Venegas, Miguel:

$12,500 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

NOTICIA DE LA CALIFORNIA, Y DE SU CONQUISTA TEMPORAL, Y ESPIRITUAL HASTA EL TIEMPO PRESENTE. The first edition of this classic history of California, frequently reprinted in various languages. Published in Madrid in 1757, Venegas' work is the first general history of California and of the Spanish on the Pacific Coast and into the far Southwest, including southern Arizona and northern Sonora. It broke the general Spanish practice of concealing as much information as possible about their activities and possessions in America. Noted bibliographer Henry R. Wagner expressed surprise that the work was permitted to be published at all, and states that the work "contains more on Lower California than almost any other book that had been published in one hundred and fifty years." Anonymously edited by Father Andrés Marcos Burriel, who based the work on Venegas's 1739 manuscript but incorporated additional information from other sources. Volume three of this original Spanish edition contains [an] account of discoveries on the Northwest coast attacking, as fictitious, the then-accepted voyages of de Fonte and de Fuca." The folding map in the first volume shows the Baja Peninsula of California and the Gulf of California from the Colorado River down to Cape St. Lucas, with part of Sonora and Sinaloa in the south and the Gila River and Apache territory to the north. The four plates surrounding the map depict the peoples and animals found in California as well as the Martyrdom of Jesuits the

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