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SOUTH AMERICA CARIBBEAN Pelleprat, Pierre, SJ (1606-1667) S JABAA

Relation des missions des PP. de la Compagnie de Iesus dans les isles & dans la terre ferme de l'Amerique Meridionale. Divisée en deux parties. Avec une introduction à la langue des Galibis Sauvages de la terre ferme de l'Amerique

1655ref. 5394Paris: Chez S. Cramoisy & G. Cramoisy 1655. SOLE EDITION. Hardcover. Fine. A fine copy in its original binding of 17th c. mottled French calf spine gilt and with red morocco label minor wear to the spine. Fine and fresh with just the occasional small rust spot. Engraved arms of the dedicatee Nicolas Fouquet on the second leaf. First edition of this rare relation describing the Jesuit missions in the Caribbean and on the South American mainland providing one of the earliest systematic accounts of the Lesser Antilles and Guiana. Much of the book is based on the author's firsthand experiences. He describes the foundation of churches the conversion of enslaved Africans and Indigenous nations Indigenous culture the moral and physical trials of evangelization and the natural history of the islands and mainland. Of special importance is the third part of the work: the author's grammar and vocabulary of the Galibi language one of the earliest printed studies of a South American Indigenous language. Pelleprat explains the purpose of understanding Galibi: "I have composed a small grammar and vocabulary of the Galibi language so that our Fathers who shall come after me may speak to these peoples in their own words and more easily win their souls to God." In 1651 Pierre Pelleprat was sent from France to the Antilles joining Fathers Denys Mesland François Gueymeu and Guillaume Aubergeon. The Jesuits served the indigenous Amerindians enslaved Africans and Irish and French settlers. Two years later Pelleprat and Mesland sailed for the mainland where they established a mission on the Guarapiche River near the Gulf of Paria. After Mesland's departure was Pelleprat remained alone continuing his missionary work and studying the local language. Illness forced him to return to the islands in 1654. He petitioned to return to Europe but was denied and instead lived out the remainder of his life in Mexico dying at Puebla de los Angeles in 1667. The preface outlines the establishment of the Jesuit mission in the French Caribbean following the founding of Martinique and Guadeloupe in 1635. Pelleprat recounts the arrival of the Jesuits and their efforts to learn the native languages in order to communicate doctrine record confessions and translate prayers. His descriptions of the climate geography and local governance of the islands are accompanied by remarks on Indigenous customs domestic life and religious beliefs. Pelleprat portrays the Indigenous inhabitants with clarity and sympathy. They are "without guile or malice. and capable of every good doctrine. They are neither cruel nor treacherous as some have claimed; rather they are generous and easily moved to affection when treated with kindness." He notes the Galibis skill in painting and weaving: "They take great care in painting their bodies and in making their cotton cloths which they dye with beautiful colors." The author records local fishing and hunting practices the use of pirogues canoes along the coasts and the construction of dwellings raised above ground: "They live by fish and roots in houses built upon poles to guard against the waters and the reptiles." He marvels at the beauty and richness of South America: its landscape flora and fauna: "the trees of these islands bear fruit twice a year and the soil is so rich that it needs only to be turned over to yield harvests beyond expectation". The Galibi Language Pelleprat's introduction to the Galibi language is one of the earliest printed attempts to describe and translate a South American Indigenous language. He explains the purpose of understanding Galibi: "I have composed a small grammar and vocabulary of the Galibi language so that our Fathers who shall come after me may speak to these peoples in their own words and more easily win their souls to God." Pelleprat opens by justifying his study as a means to conversion writing that "the barbarous nations. are so