her son Claude · 1 September 1668
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
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English translation
elles montent par-dessus notre clôture et s'en vont courir dans les bois avec leurs parents
Sourcing
Historical situation
An Ursuline superior in Quebec discusses Indigenous pupils and reports a Wendat Christian's account of royal hopes for French-Indigenous union.
Purpose
Describe the mission's work and difficulties, including limits to making Indigenous children French.
Point of view
A missionary defining success through French Catholic assimilation; the girls' return to family appears as failure within that framework. Our English excerpt is a close translation, with the original French supplied. Her reported royal wishes are not a direct quotation from Louis XIV.
Marie de l'Incarnation, letter to her son, Quebec, 1 September 1668, Choix des lettres historiques de la vénérable mère Marie de l'Incarnation (1857), pp. 350–351. English translation prepared for this production from the cited French.
Certification preserved in a prosecution · narrated summary
Clemente's certification in the Aguilar Inquisition case
Don Esteban Clemente; copied and authenticated in the colonial record · 30 November 1660
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
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[Hackett III, p. 165, selection from the limit Clemente places on his certification:]
[…] as I have not verified these superstitions I do not certify to more than this.
[Editorial context: he condemns the particular idol-and-altar practice described immediately before this sentence, not every practice he mentions. He then reports that Nicolás de Aguilar ordered dances in Cuarac and Taxique. The statement was requested by the vice-custos and survives in the case against Aguilar; Clemente is not the defendant. Hackett’s closing dates it at Xumanas, 30 November 1660. His English and Masera’s Spanish excerpt have unresolved folio-number and middle-passage differences. Our excerpt is a paraphrase, and no oath or ceremonial performance is voiced.]
Sourcing
Historical situation
Conflict between civil and ecclesiastical authority in New Mexico; a Pueblo leader's certification is preserved among the evidence against a Spanish official.
Intended audience
Franciscan officials and the colonial Inquisition's readers of the copied testimony.
Purpose
Respond to a friar's request for a declaration about Pueblo practices and report the conduct of colonial officials.
Point of view
An Indigenous leader and interpreter speaking within colonial institutions. The record establishes neither an unmediated private belief nor the exact coercion involved. We narrate the document and don't perform an unverified English oath. He withholds certification of other allegations and is not the defendant in the case. These limits are part of his surviving statement.
Esteban Clemente, letter at Xumanas, 30 November 1660, in Charles Wilson Hackett, Historical Documents Relating to New Mexico III (1937), pp. 165–166, headed folio 123. Compare Mariana Masera, Revista de Literaturas Populares VI-2 (2006), pp. 244–245, AGN Inquisición 512/1, fols. The two folio numberings are not resolved; the certification’s scope is limited. We don't voice an oath or depict the ceremonies. Masera’s Spanish excerpt: http://www.rlp.culturaspopulares.org/textos/12/01-Masera.pdf. The source-lock limits remain.
Jérôme Lalemant, reporting Governor Montmagny's account of the previous summer's conferences · Summer 1645, recalled in January 1646
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
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English translation
This man thought that a considerable present should be made to Monsieur the Governor, that, if he desired peace for both himself and the Hurons, he should abandon the Algonquins without shelter. When Onontio was informed of this, he would not even look at any such present, nor would he suffer it to be delivered; and he said that the thing was impossible. … Monsieur the Governor said that there were two kinds of Algonquins, — one like ourselves, recognized as Christians; the other, unlike us. Without the former, it is certain, we do not make a peace; as for the latter, they themselves are the masters of their own actions, nor are they united with us like the others.
Sourcing
Historical situation
In January 1646, reports of an agreement at Algonquin expense prompt the governor to explain two private conferences during the previous summer. The journal names the envoy le Crochet and Couture as the other participants.
Intended audience
Jesuit colleagues keeping an internal record, rather than the wider audience of the printed Relation.
Purpose
To record a politically sensitive negotiation and explain the rumors surrounding it.
Point of view
The journal reports Montmagny's explanation; its Latin passage is translated in the edition's note 16. Identification of le Crochet with Kiotsaeton is an inference. Initial refusal is followed by a qualification concerning Christian and other Algonquins; neither the public ceremony nor the later painted-face retort is this meeting.
Jérôme Lalemant, Journal des PP. Jésuites, January 1646, in Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, vol. XXVIII (Cleveland: Burrows Brothers, 1898), pp. 148–151, Latin passage; English translation in note 16, pp. 314–315. Ellipsis separates the first refusal from the account of a second conference.
