Bücher der Reihe American Exploration and Travel Series

In two decades of traveling throughout Mexico, Central America, and Europe, French priest Charles Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg (1814-1874) amassed hundreds of indigenous manuscripts and printed books, including grammars and vocabularies that brought to light languages and cultures little known at the time. Although his efforts yielded many of the foundational texts of Mesoamerican studies-the pre-Columbian Codex Troana, the only known copies of the Popol Vuh and the indigenous dance drama Rabinal-Achi, and Diego De Landa's Relación de la cosas de Yucatán-Brasseur earned disdain among scholars for his theories linking Maya writings to the mythical continent of Atlantis. In The Manuscript Hunter, translator Katia Sainson reasserts his standing as the founder of modern Maya studies, presenting three of his travel writings in English for the first time.While civil wars raged throughout Mexico and Central America and foreign interests sought access to the region's rich resources, Brasseur focused on uncovering Mesoamerica's mysterious past by examining its ancient manuscripts and living oral traditions. His "Notes from a Voyage in Central America," "From Guatemala City to Rabinal," and Voyage across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec document his travels in search of these texts and traditions. Brasseur's writings weave vivid geographical descriptions of Central America and Mexico during the mid-1800s with keen social and political analysis, all steeped in vast knowledge of the region's history and interest in its indigenous cultures.Coupled with Sainson's thoughtful introduction and annotations, these captivating, accessible accounts reveal Brasseur de Bourbourg's true accomplishments and offer an unrivaled view of the birth of Mesoamerican studies in the nineteenth century. Brasseur's writings not only depict Central America and Mexico through the eyes of a European traveler at a key moment, but also illuminate the remarkable efforts of one man to understand and preserve Mesoamerica's cultural traditions for all time.

In 1875, a team of cartographers, geologists, and scientists entered the Four Corners area for what they thought would be a calm summer's work completing a previous survey. By skillfully weaving the surveyors' diary entries, field notes, and correspondence with newspaper accounts, this book brings the survey to life.

Presents naturalist Thomas Nuttall's only surviving complete journal of his American scientific explorations. The account follows Nuttall's route from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, down the Ohio River to its mouth, then down the Mississippi River to the Arkansas Post, and up the Arkansas River with a side trip to the Red River.

During the march of General Stephen Watts Kearny's Army of the West into Santa Fe, New Mexico, Lieutenant Richard Smith Elliott provided readers back home with an account of the gruelling journey and the US occupation of New Mexico. This is his firsthand account of the experience.

In this classic of western Americana, George Frederick Ruxton, who died in St. Louis in 1848 at the youthful age of twenty-seven, brilliantly brings to life the whole heroic age of the Mountain Men. The author, from his intimate acquaintance with the trappers and traders of the American Far West, vividly recounts the story of two of the most adventurous of these hardy pioneers - Killbuck and La Bonté, whose daring, bravery, and hair-breadth escapes from their numerous Indian and "Spaniard" enemies were legend among their fellow-frontiersmen.With Ruxton, we follow Killbuck and La Bonté and their mountain companions - Old Bill Williams, "Black" Harris, William Sublette, Joseph Walker, and others - across the prairies and forests, west from picturesque old Bent''s Fort, into the dangerous Arapaho country near the headwaters of the Platte. We share with them the culinary delights of their campfires - buffalo "boudins" and beaver tails - and hear from their own lips, in the incomparable mountaineer dialect, hair-raising stories of frontier life and humorous tales of trading camp and frontier post.Life in the Far West, then, is adventure extraordinary - the true chronicle of the rugged Mountain Men whose unflinching courage and total disregard for personal safety or comfort opened the Far West to the flood of settlers who were to follow. The breath-taking water colors and sketches, which depict with great detail many of the familiar scenes of the early West, were done by one of Ruxton''s contemporaries and fellow-explorers, Alfred Jacob Miller.

There is especially good documentation of the dealings between the Mandans and Hidatsas and the whites between 1790 to 1806, when several traders visited the Indian villages and recorded their experiences in lively narratives. In this book are presented new, dependable, annotated transcriptions of five of the most important of these documents.

Expedition surgeon John Gale's account of the Missouri Expedition captures the colour and excitement of exploration while revealing the grinding effort and stark hardship of army life in the early nineteenth century. This edition includes expedition letters and military orders to enhance Gale's authentic narrative.