Edited by: Geoffrey Scammell, Pembroke College, Cambridge

Published by Primary Source Microfilm

Conquistadors: The Struggle for Colonial Power in Latin America, 1492-1825 represents the richest single available source of primary source material from the "Age of Discovery" outside Spain. This remarkable collection features expedition records, original letters and maps of exploration and colonization, and "diaries of discoveries" from South America, providing an essential documentary resource on this fascinating era. From narratives of Columbus' first voyage (at Sloane Ms 1709) to the end of Colonial Spanish rule, Conquistadors: The Struggle for Colonial Power in Latin America, 1492-1825 offers a stunning testimony to European exploitation, evangelization, and botanical and geographical exploration in South America from Texas to Tierra del Fuego.

In constant competition for the wealth and dominion of the Americas, Britain, the Netherlands, France and Portugal were all involved in negotiations and colonial exploitation along with Spain. All these axes are represented in this collection, which features narratives of battles, descriptions of mining, trading and evangelization from all the European powers, dispatches from colonial governors and descriptions of native civilizations. At the core of the British Library's extensive Latin American collection lie "The Venezuela Papers," a collection of 40 manuscript volumes of official letters and documents relating to the Spanish occupation of Trinidad, Margarita, Guiana, Venezuela and other adjacent provinces and islands and to their differences there with the English, dating from 1530 to 1824.

Although many of the maps and narratives in the British Library, collected and donated by explorers and colonial officials over the centuries, reflect perforce, the European experience in the New World, there are also fascinating examples of documents from native cultures or in native languages, represented here by Bible translations in Quechua and other native languages and indigenous dramas and poems.

The emphasis of the collection however is very much on exploration, with maps, scrolls, descriptions of voyages by sea and river, terrain, flora and fauna, settlement posts, plantations and mines, missionary activities, and "diaries of discoveries." Territories represented include Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Ecuador, Florida, Guatemala, Guiana, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Patagonia, Peru, Puerto Rico, Texas, Uruguay, Venezuela and the West Indies. Languages include Spanish, English, Portuguese, French and Italian.

105 reels in 3 parts