LibGuides: HILA 100 Conquest and Empire: The Americas: Primary Sources Available at UCSD

Helpful Secondary Sources

Secondary Sources are important to provide context for the Primary Sources, and at times, the secondary sources can also lead you to primary sources (by consulting the notes and bibliography). Here are a few key primary sources:

Moctezuma's children: Aztec royalty under Spanish rule, 1520-1700 by Donald E. Chipman
Print
Moctezuma's children: Aztec royalty under Spanish rule, 1520-1700 by Donald E. Chipman
Ebook

Using Special Collections at UCSD

UCSD's Special Collections and Archives (SC&A) materials are cataloged in UC Library Search and finding aids for manuscript collections are available on the SC&A website, along with policies and more information. All SC&A materials are stored in an environmentally controlled, secured area and all users must register and place requests to see the materials. If the items are located onsite, we will pull on demand when you arrive at the library. Keep an eye out for materials that are located offsite (it will say so in UC Library Search), as delivery times for these items may be up to a week.

Register online to use Special Collections & Archives: https://spcoll-request.ucsd.edu/logon. Once registered, you can place requests online directly from the catalog and finding aids, or log in to your account to queue requests for a future visit and to view previous requests.
In addition to registering you will also need to show your photo ID when you visit Special Collections.

Primary Source Databases and Digital Libraries with English-Language Material

UCSD's Hill [Special] Collection of Pacific Voyages (Early voyages of exploration and discovery to the Pacific prior to 1850)
To look for relevant materials in this collection, click on the link on the right to the "Catalog Record for the Hill Collection of Pacific Voyages" then click on the modify search button. Suggested modifiers are to put in the country you are looking of information on as a keyword or word in the title and to scroll down and select English as the language (if necessary) and the year of publication before 1800

ARTstor
Library of over 2.5 million digital images and their corresponding metadata. Covers many time periods and cultures, and documents the fields of architecture, painting, sculpture, photography, decorative arts, design, anthropology, ethnographic and women's studies, as well as many other forms of visual culture

Colonial America
When complete, will consist of all 1,450 volumes of the CO 5 series of Colonial Office files held at The National Archives in London. Includes material on piracy and seaborne rivalry with the French and Spanish.
Early English Books Online (EEBO)
Although this is an electronic collection of full text and page images of books published in England from 1475-1700, some of the books included are non-English-language and many deal with subjects beyond England, including the conquest and colonization of the Americas.
eHRAF Archaeology
Archaeological and other texts that are indexed by tradition and subjects. Former title: eHRAF Collection of Archaeology. As of January 2009, includes texts on 55 different cultures.

Electronic Enlightenment
Searchable and browsable database with access to correspondence between the greatest thinkers and writers of the 17th-19th centuries, and their families and friends, bankers and booksellers, patrons and publishers. Coverage includes letters and documents, manuscripts and early printed editions, scholarly annotations, and links to biographies, dictionaries, encyclopedias, newspapers, and other online resources. With 79,254 letters and documents and 10,232 correspondents (as of Winter 2018–2019) EE is the most wide-ranging online collection of edited correspondence of the early modern period, linking people across Europe, the Americas and Asia from the early 17th to the mid-19th century.

Trans-Atlantic Slave Database
An Emory University Digital Library Research Initiative funded by the NEH which constitutes the culmination of several decades of independent and collaborative research by scholars drawing upon data in libraries and archives around the Atlantic world. Includes maps and data on the slave trade and slaves transported across the Atlantic Ocean.

Afro-Americana imprints, 1535-1922
This includes more than 12,000 books, pamphlets and broadsides spanning over 400 years, from the early 16th to the early 20th century. Critically important subjects covered include the West's discovery and exploitation of Africa; the rise of slavery in the New World along with the growth and success of abolitionist movements; the development of racial thought, including political protest and resistance to racism; descriptions of African American life throughout the Americans; and slavery and race in fiction and drama.

Seminal Colonial Latin American Primary Sources Translated to English

In addition to the specific works below, The Oxford Bibliographies database includes a Bibliographic Essay focused on Hernan Cortes, which points to and evaluates both secondary and primary sources for research on Cortes and the Conquest more broadly.

The Siete Partidas, Translated by Samuel Parsons Scott, Edited by Robert I. Burns. Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001. This is a 5 volume set:

Vol. I: The Medieval Church: The World of Clerics and Laymen

Vol. II: Medieval Government: The World of Kings and Warriors

Vol. III: Medieval Law: Lawyers and Their Work

Vol. IV: Family, Commerce, and the Sea: The Worlds of Women and Merchants

Vol. V: Underworlds: The Dead, the Criminal, and the Marginalized

E-Book

An account of the conquest of Guatemala in 1524 / by Pedro de Alvarado by Sedley J. Mackie (Ed.)
Call Number: Geisel Floor6 F1437 .A466 1924a
Publication Date: New York: The Cortes Society, 1924
Alt. Title: Documents and narratives concerning the discovery and conquest of Latin America ... no. 3

eBook

Lieutenant Nun is available as an ebook through Alexander Street Press.

