Compendium And Description Of The West Indies

ANTONIO VAZQUEZ DE ESPINOSA

Publication: Smithsonian Institution, 1942, Washington

First edition. Large 8vo. 862 pp. Translated by Charles Upson Clark. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Vol. 102. Beautifully bound in blue leather with gilt illustration on the front cover; gilt ruling; gilt lettering to spine; gilt dentelles; top edge gilt; marbled endpapers. Antonio Vazquez de Espinosa (d. 1630) was a Spanish Carmelite friar who abandoned his academic ambitions in order to serve as a priest in the Americas. His manuscript of 1628 was a "lost" manuscript until translator Clark found it in the Barberini collection in the Vatican. Spending the years from 1610 to 1622 in the Indies, this compendium details descriptions of the people, products, history and administration of the whole Spanish empire from Mexico to Chile, not omitting the Philippine Islands or Paraguay ... most of these places he visited himself , and he frequently closes his chapters with the statement that 'all of this I verified with my own eyes when I was in that country.' Vazquez evidently had access to contemporary administrative and military archives, for long tables of valuable data are given. If one wants to know the weight diameter, size of ball, and powder required for each of the forty-three cannons guarding Morro Castle in Havana, or the salaries of each of the royal officials in Chile, from captain in the army to caulker in the royal navy, or the number of Indians in each curacy of Yucatan in 1609, Vazquez gives the answer." Part I deals with New Spain (Mexico, the colonies in the Indies and Florida) while Part II relates to South America, including the Spanish Main. Much on geography, natural history, mining, agriculture, public administration and Church institutions. Minor wear to extremities; else a fine, bright copy.

Inventory Number: 48078