“Cultural Readings: Colonization and Print in the Americas.” Penn Library Exhibitions.
25 March 2004. <http://www.library.upenn.edu/exhibits/rbm/kislak/index/cultural.html>
This diverse resource is a huge endeavour, an attempt to chronicle “the prodigious number of texts which colonization generated” in the Americas. It is split into six categories of literatures: “The Promotion & Possession” which , “Viewers and the Viewed”, “Print & Native Cultures”, “Religion and Print”, “New World Lands in Print”, and “Colonial Fictions, Colonial Histories”. There is also short collection of links to excellent scholarly essays on Amerindian representation and language in contact narratives.
Engels, Andre. “Discoverers Web Homepage.” Technical University Eindhoven.
22 March 2004. <http://www.win.tue.nl/cs/fm/engels/discovery/#age>
This eclectic resource, collected by a Ph.D. scholar in Holland, is his attempt to “gather all types of information found on the web about voyages of discovery and exploration.” There is listed here a plethora of different resources from the time period, though, and up-to-date links on the Age of Discovery involving Africa, India, North and South America. Also very interesting and rare is a section regarding links for essays on travel narratives done by non-Western explorers involving Chinese, Polynesian, Islamic, and Mayan peoples. Although a little disorganized, an excellent resource on rare information found in universities throughout the world.
“Lewis and Clark: The Maps of Exploration 1507-1814.” The University of Virginia
Library. 27 March 2004. <http://www.lib.virginia.edu/speccol/exhibits/lewis_clark/ch1.html>
This interesting compilation of travel maps are testimony to the ideology and discourse around colonial domination and economic interest in the New World. Although strong on maps involving later Lewis and Clark expeditions, many maps from the 16th century are listed, including voyagers Giovanni da Verrazano, Sebastian Munster, and later John Farrer, which show Europeans’ continuing “interest in finding a direct passage to the Orient” and chronicle the “persistence of this yearning to find an easy route to Asia”.
Pickering, Keith A. “Examining the History, Navigation, and Landfall of Christopher
Columbus.” The Columbus Navigation. 24 March 2004. http://www1.minn.net/~keithp/
This opinionated page from published historian Keith Pickering seeks to chronicle and analyze the scientific principles, ideology, and purpose of Columbus’ journey, as well as provide resources to other scholars to support an analysis of the context of his travels. There are several interesting aspects to this site, including an extensive bibliography of essays surrounding Columbus’ travel journals, a summary of all his voyages (including research regarding his navigational techniques), and several essays and articles written by Pickering himself on the destruction of Native Peoples, his travel logs, and Columbus’ ‘suspect’ scientific traveling principles.
“The Sixteenth Century: Topics – Renaissance Exploration, Travel, and the World
Outside Europe: Overview.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Norton Topics Online. 21 March 2004. <http://www.wwnorton.com/nael/16century/topic_2/welcome.htm>
This excellent introductory resource provides context and information regarding many of the major writers during early exploration literatures and their voyages. There is an excellent analysis in the article on how “Elizabethans used encounters with other cultures as a means of defining themselves”, specifically in “defining what they are not” from their encounters with ‘the Other’. This set of articles also includes links to other travel narratives within the time period, including Arthur Barlowe, George Peckham, Jean de Léry, Michel de Montaigne, Ralph Pitch and Peter Mundy. Finally, there are several examples of illustrations from the time period of the explorers themselves and their representations of natives.