Isaac Jogues to André Castillon before returning to Mohawk country
Isaac Jogues · September 12, 1646
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
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This peace, together with the trade which the country now has, causes a notable change in its appearance, an increase in the number of inhabitants, and greater comfort in all respects.
[Selection from a letter dated Montreal, 12 September1646, with a Trois-Rivières postscript dated21September. Jogues connects peace AND the contemporary trading arrangement with these changes. His optimism precedes his death; it does not establish a durable peace or make diplomacy the sole cause of every economic change.]
Sourcing
Historical situation
Jogues writes before a return journey to Mohawk country, after the1645peace and his May–July1646journey.
Intended audience
A fellow Jesuit, André Castillon.
Purpose
Report the condition of New France and request spiritual support for a difficult journey.
Point of view
A missionary interprets temporal improvement through his religious mission. His letter is one situated report, not a Native account or economic census.
Isaac Jogues to André Castillon,12September1646, in Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, vol.XXVIII (Cleveland: Burrows Brothers,1898), pp.137–141, especially p.139; letter reprinted from Rochemonteix, Les Jésuites et la Nouvelle-France, vol.II, pp.450–452.
Editorial chronology from scholarly and public-history sources · 1646–1649
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
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Jogues was killed at Ossernenon on18October1646. In1649, renewed attacks and displacement devastated Wendat country. The Jesuits and their companions themselves burned and abandoned Sainte-Marie; we do not depict its destruction as an attacking force setting it alight.
[This is an editorial chronology, not a primary quotation. It describes subsequent events without claiming that one private offer or a student choice caused them.]
Sourcing
Historical situation
Later historical synthesis connects the short-lived1645peace with the ensuing violence and displacement, without asserting a single cause.
Intended audience
Modern learners comparing diplomacy and its limits.
Purpose
Distinguish the recorded outcome from the optional scene’s dramatized decisions.
Point of view
An editorial summary based on missionary records and later scholarship. Native nations and families retained their own choices; they are not consequences controlled by the governor/player.
Dictionary of Canadian Biography, entries “Jogues, Isaac” and “Brébeuf, Jean de”; Québec, Répertoire du patrimoine culturel, “Jogues, Isaac”; Huronia Historical Parks, Sainte-Marie among the Hurons, “Historic background” and digital tour, June1649 section.
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
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Abó, Quarai and Las Humanas lie east of the Rio Grande. Las Humanas is the pueblo later known as Gran Quivira. The map marks Pueblo places without drawing homeland boundaries.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Modern orientation map supporting the seventeenth-century sources here.
Intended audience
Students and general readers.
Purpose
Locate places and communities without treating colonial claims as Native consent.
Point of view
Modern cartographic reconstruction.
National Park Service, Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument, Foundation Document Overview (2016), location map; “Gran Quivira,” https://www.nps.gov/sapu/learn/historyculture/gran-quivira.htm; James E. Ivey, In the Midst of a Loneliness (1988), chapter 2 (salinas-institutions-1660). Map-site coordinates rounded for orientation, not archaeological survey points.
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
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The Camino Real linked central Mexico to the Rio Grande and Pueblo communities. The initial Spanish endpoint at Ohkay Owingeh moved to nearby San Gabriel in 1600; Santa Fe became the capital in 1610. The drawn corridor is context for Olvera’s petition, not evidence of her exact route.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Modern orientation map supporting the seventeenth-century sources here.
Intended audience
Students and general readers.
Purpose
Locate places and communities without treating colonial claims as Native consent.
Point of view
Modern cartographic reconstruction.
National Park Service, El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro National Historic Trail, “History & Culture,” A Brief History, updated 23 April 2025, paragraphs 1–5; “Historia y significado,” https://home.nps.gov/es-es/elca/learn/historia-y-significado.htm, Camino de la Plata passage naming Querétaro. The route uses the existing map camino-real-1598 as a schematic corridor, not a claimed personal itinerary. Olvera’s dated petition: olvera-affidavit-1600, Hammond and Rey (1953), pp. 560–562.
Canadian Museum of History · accessed 4 October 2026
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
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French settlement developed around Québec (1608), Trois-Rivières (1634) and Montréal (1642). Royal government began in 1663. Small post markers sit within an inhabited Native landscape.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Modern orientation map supporting the seventeenth-century sources here.
Intended audience
Students and general readers.
Purpose
Locate places and communities without treating colonial claims as Native consent.
Point of view
Modern cartographic reconstruction.
Canadian Museum of History, Virtual Museum of New France, “French Colonial Expansion and Franco-Amerindian Alliances,” paragraphs naming Québec, Trois-Rivières and Montréal and describing the institutional regime of 1663; “Governance and Sites of Power,” https://www.historymuseum.ca/virtual-museum-of-new-france/colonies-and-empires/governance-and-sites-of-power/, 1663 section. Native context also follows lejeune-relation-1633 and vimont-council-1645.
