Abstract The rich fabric of place names knitting together the Americas weaves into a complex intercultural network of naming practices that span thousands of years as well as the globe. Indigenous, European, and settler communities each bestowed names upon places near and far whose meanings describe the place, its resources, or one’s experiences there. Names define the people who occupy a place. They

(2021). Texas Comanche Land Revisited. Terrae Incognitae. Ahead of Print.

This article contends that “disguise” has been both overlooked in studies of travel writing and is more complex than current studies suppose. The performance of disguise raises important questions about trust—in the traveler, in the truth of what is narrated, and in the knowledge gained in exploration. The article examines examples of disguise in action: nineteenth-century exploration; woman travelers

(2021). Exploration History and Identity Construction. Terrae Incognitae. Ahead of Print.

(2021). Mutiny, Mayhem, Mythology: Bounty’s Enigmatic Voyage. Terrae Incognitae. Ahead of Print.

(2021). Les Oeuvres complètes de Champlain. Terrae Incognitae. Ahead of Print.

(2021). Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia. Terrae Incognitae. Ahead of Print.

(2021). Becoming Ottomans: Sephardi Jews and Imperial Citizenship in the Modern Era. Terrae Incognitae. Ahead of Print.

(2021). Mapping Indigenous Land: Native Land Grants in Colonial New Spain. Terrae Incognitae. Ahead of Print.

(2021). Sailing School: Navigating Science and Skill, 1550-1800. Terrae Incognitae. Ahead of Print.

(2021). El Camino Real de California: From Ancient Pathways to Modern Byways. Terrae Incognitae. Ahead of Print.

(2021). The Powell Expedition: New Discoveries About John Wesley Powell’s 1869 River Journey. Terrae Incognitae. Ahead of Print.

(2021). Portrait of a Prospector: Edward Schieffelin’s Own Story. Terrae Incognitae. Ahead of Print.

(2021). Russian Colonization of Alaska: Preconditions, Discovery, and Initial Development, 1741-1799. Terrae Incognitae. Ahead of Print.

(2021). Trading Territories: Mapping the Early Modern World. Terrae Incognitae. Ahead of Print.

(2021). Apostles of Empire: The Jesuits and New France. Terrae Incognitae. Ahead of Print.

(2020). El abogado que dibujó el mundo: Martín Fernández de Enciso (1469-1533), una biografía apasionante. Terrae Incognitae: Vol. 52, SPECIAL ISSUE ON CUBA, pp. 311-312.

(2020). Out of Our Minds: What We Think and How We Came to Think It. Terrae Incognitae: Vol. 52, SPECIAL ISSUE ON CUBA, pp. 315-316.

(2020). To the Shores of Chile: The Journal and History of the Brouwer Expedition to Valdivia in 1643. Terrae Incognitae: Vol. 52, SPECIAL ISSUE ON CUBA, pp. 319-320.

(2020). Lost Maps of the Caliphs: Drawing the World in Eleventh-Century Cairo. Terrae Incognitae: Vol. 52, SPECIAL ISSUE ON CUBA, pp. 320-321.

(2020). Granville Stapylton: Australia Felix 1836, Second in Command to Major Mitchell. Terrae Incognitae: Vol. 52, SPECIAL ISSUE ON CUBA, pp. 314-314.

(2020). Trail of Footprints: A History of Indigenous Maps from Viceregal Mexico. Terrae Incognitae: Vol. 52, SPECIAL ISSUE ON CUBA, pp. 316-317.

(2020). The Anthropology of Expeditions: Travel, Visualities, Afterlives. Terrae Incognitae: Vol. 52, SPECIAL ISSUE ON CUBA, pp. 312-314.

(2020). Exploring Cuba: Cartographers, Educators, and Creeks & Spaniards. Terrae Incognitae: Vol. 52, SPECIAL ISSUE ON CUBA, pp. 239-244.

This research investigates Creek Indian and Spanish encounters in Cuba, exploring the ways in which Natives looked beyond the Southeast for access to commodities following the Seven Years’ War. It uses gunpowder as a lens to examine how ongoing Creek–Spanish relations shaped gender dynamics, personal relationships, local-level politics, and cultural structures within the Confederacy while simultaneously

(2020). Potosí: The Silver City That Changed The World. Terrae Incognitae: Vol. 52, SPECIAL ISSUE ON CUBA, pp. 318-319.

In 1845, a unique teaching institution opened its doors in Havana, Cuba, to teach practical mechanics to young boys from the capital of the Spanish colony. This new teaching institution was called Escuela Mecánica although its name changed several times in the years that followed. The Mechanical School or Mechanical Institute was operated by the Society of Friends and quickly began to impact production

This article will survey a selection of maps associated with North American investment, colonization, and tourism in Cuba during the first 15 years following the Spanish American War; during this period, the United States intermittently occupied Cuba and contemplated annexing the country. Indeed, various railroad, steamship, and land companies, as well as journals such as the Cuba Review began to publish

In 1521 Henry VIII of England and Cardinal Wolsey requested the Worshipful Company of Drapers and other London guilds to assist in a westward voyage. After the Drapers’ repeated refusal to contribute the requested assistance the expedition was canceled. Previous scholarship points to the failure of this expedition as an indicator that Henry VIII was uninterested in exploration. However, by revisiting

We are pleased to present a very full issue that begins with a Special Anniversary section to mark milestones, which includes pieces to commemorate the Fiftieth Anniversary of Terrae Incognitae (TI...