The Answer/La Respuesta: Including Sor Filotea's Letter And New Selected Poems by Juana Ines De La Cruz, Sister/Sor
eBook
The broken spears : the Aztec account of the conquest of Mexico by León Portilla, Miguel
Print and eBook; Multiple copies exist so if one is checked out, see if another one is available
Cabeza de Vaca's Adventures in the unknown interior of America by Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Alvar. Trans. and annot. by Cyclone Covey ; with a new epilogue by William T. Pilkington
Call Number: Geisel Floor 6 E125.N9 A3713 1983
Publication Date: Albuquerque : University of New Mexico Press, 1983
Print Only
Children of God's Fire: A Documentary History of Black Slavery in Brazil by Conrad, Robert
Print Only
Colonial Latin America: A Documentary History by Mills, Kenneth; William Taylor, and Sandra Lauderdale Graham
eBook and Print
Consider the Source: Documents in Latin American History by E. Bradford Burns, Julie A. Charlip
Call Number: Geisel Floor6 F1410 .C7454 2007
Publication Date: NJ: Pearson, 2007
In Process -- not yet in Catalog
The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico by Bernal Diaz del Castillo
Call Number: F1230 .D5442

Diaz del Castillo's narrative is also available online through Google Books: Vol. 1 and Vol. 2

The discovery of New Spain in 1518 by Juan de Grijalva by Translated with an introd. and notes by Henry R. Wagner
Call Number: Geisel Floor6 E125.G8 W3 1942a
Publication Date: New York: Cortes Society, 1942
Alt. Title: Documents and narratives concerning the discovery and conquest of Latin America. New ser., no. 2
Print Only
The discovery of Yucatan by Francisco Hernández de Córdoba / a by translated with an introd. and notes by Henry R. Wagner
Call Number: Geisel Floor6 F1376 .W14 1942a
Publication Date: New York: Cortes Society, 1942
Alt. Title: Documents and narratives concerning the discovery and conquest of Latin America, No. 1
Print Only

History of Latin American Civilization: Sources and Interpretations by Lewis Hanke
Call Number: F1410 .H22
Publication Date: Boston: Little Brown, 1967
Print Only
History of the Indies by Bartolome de las Casas/Trans. and ed. by Andreee Collard
Call Number: F1411.C4275 1971
Publication Date: NY: Harper & Row 1971
Print Only
Letter to a king : a Peruvian chief's account of life under the Incas and under Spanish rule / by Huamán Poma by arr. and edited with an introd. by Christopher Dilke
Call Number: Geisel Floor6 F3429 .P7813
Publication Date: Austin : University of Texas Press, 2009
Available in print at Call Number above and as an ebook by clicking on title.
Letters and people of the Spanish Indies, Sixteenth Century by Trans. and Ed. by James Lockhart and Enrique Otte
Call Number: F1411 .L58
Publication Date: Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1976
Letters from Mexico by Cortés, Hernán
eBook and Print
Lieutenant nun : memoir of a Basque transvestite in the New World / Catalina de Erauso by translated from the Spanish by Michele Stepto and Gabriel Stepto
Call Number: Geisel Floor5 CT1358.E7 A3 1996
Publication Date: Boston : Beacon Press, 1996 [Original cerca 1592]
eBook and Print
Mesoamerican Voices by Restall, Matthew; Lisa Sousa, Kevin Terraciano, eds.
Call Number: PM3055 .M47 2005
Publication Date: Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2005
eBook and Print
Mexican History: A Primary Source Reader by Nora E. jaffary, Edward W. Osowski, Susie S. Porter
Publication Date: Westview Press, 2009
eBook
Relation of the discovery and conquest of the kingdoms of Peru, by Pedro Pizarro ... by tr. into English and annotated by Philip Ainsworth Means
Call Number: Geisel Floor6 F3442 .P78 v.1
Publication Date: New York : Cortes Society, 1921
Alt. Title: Documents and narratives concerning the discovery and conquest of Latin America ; no. 4
Print Only

The translation of Pizarro's account is available online through the internet archive.

The royal commentaries of Peru : in two parts, the first part treating of the original of their Incas or kings ..., the second part, describing the manner by which that new world was conquered by the Spaniards ... by Vega, Garcilaso de la (The Inca)
Call Number: Geisel Floor 6 F3442 .G1823 v.1 and 2
eBook
Victors and Vanquished: Spanish and Nahua Views of the Conquest of Mexico by Schwartz, Stuart, ed.
eBook and Print
An Inca Account of the Conquest of Peru by Yupangui, Diego de Castro
Call Number: Geisel Floor 6 F3442 .Y8513 2006
Publication Date: Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University, David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, 2005
eBook and Print: Multiple editions with varoius call numbers: F3442 .C98 1973, F3442 .Y8 1992 F3442 .Y87 2001, F3442 .Y87 2005
Yucatán Before and After the Conquest by Landa, Diego de
Call Number: Geisel Floor 5: F1376.L24613 1978
eBook and Print

The translation of De Landa is available through google books.

The war of conquest : how it was waged here in Mexico : the Aztecs' own story by Bernardino de Sahagún ; rendered into modern English by Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble
Call Number: Oversize Geisel, Floor8 F1230 .S1313
Publication Date: Salt Lake City : University of Utah Press, 1978
Print Only
Colonial lives : documents on Latin American history, 1550-1850 by Richard Boyer, Geoffrey Spurling
Publication Date: 2000
Print Only

HILA 100 Conquest and Empire: The Americas: Primary Sources Available at UCSD

Identifying and Finding Primary Sources

Helpful Secondary Sources

Using Special Collections at UCSD

Primary Source Databases and Digital Libraries with English-Language Material

Seminal Colonial Latin American Primary Sources Translated to English