Brief Timeline of American Literature and Events
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1500-1649 | Political and Social History | Literature |
1500-1549 | 1512: Spanish Laws of Burgos forbid
enslavement of Indians and advocate Christian conversion
1514: Bartolome de las Casas petitions Spanish crown on behalf of Native Americans 1519-1521 Cortes's conquest of Aztecs in Mexico. 1528-1536 A member of the Narvaez expedition, Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca is shipwrecked first near Tampa Bay and later on Galveston Island off the coast of what is now Texas. After six years spent among the Indians of the region, he and his companions travel westward across Texas and Mexico. 1540-1542 Seeking gold first in the city of Cibola, reportedly larger and richer than Mexico City, and then in Quivera, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado leads an expeditionary force through the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles, with much loss of life among the area's native peoples. He returns to Mexico City in 1542 and dies in 1544. 1542 Urged on by Bartolome de las Casas and others, Carlos V enacts the "New Laws" designed to end the encomienda system that enslaves native people. |
1519: Hernan Cortes, First
Letter from Mexico to the Spanish Crown
1542: Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, The Relation of Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca(New URL) |
1550-1599 | 1584: Sir Walter
Raleigh sends a reconnaissance fleet under Captains Amadas and Barlow
to the future Croatoan Sound, North Carolina. Based on their glowing
account, he sends out a colonizing expedition the next year of 100 men
who settle on Roanoke Island, among them artist John White and surveyor
Thomas
Harriot. Sir Francis Drake later takes the colonists back to England
at their request.
1587: Ralegh sends out a fresh colony of 117 men, women, and children in three ships, with John White as governor. 1590: White returns to find that settlers have disappeared, leaving "Croatoan" carved on a tree 1598: Don Juan Oñate establishes the colony of New Mexico by taking over a pueblo, which he renames San Juan, near modern-day Santa Fe. In retaliation for an attack on the settlement, he destroys the Acoma pueblo, killing 800 and capturing 500. |
1550 Tales of
La Llorona (the Weeping Woman), an important cultural figure and legend,
begin to be told in Mexico City.
1552: Casas,The Very Brief Relation of the Devastation of the Indies, a protest against the treatment of 1568: Bernal Diaz del Castillo writes The True History of the Conquest of New Spain (1632) 1588: Thomas Harriot, A Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia (.pdf version) (summary) 1589: Arthur Barlow, The First Voyage Made to the Coasts of America |
1600-1619 | 1607: Establishment of Jamestown.
1608 Colony of Quebec is established. 1610. Santa Fe is established as the new capital of New Mexico, with Pedro de Peralta as the governor of the new colony. |
1616: John Smith, A Description of New England |
1620-1629 |
1630-43: English Puritans immigrate to Massachusetts Bay Colony |
1630 John Cotton preaches the sermon
God's
Promise to His Plantation to the departing colonists aboard the Arb
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1630-1639 | 1630 Population: 3,000 colonists in
Virginia; 300 at Plymouth. During 1630-1640, another 16,000 colonists
will arrive.
1636 Founding of Providence, R. I. by Roger Williams, who establishes Rhode Island as a place of religious toleration. 1636-1637. Pequot War. 1637 Pequot War. Roger Williams helps to convince the Narragansetts, traditional enemies of the Pequots, to join the New Englanders' side of the conflict. 1638 7 March. Banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for her religious beliefs, Anne Hutchinson leaves Boston and helps to establish Pocasset, or Portsmouth, Rhode Island. (See this article for information about Hutchinson's beliefs.) |
1637 Thomas Morton, New English Canaan |
1640-1649 | 1630-50 William
Bradford begins writing Of Plymouth Plantation (pub. 1856)
1643 Anne Hutchinson and family murdered by Native Americans near Eastchester, Long Island (N. Y.) 1646 Robert Child and others protest the intolerance of Massachusetts Puritans toward those of other faiths; in response, Governor John Winthrop and others justify their policies and banish Child. 1647 First woman barrister in the colonies, Margaret Brent of Maryland, seeks and is denied the right to vote in the assembly. |
1642 John Cotton, The True Constitution
of a Particular Visible Church
1643 Roger Williams, A Key into the Language of America 1645 John Cotton preaches and publishes The Way of the Churches of Christ in New England, a sermon that justifies the New England Way 1650 Anne Bradstreet, The Tenth Muse |
Related
Timelines |
Timeline
of the West at pbs.org
Navajo Timeline |