The exploration of North America, 1630-1776

About this book

This volumes presents a compelling recreation of early North American explorers and exploration through carefully documented commentary linked to original narratives by traders frontiersmen priests and soldiers as well as a superb range of contemporary maps drawings and pictures many never before reproduced. The amount of discovery literature published during the 17th and 18th centuries is enormous and ranges from the articulate reports contained in the Jesuit Relations to the rough but graphic accounts of traders. The aims of the explorers journeys varied: exploitation of the fur trade determination to claim new territories missionary zeal the quest for the western ocean and in the end delineation of boundaries. But whatever their motives the explorers narratives are full of vivid descriptions of great rivers seemingly endless plains snow-capped mountains lakes like inland seas and above all the customs and curiosities of the numerous Indian peoples and the super-abundance of animal and plant life. Each chapter of this book is prefaced by a historical survey of the opening up of new land and the main routes followed. In contemporary accounts certain figures stand out for the importance of their journeys or the perception of their writings: Radisson who served both British and French in turn; La Verendrye searching for the western ocean; La Salle on the Mississippi and the Gulf coast; Gist and Daniel Boone in Kentucky; Perea and Cook on the northwest coast; Escalante in the western interior. The experience of these mens not only richly informative but makes highly entertaining and absorbing narrative in its own right.