The modern concept of “discovery” was the creation of the “second scientific revolution” in the decades to either side of 1800. The wholesale reconfiguration of knowledge practices emphasized the Romantic figure of the lone, daring adventurer who could interrogate the dynamic and ever-shifting world to discern new truths. “Discovery” was transformed from an act of investigation into an act laden with

The little-known map of the Yurumanguí Indians, created in the late colonial period, preserves information about a remote gold-mining region in New Granada. This essay represents the first attempt to link this map to the previously known and partially published Misioneros de Yurumanguí case file, which documents the discovery, attempted reducción, and ultimate erasure of the indigenous inhabitants

troversial subject of Humboldt’s views of the colonial governance in New Spain. Elsewhere, he considers in equally evenhanded fashion the politically charged subjects of Humboldt’s alleged Eurocentrism and of his responsibility for European or United States imperialism in Mexico. He also includes a careful evaluation of Humboldt’s attitude toward Aztec civilization. The second part of this three-part

The Society for the History of Discoveries celebrates its 60th anniversary this year (2020)! The Society, founded in 1960, is an international, United States-based, organization formed to stimulate...

Alexander von Humboldt’s and James Bryce’s travels in Latin America were separated by a century; nevertheless, both of them situated the region within a continental and worldwide framework. The two men emphasized the importance of geography as a factor that influenced history whenever they explained the development of peoples, both in their more “primitive” phases as well as in a more “advanced” state

In early 1860, Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian of Austria arrived in Bahia on a short, but ultimately illuminating, visit to his cousin, Brazilian Emperor Pedro II. Published posthumously in English as Recollections of My Life (1868), this underused narrative recounts just eight days of a two-month journey. Despite the brevity of the trip, it nevertheless provides an insightful and oftentimes unexpected

New World,” “Dante and the New World,” and “Venetian Diplomacy, Spanish Gold and the New World in the Sixteenth Century.” In “Italy and the New World,” the author emphasizes the importance for the Spaniards of the earlier models of expansion offered by some Italian city-states, as well as some striking practical contributions such as the importance of Italian techniques of cartography, as well as the

volume – where Leffingwell fits into the global exploration efforts during the early twentieth century. Once past Leffingwell’s early years and into his arrival on his largely self-financed Alaskan expeditions, Collins’s book begins to suffer from flaws and tedium. Many of the flaws are problems that an astute editor should have identified. For example, there are repeated problems related to a lack

We are very pleased to publish this special issue entitled “Exploring Latin America,” which features articles on travelogues by German explorer-scientist Alexander von Humboldt, the Austrian Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian and Englishman traveleracademic James Bryce. Since Humboldt visited the region at the onset of the nineteenth century, Maximilian approximately a half century later, and Bryce at the

James Bryce is recognized as a traveler, historian, lawyer, politician, diplomat, and International Relations scholar, who led to an improvement in British-American relations, the understanding of modern democracies, and the establishment of the League of Nations. However, until recent times his portrayal of Latin America has been overlooked by historiography. This article aims to explore his analysis

The political and historiographical discourses of the British intellectual and traveler James Bryce (1838–1922) have been characterized as representative of the late-Victorian liberal thought. Following this interpretative framework, scholarship has focused on the analysis of the key principles of Bryce’s liberal ideology, such as “self-government”, “democracy” and “international law.” This article

connected network as she argues that the voyage was a transnational expedition. Dalton shows that the concept and planning stages of the voyage were heavily influenced, if not directed, by English merchants and that the main financial backers of the voyage were English and Genoese. So, while Cabot may have been sailing under the Spanish flag, his loyalties were with the venture itself and likely those

American missions does not include a locator inset map, so most readers will need to consult another map of that continent to place them in context. Even more surprising – in light of the wealth of information about missions in both continents – is the fact that all of the book’s twenty-four photographs of missions are of those in Mexico; none in from South America. Given the iconography mentioned

In 1740, Commodore George Anson’s expedition to the Pacific once more demonstrated the chronic fragility of Spanish defenses in the entire region. The success and impunity enjoyed by the British privateer illustrated the need for the Spanish crown to consider serious defense reform. The main reforms focused on the improvement of the Armada Real and the construction of fortifications. This article seeks

