Americas collection

Original letters, broadsides, pamphlets, printed materials and books documenting the political and cultural relationships between the United States, Mexico, Central and South America, Cuba, Spain, and Portugal, beginning with the heyday of nation formation from 1776 to 1815 and ending with the building of the Panama Canal in the early twentieth century. Many of the documents are original government publications such as constitutions, decrees, or presidential and congressional messages, and broadsides and pamphlets serving as public statements regarding the political and social events of the time. Other items of note include George F. Dunham's "A Journey to Brazil on the Good Ship Montpelier," an 1853 first hand description of slavery and plantation life in Brazil, and the first Mexico City printing (1821) of Augustin de Iturbide's Plan de Iguala.