docile and so well disposed to receive the Gospel that they await only its preaching." His goal is not philological in the modern sense but practical: to prepare future missionaries to communicate Christian doctrine. Even so his careful observations show an emerging recognition of linguistic structure. He notes that "this language has its own rules its order and its way of composing words" an acknowledgment that Amerindian languages were coherent systems rather than the "corrupted" or "primitive" speech often imagined by Europeans. The Introduction proceeds systematically identifying letters pronunciation and basic grammar before offering a brief bilingual vocabulary. Pelleprat outlines nouns pronouns and verb forms and includes everyday expressions drawn from conversation. The vocabulary reveals the priorities of the missionary encounter pairing religious and material terms: "God" and "Devil" "soul" "heaven" and "earth" alongside "river" "house" and "friend." Through such juxtapositions the work translates the Christian world into the idiom of local experience. Pelleprat also recognizes the limits of his own learning admitting that he "has gathered what he could learn from the natives themselves" and that the book is only a "first attempt." The Islands of America Pelleprat opens with the Jesuits' first arrival at Martinique and he describes the founding of chapels the teaching of catechism and the first baptisms. When the mission expanded to Guadeloupe and Saint Christopher St Kitts he wrote: "we carried with us neither gold nor silver but the Cross of Christ and a heart desirous only to win souls. With this we founded our first church on the edge of the sea the waves serving us for organ and bells." p. 17 Pelleprat relates the successful conversion of enslaved Africans: "for although they have been reared in brutishness many become so chaste and honest when they are Christians that they would rather die than commit the least indecency." p. 33 Irish Catholics who had been exiled by the English sought out the Jesuits for Mass and confession and Pelleprat recounts the secret ministry carried out among them and the extraordinary virtue of an Irish girl raised in disguise to preserve her chastity. "I cannot omit the victory that a young Irish girl won over the weakness of her sex. This girl had come very young to America and her father to protect her had disguised her and raised her in the dress of a boy." pp. 49-50 Pelleprat explains how conversion altered conduct during epidemics and famine and the devoutness of the newly converted: "In the time of pestilence when even the air seemed to breathe death our new Christians came in great numbers to confession and communion choosing rather to die reconciled to God than to live without His grace." p. 47 The Mainland of South America The second section records numerous observations on the geography and natural history of Guiana: "I saw serpents with wings like bats and fish that fly above the water; trees whose leaves close at night as if they slept and others that exude milk when cut." p. 88 "The rivers here are broader than many seas their waters dark as ink under the forest's shadow. The land breathes a perpetual spring; trees bear fruit without ceasing and the air is so temperate that one would think Nature had chosen this region for her rest." p. 60 Pelleprat records the manners dwellings and ceremonies of the Guianese nations: "They are of good stature well-formed their countenance open and agreeable. Their huts are made of palm leaves their hammocks of woven cotton their vessels of baked clay painted with strange figures . . . When we entered their villages they offered us cassava bread and the drink of their country pressing us to sit in their hammocks which they esteem as the greatest courtesy." p. 67-69 Chapter VI outlines the political and moral order of Indigenous societies. Government Pelleprat notes is communal and tempered by reason: "Their government is gentle; they obey the oldest or the bravest and all decisions are taken in council with much shouting but little injustice." p. 92 "When one dies they burn his hammock and his weapons believing that he will find them again beyond the river of souls." p. 93. Chez S. Cramoisy & G. Cramoisy hardcover books

