Group items tagged

1492. Columbus. The date and the name provoke many questions related to the linking of very different parts of the world, the Western Hemisphere and the Mediterranean. What was life like in those areas before 1492? What spurred European expansion? How did European, African and American peoples react to each other? What were some of the immediate results of these contacts?1492: AN ONGOING VOYAGE addresses such questions by examining the rich mixture of societies coexisting in five areas of this hemisphere before European arrival. It then surveys the polyglot Mediterranean world at a dynamic turning point in its development. The exhibition examines the first sustained contacts between American people and European explorers, conquerors and settlers from 1492 to 1600. During this period, in the wake of Columbus's voyages, Africans also arrived in the hemisphere, usually as slaves. All of these encounters, some brutal and traumatic, others more gradual, irreversibly changed the way in which peoples in the Americas led their lives. The dramatic events following 1492 set the stage for numerous cultural interactions in the Americas which are still in progress - a complex and ongoing voyage.

"Amerigo Vespucci (1452-1512): Account of His First Voyage, 1497 Amerigo Vespucci (born in Florence in 1452), whose name was given to the American continents by Waldsmuller in 1507, worked in Seville (where he died) in the business house which fitted out Columbus' second expedition. Here he gives an account of the first of his own four voyages. If his claims are accurate he reached the mainland of the Americas shortly before Cabot, and at least 14 months before Columbus. Letter of Amerigo Vespucci To Pier Soderini, Gonfalonier of the Republic of Florence"

Thanks for this site, Nate. Excellent resource for a historical investigation into the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.

Information on almost 35,000 slaving voyages

Fantastic outline maps of everything you might want: voyages, before & after, geographic regions, countries

" China is a majestic* country (note: links followed by * go to a dictionary definition) with a long and interesting history. If, like most people in the Occidental* world, you've never been to this fascinating land, you might want to take a brief tour. Go ahead and walk a few kilometers of The Great Wall or step foot into The Forbidden City or voyage to the Yellow Mountains. But beyond these tourist stops lives another, more complex, China. Currently, the people of China are experiencing great economic and social upheavals*. Such things as the situation in Tibet, Tiananmen Square massacre, and a scandal about treatment of orphans have brought some people to call for boycotts against China. Being faced with the task of understanding something as complex as a nation, you might want to give up. Sometimes in life you have that choice. But to give up trying to understand the China would mean giving up chances to benefit financially, to help people, to save some of the world's natural and artistic treasures, to protect the safety and security of millions of people, or to enlighten people's lives with greater religious insight. You see, you can't give up. So, if you're ready to begin, you might want to read a Travel Advisory before embarking* on our journey."

Hawaiian voyaging tradition

"In the 3¼ centuries between 1492 and about 1820, four enslaved Africans left the Old World for every European. During those years, Africans comprised the largest forced oceanic migration in the history of the world. Who were they? Who organized the slaving voyages? Which parts of Africa did they come from? How did they reach the Americas? And where exactly did they go?"

"The modern world exists in a state of cultural, political, and economic globalisation. During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries two nations, Portugal and Spain, pioneered the European discovery of sea routes that were the first channels of interaction between all of the world's continents, thus beginning the process of globalisation in which we all live today. "

'Underwritten by a "We the People" grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, The Digital Library on American Slavery is a cooperative venture between the Race and Slavery Petitions Project and the Electronic Resources and Information Technology Department of University Libraries at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. The Digital Library offers a searchable database of detailed personal information about slaves, slaveholders, and free people of color. Designed as a tool for scholars, historians, teachers, students, genealogists, and interested citizens, the site provides access to information gathered and analyzed over an eighteen-year period from petitions to southern legislatures and country courts filed between 1775 and 1867 in the fifteen slaveholding states in the United States and the District of Columbia.'

An extensive collection of primary source materials relating to the Hispanic exploration of the Americas.