Algonquian peoples and English settlements around the Chesapeake
National Park Service · accessed 4 October 2026
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
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Powhatan peoples, Piscataway and Nanticoke speak Algonquian languages and have distinct homelands around the bay. The English settlements at Jamestown (1607) and St. Mary’s (1634) are markers, not borders. Tobacco and bound service frame our comparison.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Modern orientation map supporting the seventeenth-century sources here.
Intended audience
Students and general readers.
Purpose
Locate places and communities without treating colonial claims as Native consent.
Point of view
Modern cartographic reconstruction.
National Park Service, “Life in the Indigenous Chesapeake,” Languages section; “From Contact to Present: Indigenous Chesapeake,” https://home.nps.gov/articles/000/contact-to-present.htm, 1607 and 1634 entries; “Accokeek Creek,” https://www.nps.gov/places/accokeek-creek.htm; “Chesapeake Tribes Today,” https://home.nps.gov/cajo/learn/historyculture/american-indian-tribes-today.htm, Nanticoke entry. Tobacco and labor: chesapeake-indentured-labor and pory-letter-1619.
Native homelands around Massachusetts Bay and southern New England
Massachusett Tribe at Ponkapoag; Mohegan Tribe; National Park Service · accessed 4 October 2026
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
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Massachusett, Wampanoag, Narragansett, Pequot and Mohegan peoples occupied distinct homelands. The Pequot and Mohegan labels identify distinct peoples in the Thames River region. Plymouth was separate from Massachusetts Bay during this period. No colonial boundary is drawn.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Modern orientation map supporting the seventeenth-century sources here.
Intended audience
Students and general readers.
Purpose
Locate places and communities without treating colonial claims as Native consent.
Point of view
Modern cartographic reconstruction.
Massachusett Tribe at Ponkapoag, “The History of the Neponset Band of the Indigenous Massachusett Tribe”; Mohegan Tribe, “Fort Shantok,” https://www.mohegan.nsn.us/about/our-tribal-history/historical-sites/fort-shantok, and “Sachem Uncas,” https://www.mohegan.nsn.us/about/our-tribal-history/historical-figures/sachem-uncas; National Park Service, Roger Williams National Memorial, “Narragansett,” https://www.nps.gov/rowi/learn/historyculture/narragansett.htm; “Life in Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth (1631–1636),” https://www.nps.gov/rowi/learn/historyculture/rw1631-1636.htm. Foundation dates: City of Boston, “Boston Common archaeology,” https://content.boston.gov/departments/archaeology/boston-common-archaeology (1630); Plimoth Patuxet Museums, History in a New Light, https://plimoth.org/uploaded/uploads/history-in-a-new-light.pdf (1620). Labels are approximate, not polygons.
Commission for Environmental Cooperation; Archives of Manitoba; Parks Canada · accessed 4 October 2026
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
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The 1670 charter claimed trade and lordship over the Hudson Bay region. Cree homelands surround James Bay and extend through the wider region. The outline represents modern drainage geography, not a surveyed or agreed political boundary in 1670. Native consent cannot be inferred from the charter. London is plotted on the same scale; no distance or area is asserted.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Modern orientation map supporting the seventeenth-century sources here.
Intended audience
Students and general readers.
Purpose
Locate places and communities without treating colonial claims as Native consent.
Point of view
Modern cartographic reconstruction.
Commission for Environmental Cooperation, North American Environmental Atlas—Watersheds (2010), NRCan/INEGI/USGS, edition 1.0, 1:10,000,000 vector data, Hudson Bay drainage; https://www.cec.org/files/atlas_layers/0_reference/0_04_watersheds/watersheds_shapefile.zip. Archives of Manitoba, Hudson’s Bay Company Archives, “Glossaries,” entries Royal Charter of 1670 and Rupert’s Land, https://www.gov.mb.ca/chc/archives/hbca/glossaries.html. Parks Canada, “Moose Factory Buildings, Moose Factory, Ontario,” 30 August 2017, https://www.canada.ca/en/parks-canada/news/2017/08/moose_factory_buildingsmoosefactoryontario.html (traditional Môsonîw Ililiw lands; the 1673 post is not plotted). Modern rivers: Natural Earth, Rivers + lake centerlines, https://www.naturalearthdata.com/downloads/10m-physical-vectors/10m-rivers-lake-centerlines/. Charter wording: hbc-charter-1670.
Advanced Placement