Liber Antiquus · Estados UnidosUS$ 39.000,00≈ € 34.843,22

(CARIBBEAN TRAVEL JOURNAL)ABAA

An Early 20th-Century Travel Journal From A Cruise Through The Caribbean Written By A Man From Hudson New York

ref. 5300CARIBBEAN TRAVEL JOURNAL. Diary. 101 pages. The Caribbean. c. 1908-9. The handwritten journal belonging to C. B. Benson of Hudson New York. The diary recounts Bensons experience on an organized cruise group visit to Caribbean locations such as St. Thomas Puerto Rico Kingston Jamaica Caracas Venezuela Panama City Panama Port of Spain Trinidad and Martinique. Benson records his experiences in each location including his impressions of the town the locals sights he visited and local travel. He visited forts a school churches a mill a sugar plantation and Carnival celebrations. Benson took his tour during the era of colonial rule the attitudes of which infuse both his experiences and observations. Based on his mention of an earthquake in Kingston Jamaica taking place a year or two before he travelled in 1908 or 1909. St. Thomas where we arrived about 6 A.M. mid morning Jan 26 is one of the Virgin group and we found her framed and frescoed in the principal churches. Columbus in 1493 gave the group of 100 islands rocks andwhich comprise the group. St. Thomas is 13 miles in length and 3 miles in width at its broadest. And I guess we walked the length of it speaking broadly and in the abstract at this distance.The heat of the tropical sun also takes its toll and blurs our ideas of time and distance somewhat. The town of Charlotte Amelia contains 13000 inhabitants merchants and black babies and they are all dressed in their Sunday best to receive us properly.Thursday morning at 8 we went ashore at Porto sic Rico.Returning thro the village streets we stopped at the market place and noticed the display of fruits in baskets a couple of men seated on low stools with blacks in front of them.a native womanwas entertaining us in the middle of the road with a dance.When passing the island of Haiti.Do you know why we do not stop at the Island of Haiti No There are cannibals there there are so many fat people aboard you would lose your wife At St Thomas the American council held open house and received some of us who dared to invade this solitude.An hours railroad ride which was made interesting by stops at every littleand station where the bare legged boy with the oil gun in hand squirted oilbearings sic of the cars and engine. As it was before the 17 miles came to an end the rear axle of the parlor car so called because it had leather covered reclining seats caught fire. But when this happened we were nearly at the end of our journey and we were not delayed much. At the sugar plantation where we detrained we found we had some distance to walk downto the sugar mill. As there was no path and the sticky wet ground to soil made worse by the heavy rain of the night before.A sugar mill is never a clean place.The process is somewhat intricate but way he likened to the process of brewing.The cane piled up in the yard is boiled in a number of vats then is run off with barrels and in a black and solid state in shipped to the Refineries at New York. The fiber of the cane is then hardened and dried and is fed to the furnaces to boilcane. After return to the town San Juan we visited the shops. Walked out to the fort at the entrance of the harbor. The town is excellently policed and paved in the principal streets with telegram blocks.As this day was Thursday we concluded that every day was wash day for the native women and girls who for want of other diversions spend most of their time in this form of dissipation. Even the balconies of the main public street filled with traffic of street cars carriages and drays had their fill of wash some of which are found laying in the street having been carried down by the wind. No one had appropriated it as yet; and we did not add it to our collection of souvenirs. At the officers quarters I applied for a permit of the officer of the day to enter the fort San Cristobal the fort commanding the entrance to the harbor.The fort was like most forts. The high tower gave a commanding view of the town and harbor. Then we visited the Governors Palace. In the Reception Room hanging on opposite sides facing each other are life sized oil paintings of McKinley & Cleveland. In the garden were some large palms tropical ferns a fountain &.Jan 29. early in the morning we were at Kingston in Jamaica. The channel is narrow and tortuous but well Taking a local pilot we soonopposite itof three vessels one of which was the Princess Louise that was caught in the hurricane here three years ago andthe larger of the three vessels was trying to pick up the light from the light house which had been blown down. This destruction of the hurricane.After driving about a mile thru the city the destruction to the buildings & pavements made by the earthquake here a year or two ago half of the city seems to be in ruins and no attempt has been made apparently to rebuild & restore the city. Thousands of lives were lost here at that time which did immense damage to the fruits. Most of the uninhabitable part of the island belongs to the United Fruit Company a Boston Corporation who ships immense quantities of bananas from Port Antonio. Owing to recent destruction by fire of Hotel Litchfield our stop at the port of San Antonio and stay of night at the Hotel was omitted. An excursion across the island by train to Mandeville was arranged in its place.The town of Colon in its principle streets are paved with brick and appear clean. We noticed many buzzards. The air was clear and there was a delightful cool breeze blowing.We stopped at all of the stations going to Panama and noted the wonderful impressions made by the Sanitary Commission. The well ventilated and screened houses. The plan for disposal of garbage the open drainage the cleared landsBut of course the facts are here bug and drain all working to the mutual exclusion of some ideas to the American white employers. Therefore after a few months they must have a reaction in the States toand detach themselves from all absorbing facts. The fighting for life againstfires. Most things arebetween the white employers and the black employees. So we find the White Bar and the Black Bar The White Employees The Silver White Employees &c as signs on the cars intended to carry workmen back and forth from the works.Caracas the capital of Venezuela is about 3000 ft up but the sun in the middle of the day we found very hot.Plaza Bolivar was decorated with rows of colored electric lights. They are preparing for the Carnival season which ushers in Lent in Catholic countries. The market place had counters for dry goods highly colored handkerchiefs etc. Another section was devoted to fruits vegetables etc. We noticed some very large apricots. Mr. Bolivar apparently has done a great deal for his native town. He has given his name while the people furnished the funds for the largest parks a street and the coinage of the plutocrats.The Spaniard theHildago -in his easy subjugation of thepleasure loving tropical savage has replaced the native of simple taste and left in his place the mongrel half-breed with all the vices of the conqueror and none of the virtues of theIndian savage. The diary is in very good condition. It is mostly written in pencil but is quite legible. hardcover books

