History Commons^™

The Cartography Of The New World: Hernán Cortés’S Literary Mapping Of America, Sarah Tietz

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

The Age of Discovery travel narratives from the fifteenth and sixteenth century, written by European explorers to the Americas, can be understood not only as narratives, but also as literary maps of the New World. Specifically, Hernán Cortés’s Second Letter in Cartas de Relación exemplifies the ways in which literary cartography helped write the Americas into existence in Europe. Cortés’s map does not reproduce the land he encounters, it creates the space known as America. His letters become a map in three ways. First, Cortés deliberately included descriptions of features of the land and natives that would impress the Christian …