In 1761 Ilarione da Bergamo, a Capuchin friar, journeyed to Mexico to gather alms for foreign missions. After harrowing voyages across the Mediterranean and Atlantic, he reached Mexico City in 1763. His account reveals the squalor, crime, and other perils in the viceregal capital, and details daily life: food, public hygiene, sexual morality, medical practices, and popular diversions. His observations about religious life are particularly valuable. Ilarione also describes mining and refining techniques, recounts a bitter and bloody miners' strike, and recalls traveling across bandit-infested wilderness to Guadalajara.

After his return to Italy, Ilarione wrote an account of his journey, published here for the first time in English. The editors have liberally annotated the text, written an introduction about Ilarione's life and the historical context of his journey, and included more than a dozen of Fra Ilarione's original drawings, including maps and sketches of Mexican flora. "Daily Life in Colonial Mexico" is a welcome addition to the firsthand literature of New Spain.

Made famous through the paintings of Swiss artist Karl Bodmer, the North American expedition of German naturalist Prince Maximilian of Wied in 1832-34 was the first scientific exploration of the Missouri River's upper reaches since the epic journey of Lewis and Clark almost thirty years earlier. Maximilian's journal has never been presented fully in English - until now. This collector's-quality, oversized volume, the first of a three-volume set, draws on the Maximilian-Bodmer Collection at Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Nebraska.The North American Journals offer an incomparable view of the upper Missouri and its Native peoples at a pivotal moment in the history of the American West. This meticulous account, newly translated with extensive modern annotation, faithfully reproduces Maximilian's 110 drawings and watercolors as well as his own notes, asides, and appendices. Volume I, which covers May 1832 to April 1833, documents Maximilian's voyage to North America and his first encounters with Indians upon reaching the West. This is an essential resource for nineteenth-century western American history and a work of lasting value. This book is published with the assistance of the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.

Few historical chronicles are as informative and eloquent as the journal written by Prince Maximilian of Wied as a record of his journey into the North American interior in 1833, following the route Lewis and Clark had taken almost thirty years earlier. Maximilian's memorable descriptions of topography, Native peoples, and natural history were further brought to life through the now-familiar watercolors and sketches of Karl Bodmer, the young Swiss artist who accompanied him.

The first of the three volumes of the "North American Journals" recounts the prince's journey from Europe to St. Louis--then the edge of the frontier. Volume II vividly narrates his experiences on the upper Missouri and offers an unparalleled view of the region and the peoples native to it. In these pages, we accompany Maximilian as he travels far up the Missouri River to Fort McKenzie, a trading post some 2,500 river miles from St. Louis near what is now Fort Benton, Montana. The handsome, oversize volume not only reproduces this historic document but also features every one of Maximilian's illustrations--more than 200 in all, including nearly 50 in color--from the original journal now housed at Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Nebraska.

Maximilian recorded detailed observations of flora, fauna, geology, and climate. From his unique, scientifically trained perspective, he also undertook a serious field study of the cultures and languages of the central and northern Great Plains Indians he encountered. His journal contains important, firsthand descriptions of tribal social customs, religious rituals, material culture, and art, as well as an account of Native interactions with Euro-Americans engaged in the then-burgeoning fur trade.

"This book is published with the assistance of the National Historical Publications and Records Commission."