Stuart Lutz Historic Documents, Inc. · Estados UnidosUS$ 350,00≈ € 312,70

[Music – Dance – Cuba / Caribbean – African-Americana] Tyers, W HABAA

Trocha. A Cuban Dance

1890ref. List3666New York: Jos. W. Stern & Co 1890. Folio sheet music illustrated pictorial cover printed in orange. 5 pp. including cover. Approximately 13 ½ x 10 ½ inches. Covers detached loss to front cover contents complete fair to good. A decorative late nineteenth-century dance publication for “Trocha” described on the cover as “A Cuban Dance” composed by the African American composer and bandleader W. H. Tyers. The elaborate pictorial cover incorporates stylized tropical foliage and island scenery rendered in a bold single-color design typical for the period’s fascination with exoticized musical forms. William H. Tyers 1870–1924 was an African American composer arranger and bandleader active in New York during the ragtime era. Born in Petersburg Virginia to Henry Tyers and Jane “Jennie” Jones both formerly enslaved he spent part of his youth in Richmond before his family relocated to New York City where he began studying piano. His early teachers recognized an aptitude for composition as well as performance and by the mid-1880s he was writing dance pieces including polkas and waltzes. Around the age of twenty Tyers secured employment as a music librarian and arranger with a touring concert company a position that brought him to Europe where he studied orchestration and arranging with Professor Gaspari in Hamburg. Returning to New York Tyers became active in the city’s rapidly expanding popular music trade working as an arranger and composer for publishers including F. A. Mills and Jos. W. Stern & Co. In 1896 he published “Sambo” a syncopated march sometimes considered to be one of the first instrumental rags.1 “Trocha” also released in the 1980s brought Tyers prominence for his ability to write Latin-style rhythms. It was re-issued in 1913 as a tango and its success led Tyers to work as an arranger with Joseph W. Stern in 1897. Tyers’ compositions blended contemporary American dance music with Caribbean and Latin themes a style reflected in pieces such as Trocha and later in his well-known ragtime composition Panama 1911 which remained a staple of early jazz and dance orchestras. OCLC finds two copies with different entries at the Cleveland Public Library and the British Museum Reference Collections. 1 “William Tyers Music Arranger” African American Registry https://aaregistry.org/story/william-tyers-born/ accessed March 10 2026. Jos. W. Stern & Co unknown books

