Before one can seriously study, analyze, or theorize about a subject, one needs to understand its foundation and be comfortable with its basic premises. Music in North America and the West Indies from the Discovery to 1850, in conjunction with the author's first Scarecrow Press book, Music in Ibero-America to 1850, intends to lay the groundwork for the musical and cultural history of North America. Music in North America is a survey of the people, events, and institutions that helped shape music in the early centuries of North America. Collecting information from various historical data, author Daniel Mendoza de Arce presents straightforward descriptions of both religious and secular early music. Basic historical information about the Renaissance and Baroque periods in North America and the Caribbean are presented chronologically through 1850 along musical, geographic, and cultural lines. A valuable study for researchers, students, and interested readers alike, this treatise helps readers achieve a sense of perspective and a broader understanding of their place in world culture.