Following the return to Spain of the remnant from the Magellan-Elcano voyage around the world (1519–22), various other Spanish voyages attempted to find the elusive return route eastward across the Pacific. Among those who proposed to search for that route was Pedro de Alvarado, a veteran of the conquests of Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras. In 1526, Alvarado visited the court of the young king of Spain

members and cross-referencing their related information to expand our grasp of the expedition. Thus far, 387 members of approximately 2800 have been addressed, and many of them, mostly unknown male and female Nahuatl-speaking indigenous allies, servants, and slaves from New Spain who made up the expedition and helped to keep it going with the minority of European leadership, may never be found out

inflated sense of ceremony and importance; this strategic nostalgia applied to the overall exhibition as well. The songs were a “musical manifestation of imperial expansion” (p. 251) that was anachronistic almost from themoment they debuted and now offer an instructive lesson about the perception of empire by the 1920s. The chronological organization of the chapters leaves no doubt that exhibition

While collaboration between imperial governments and their agents/representatives is essential to exploration and expansion, the partnership is complicated and fraught with tension. One area of tension is the competing interests of imperial governments and their agents, a dynamic, in the Spanish case, that can be traced back to the Reconquista, when the Spanish crown granted adelantados extensive powers

At the turn of the sixteenth century, John Cabot and his successors discovered abundant fish stocks in the north west Atlantic waters near Newfoundland. This article accounts for how sixteenth- and seventeenth-century mapping provide another strand of evidence that supplement our knowledge of the subsequent Iberian, French, and British fisheries. Such cartography exhibited significant mutations and

White Saviors and Magical Negros are well-established cinematic archetypes that have been identified, analyzed, and subsequently labeled as unadvisable storytelling tropes due to their innate cultural arrogance and racially offensive undertones. The following paper classifies a related cinematic phenomenon the author calls the White Fanatic. By analyzing three recent films in which white lead characters

fundraising efforts for ever more elaborate exploration ships. The first third of To the Edges of the Earth is stage-setting. Larson reviews the history of exploration to the polar regions and to ever-higher mountain peaks the recounts of the pre1909 exploits of Scott, Shackelton, Greely, Peary and Henson, Abruzzi, and several others. Each of these stories and the expeditions that they recount are

place or time. In the first chapter, “Cartography and Decolonization,” Raymond B. Craib sounds a series of keynotes that are echoed throughout this thoughtful and informative book. He starts with a map published in 1937, depicting European domination of Africa. Across the entire continent, only Egypt and Liberia had not been colonized by European nations; the “Unconquered part of Abyssinia” was about

and his place in history. Moreover, the author does give us some sense of the risk taking involved. As the author writes “luck definitely helps but being positioned for good luck to occur is often paramount” (17). Some of these stories – not a lot though – are about failures and nonlinear trajectories, two things that are good to think about in history. In general, this book is pleasant to read, except

This article focuses on travel accounts about Cornwall from “the long nineteenth century,” including those by Wilkie Collins and W.H. Hudson. The article traces a shift from a general hostility to “deformed” Cornish topography to an almost universal celebration of its “rugged beauty,” coupled with a consistent tendency to exoticize local culture, and considers the changing impetus of this othering—from

In a keynote address at an academic conference in Mexico about a decade ago, I recall historian Walther Bernecker making a case for the utilization of travel and exploration literature to reconstruct local conditions. The scarcity of archival sources, Bernecker explained, made travel accounts an especially important source. Clearly, Bernecker was taking a position in the debate over the usefulness

establish his credibility by citing independent sources, such as John Mandeville and eyewitness indigenous accounts. For Davies, Jodocus Hondius the Elder’s interpretation of Ralegh marks the turning point for her argument. Hondius engaged in what Davies terms “visual exegesis.” Showing how maps from 1596 to 1598 had drawn extensively on Ralegh’s descriptions of Guiana, Hondius, who knew that no Dutch

sented by a dearth of textual sources by and about Esteban does not have to hinder these efforts. He attempts to marshal context fromwhat little was written about Esteban, which brings an array of subjects before the reader, including race and the association of skin color with terms used to describe the man, including black and moor, but without providing any critical apparatus, in this case, from

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Luigi Amedeo of Savoia, the Duke of Abruzzi, planned and led the first Italian Arctic expedition with the purpose of reaching the Pole. His endeavor marked an important step in this race, which until the mid-nineteenth century had mainly involved explorers from Britain, the United States, and the Nordic nations. The Italian attempt gained international attention

critical way. The second part of Unfabling the East is called “The Present and the Past.” It investigates how Europeans observed different aspects of the Asian societies. One chapter looks at Asian influences on history by focusing on the careers of Attila the Hun, Tamerlane, Nadir Shah, and Haidar Ali as conquerors and statemen. Another chapter looks at European attempts to classify Asian societies

but his attendant notes are rather meager for a Hakluyt volume. The two accounts of contact with Easter Island, almost a half of a century apart, are strikingly similar. For example, González and his men were welcomed and treated well by the natives, as were Roggeveen and his crew before them, though the natives seemed to have been relatively unimpressed by both groups of visitors to their isolated