Five Timucua language imprints, 1612-1635

The five works in this collection are among the earliest known primary sources that provide information about the now-extinct language of the Timucua, a Native American people who once lived in a large area of northern Florida, southern Georgia, and southern Alabama. The first two works, printed in Mexico City in 1612 and bound together into one volume, are catechisms in Spanish and Timucua written by Francisco Pareja, a missionary in Spanish Florida. The third work is a Confessionario, also by Pareja, printed in Mexico City in 1613. The two other works are devotional texts compiled and translated into Timucua by Gregorio de Movilla, printed in Mexico City in 1635, and bound in one volume. These books owe their survival to antiquarian and linguist Buckingham Smith (1810-1871), whose collection of manuscripts and books related to Native American cultures and languages was donated to the New-York Historical Society in the 1880s. Digitization of this collection was funded by a grant from the Metropolitan New York Library Council.