Keys to the Encounter: A Library of Congress Resource Guide for the Study of the Age of Discovery (review)

Vol. XXXII, No. 2 175 Keys to the Encounter: A Library of Congress Resource Guide for the Study of the Age of Discovery. Louis De Vorsey, Jr. Washington, D.C: Library of Congress, 1992. xvii & 212 p., maps, photographs, illustrations , notes, appendix, index. $18.00 paper (ISRN 0-8444-0692-9) Scholars and laypersons alike have reason to rejoice if future Library of Congress resource guides to its collection are as beautifully designed and well-crafted as Keys to the Encounter. Recause this is the Columbus Quincentenary year, officials determined that the first resource guide published by the Library of Congress would focus on the Age of Discovery . Not only is this book timely, it is very welcome. The heart of Louis De Vorsey's self-described "modest" book is a narrative organized into six chapters that cover the time period from about 1450 A.D. to the years following the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588. Europeans not only "discovered" America during this critical 150 year period, but continued widespread and sustained "encounters" with its indigenous inhabitants. De Vorsey makes it clear from the beginning that an encounter involves two sides; he therefore emphasizes the activities of both Native Americans and Europeans in the early decades of contact. This approach, in my opinion, is what makes his book an unusually valuable addition to quincentenary literature. In Chapter 1 De Vorsey introduces a three-part typology that explains contact, collision, and relationship encounters. He defines contact encounters as being the first brief meeting of European explorers and indigenous peoples, when overt hostility was a rare occurrence. Collision encounters ensued when Europeans began to threaten native societies, and even though some Europeans suffered, the results were almost always catastrophic for Native Americans. Relationship encounters were "a prolonged series of reciprocal contacts on the basis of political equilibrium or stalemate between the parties involved." Considering the time period covered, the remainder of the book contains details mostly of conflict encounters. In chapters 2 and 3, the reader is presented in turn with the world views held by Europeans and Native Americans at the beginning of the Age of Discovery. Recause their cultures and their world views were so divergent, it is understandable why both chapters are titled "Worlds Apart." Chapter 4 is devoted wholly to Columbus and the First Voyage in 1492-93. The other Columbian voyages and subsequent Spanish at- 176Southeastern Geographer tempts to create an empire in the New World are the concern ofChapter 5, and it is here that we see good examples of collision encounters. The last chapter focuses mostly on the contact encounters made during the Sixteenth Century by Portuguese, French, and English exploreradventurers as those countries began to compete with Spain in the western hemisphere. De Vorsey draws heavily from contemporary documents written by both Europeans and indigenous Native Americans to explain how they perceived each other through the limited prisms oftheir cultures during the century following that fateful day in October, 1492. He includes long, pertinent, verbatim quotes from such diverse sources as Ferdinand Columbus, Hernán Cortes, Garcilaso de la Vega (El Inca), and Drake's chaplain, Reverend Francis Fletcher. Recause they concern the territory now known as the American South, passages from the writings of John Smith, John Lederer, Giovanni Verrazano, Chicorama (a Native American informant with Ayllon in La Florida), Cabeza de Vaca, and Hernando de Soto are of particular interest to readers of this journal. Throughout the narrative, De Vorsey cites materials specifically held by the Library of Congress. Nonetheless, it is in the 42-page appendix where the resource guide is located. In a paean to the venerable institution , he literally takes readers by the hand and happily leads them to the diverse places where Columbiana and other vital documents related to the Age of Discovery are housed. The holdings ofthe Geography and Map Division, the Rare Rooks and Special Collections Division, along with the Manuscript and Hispanic divisions, are carefully described with awe. It is comforting to know that such treasures as the Henry Harrisse, Hans P. and Hanni Kraus, J. G. Kohl, and the Peter Force collections are being superbly cared for, and are readily available in the United...