Auger Down Books · Estados UnidosUS$ 275,00≈ € 245,69

[Music – Plantation Songs / Caribbean Slavery Imagery] Wilson, Chas HABAA

Cuba Plantation Dance

1855ref. List3682Philadelphia: Edward L. Walker 142 Chestnut St. above 6th 1855. Folio sheet music pictorial lithographed cover approximately 13.5 × 10.5 inches. Light edge wear and minor toning; very good with a strong impression of the cover illustration. An antebellum piano dance reflecting the plantation imagery that circulated widely in mid-nineteenth-century American popular music. “Cuba Plantation Dance” was composed by Chas. H. Wilson a little-documented composer whose name appears chiefly in connection with this work and issued in Philadelphia during the early 1850s by Edward L. Walker the predecessor firm to the major publishing house Lee & Walker. A copy is recorded in the Levy Collection at Johns Hopkins which dates the publication to 1855. The cover presents a stylized plantation landscape framed by tall stalks of sugar cane with a small central vignette of a dancing Black figure. The use of Cuban plantation imagery reflects contemporary American fascination with the Caribbean sugar economy and with plantation life beyond the United States. During the 1850s Cuba was one of the largest slave societies in the Atlantic world. By the midcentury the island’s sugar plantations relied on hundreds of thousands of enslaved Africans and the enslaved population of Cuba was estimated at roughly 400000 people in the 1840s–1850s working primarily in the rapidly expanding sugar industry. Although Spain formally agreed to end the Atlantic slave trade in 1820 illegal importations of enslaved Africans into Cuba continued for decades supplying labor for the island’s plantations well into the 1850s. American publishers frequently borrowed such imagery for plantation-themed dance music marketed to the parlor trade. Pieces labeled “plantation dances” or “Ethiopian dances” formed part of the broader culture of minstrel and plantation entertainment. The title page bears a dedication to “Miss Arabelle Conrad” typical of mid-century sheet music addressed to amateur pianists. Along with the aforementioned copy in the Levy collection we find copies at Michigan and Temple. Edward L. Walker, 142 Chestnut St., above 6th unknown books

Auger Down Books · Estados UnidosUS$ 200,00≈ € 178,68

[Maine – Maritime History – Caribbean] Higgins, William; Burritt, Elijah H; et alABAA

Logbook and Other Materials of William Higgins Sea Captain from Bowdoinham Maine 1830–1898

1898ref. List2965United States and Caribbean 1898. Approximately twenty-nine pieces: logbook of eighty-four double-sided pages measuring 13 x 20 inches; eight letters seventeen documents and forms and three pieces of miscellany. Much wear and significant damage to logbook including water damage mildew and tearing; log book overall fair to good minus. Other materials good to very good. Overall good. William Higgins 1791–1872 was a farmer sea captain and owner of and investor in ships from Bowdoinham Maine. According to the Maine Maritime Museum which holds his family papers Higgins’ ships traded mainly in lumber which they took from Wilmington North Carolina to the Caribbean. Offered here is a logbook recording the travels of several of Higgins’ ships particularly the brigs Mary Jane and Llewellyn alongside related documents and personal letters. The logbook dating between 1832 and 1836 extensively documents the course wind data and weather remarks for travels of the ships between east coast US port cities and various locations in the Caribbean including Barbados St. Thomas and Martinique. The logbook also contains a copy of astronomer and mathematician Elijah Burritt’s illustration “A Plan of the Solar System Exhibiting its Relative Magnitudes and Distances” engraved by W. G Evans and printed in 1835 by F.J. Huntington. The letters and documents date from 1830 to 1867 and are also mostly business-related including an insurance document for the brig William Parrington a roll of sailors enlisted to work on a six-month journey between the Caribbean and the US in 1845 a bill of sale for ¼ stake in the brig Mary Jane and receipts and logs for items including various liquors sugar molasses casks and so on. One letter from a young man in Wilmington requests advice on how to start his own business in the style of Higgins’; other letters concern family matters. One interesting undated document is a writ addressed to the Marshal of the District of Maine concerning a lawsuit filed against Higgins and Rufus Carr master of the William Parrington by Zachrisson Nelson Co. The suit alleged that Carr acting as an agent for the ship’s owners that is Higgins had agreed to an affreightment involving shipping from Jamaica to Spain to New York but had then “wholly neglected and refused to do so”. Of interest to scholars of maritime history and trade in the mid-19th century. unknown books

Auger Down Books · Estados UnidosUS$ 2.500,00≈ € 2.233,54

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