The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 103, July 1999 - April, 2000 Page: 116
554 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
More importantly, the text offers new insight into the process whereby these
maps were created and discusses the impact they had on other maps of the
region until the end of the seventeenth century and beyond. Thus, until explo-
ration of the Southwest was renewed, and new maps were drawn from it, maps of
the initial entradas continued to shape European understanding of the region.
Even after the Spanish (and the French) continued this cycle of exploration and
mapping in the 168os and 169os, vestiges of earlier maps often appeared on
maps of the eighteenth century. Such oddities are explained and traced back to
their origins by this scholarly work. Moveover, both the Pacific and Gulf Coasts
are treated, along with the vast interior lands.
Buisseret's contribution focuses on the large-scale early maps of Mexico,
wherein we can see the melding of the indigenous and European mapping tradi-
tions. Many of these little "picture" maps of towns and districts are artistically
stunning productions and show the wide range of what is possible under the cat-
egory of topographical maps, even though the European tradition became dom-
inant (and less interesting, visually) as time passed. There is also considerable
information on the official Spanish mapmaking agency-the Casa de
Contrataci6n at Seville-and the important geographers who worked in this
agency to record the results of various explorations and update the king's master
map of the New World. It was this padr6n real, in its evolving stages, that "leaked"
to map publishers of other nations and enabled them to issue surprisingly
sophisticated maps of America in the first century after Columbus's initial dis-
covery of 1492.
Readers looking for a well-written, easy to understand, yet carefully document-
ed summation of the very early mapping of Texas need look no further. Mapping
of the Entradas will stand as a useful guide to this complex subject long after the
quincentennial is forgotten.
Austin JACKJACKSON
Archival Investigations for Mission Nuestra Seiora de los Dolores de los Ais, San
Augustine County, Texas: A Catalog of Documents and Maps of the Mission Dolores
de los Ais Historical Materials Collection. By Adin Benavides Jr. (Austin: Texas
Department of Transportation, Environmental Affairs Division,
Archeological Studies Program, Report No. 11, 1998. Pp. xii+252.
Illustrations, acknowledgments, abstract, introduction, appendixes, glossary,
references. ISBN 0-9660796-3-9, paper.)
How remarkable that a community's zeal to promote the historical values of
its Spanish mission site on the colonial Camino Real has generated a research
tool of such impressive scope and quality. With a federal grant administered by
the Texas Department of Transportation, San Augustine has established not
only a visitor center and museum to house archaeological materials from the
mission site, but a remarkable archive to support interpretation and continuing
research on the Spanish era of their region.
Archivist/historian Adin Benavides, long noted for expertise in the Spanish
and Mexican past of Texas, was retained to find and obtain copies of all perti-
nent documents and to create a useful guide to the resulting collection at the116
July
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 103, July 1999 - April, 2000, periodical, 2000; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101220/m1/142/: accessed March 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.