Early Encounters in North America

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Painstakingly assembled from hundreds of sources, Early Encounters in North America: Peoples, Cultures, and the Environment documents the relationships among peoples in North America from 1534 to 1850. The collection focuses on personal accounts and provides unique perspectives from all of the protagonists, including traders, slaves, missionaries, explorers, soldiers, native peoples, and officials, both men and women. This project, spearheaded by Alexander Street Press, brings coherence to a wide range of published and unpublished accounts, including narratives, diaries, journals, and letters.

Just a few discoveries unlocked from the hundreds of source texts include accounts of early explorations of the colonies at Roanoke and Plimoth (Plymouth); the Cherokee and the Creek; works by Captain Smith, Gosnold, Hakluyt, Hudson, and others; collected accounts of the Americas published in Europe by de Bry (including Alexander Street's first-ever translation of a volume of de Bry); descriptions of landscapes from William Byrd and Mark Catesby; in-depth studies of missions; extensive accounts by fur traders; detailed descriptions of pioneer settlements; works by Cartier, Champlain, Joliet, Marquette, Hennepin, Radisson, Des Groseilliers, La Salle, Tonti, Bourgmont, the V�rendryes brothers; The Jesuit Relations in their original languages and also translated; the Sioux, Cheyenne, Comanche, Wichita, and Shosoni; the original journals of the Lewis and Clark expedition; the distinct cultures of California; the Apache, Yuma, and Navaho; works by de Vaca, Coronado; the expeditions of Ayala, Quadra, Drake, and others along the Coast of California and the Spanish interior; explorations by Father Kino, de Anza, and Garc�s; the surveys of Simpson and Sitgreaves; the explorations of Mackenzie, Pike, and Long; the environmental and cultural impact of the California Gold Rush; and much more!

The collection includes more than 1,200 quality color images, including many works by George Catlin and John James Audubon. The images are indexed independently, to allow users to search them by date, author, and numerous other identifiers. The images are also viewable when looking through the electronic versions of whole books.

 Access open only to UBC students, faculty, staff and on-site Library users (other restrictions may apply)

Permitted Uses
Research or Private Study? Yes
Linking? Yes
Learning Management System? Yes
Text and Data Mining? No
Alumni Access? Yes
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