The Spanish Settlements Within the Present Limits of the United States

The Spanish Settlements Within the Present Limits of the United States is a two volume work by Woodbury Lowery chronicling Spanish exploration of the New World. The first volume, published in 1901, summarized the broader New World, and the second volume, published in 1905, is focused on the history of Florida. Lowery died before he could complete a third volume, but the two he published were generally positively received. The two volumes have been republished at least twice.

Background

Woodbury Lowery (February 17, 1853  April 11, 1906) was an American historian and author. Born in New York City, he had a career as a lawyer, practicing patent law, until 1897, when he became interested in Spanish-American history and quit his job to focus full time on that.[1] He spent ten years researching the two volume collection[2] and died in Sicily doing further research. A later review of his work noted that "scholars presently studying Spain's empire in North America can mourn with Lowery's contemporaries that his work was interrupted."[3]

Publication and content

The Spanish Settlements within the Present Limits of the United States was published in 1901.[1] The book summarizes Spanish exploration and colonization of the New World.[3]

Lowery published a second volume, which focused exclusively on the history of Florida from 1562 to 1574, in 1905.[1] Its first book is about French Florida and the second about Spanish Florida, including a lengthy character sketch of Pedro Menéndez de Avilés.[4]

Both volumes were republished 1911 by Putnam and Sons[5] and in 1959 by Russell & Russell.[2]

Reception

A contemporary reviewer of the first volume in The American Historical Review felt that the book would become a standard text on its subject and concluded that it was "readable and reliable".[6] A review of the second volume published in the Southern History Association felt that Lowery had "done his work with thoroughness".[4] A 1912 review of both volumes criticized the first as lacking consideration of economic and political issues in Spanish failure to colonize America. They felt that the second demonstrated "a much firmer grip" over the material.[5]

In 1961 a reviewer in The Florida Historical Quarterly called the volumes "a work of nearly classic quality" and positively commented on its accessibility to scholars and everyday people. They positively commented on Lowery's "painstaking" efforts to ensure accuracy, balance of content, and style. They considered the work to offer new views including "assigning less importance to religion as a source of conflict" and its portrait of Menéndez de Avilés. The reviewer criticized some of Lowery's "moral judgments" as clouding "objective scholarship" and the complete lack of maps.[2] The Journal of Southern History also published a review of the republished volumes that considered the reprinting "a valuable service to the scholarly world" and generally had favorable comments, but did note some errors and omissions.[3]

References

  1. American Anthropologist. American Anthropological Association. 1906. p. 437.
  2. Beyer, Robert Carlyle (1961). "Review of The Spanish Settlements within the Present Limits of the United States 1513-1574". The Florida Historical Quarterly. 39 (3): 279–281. ISSN 0015-4113. JSTOR 30139862.
  3. Haddick, Jack A. (1959). "Review of The Spanish Settlements within the Present Limits of the United States". The Journal of Southern History. 25 (4): 524–526. doi:10.2307/2954455. ISSN 0022-4642. JSTOR 2954455.
  4. "The Spanish Settlements within the Present Limits of the United States. Florida 1652-1574". The Southern History Association: 427–428. 1905.
  5. "Book Notices". Missouri Historical Review: 156–157. 1912.
  6. "The Spanish Settlements within the Present Limits of the United States. 1513–1561. By Woodbury Lowery. (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1901. Pp. 515.)". The American Historical Review. October 1901. doi:10.1086/ahr/7.1.158. ISSN 1937-5239.
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