The Library of Congress opens a permanent gallery on the early Americas on Thursday, Nov. 19, in Washington, D.C. Among the objects it plans to show are a sheet from the first known map to call part of the Western Hemisphere “America” and a set of painted records Nahua scribes prepared for a lawsuit in 1531. The two works were made only 24 years apart. One shows how a European mapmaker redrew the world. The other shows how people in central Mexico put their own account of colonial rule into the legal record.
Voices of the Early Americas is in the new Jay I. Kislak Gallery inside the Thomas Jefferson Building. The Library says it will feature more than 200 objects and rotate items periodically. The show draws on material from Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean. Historical objects appear alongside modern photography and contemporary poetry. Two of the works announced for the gallery are already online in detail.
The Nahua tax records
The Huexotzinco Codex consists of eight sheets of pictographs from what is now Puebla, Mexico. In 1529 and 1530, while Hernán Cortés was away, colonial administrators demanded taxes in goods and services from the people of Huexotzinco. The painted records documented what was taken and became part of a legal case. They survive alongside the written record of the dispute.
The sheets record things that a modern reader might expect to find in separate accounts. One tracks gold and feathers used to make a banner of the Madonna and Child for a Spanish military campaign. The Library’s notes on the manuscript explain how the drawings record both the materials and the sale of enslaved people to pay for the gold. The sheets are made on amatl, a type of paper made in Mesoamerica before Europeans arrived. The Library’s scan includes all eight panels.
Where the map says America
Martin Waldseemüller’s 1507 world map names America on a landmass that includes part of what is now South America. The name honors Amerigo Vespucci, whose accounts circulated in Europe as mapmakers tried to make sense of voyages across the Atlantic. The map also depicts the Pacific as a separate ocean. Its geography records what a European workshop understood at the time, including gaps that later mapmakers would fill.
The complete map was printed on 12 sheets. The Library announced that a sheet will be in the exhibition, and its online catalog offers a composite view of all 12. The National Institute of Standards and Technology explains how researchers helped design a sealed case to protect the original. Its account also identifies the lower-left sheet where the name appears.
Among the other works the Library lists is the Tortuguero Box, a small Maya offering container from present-day Tabasco, Mexico. Its carved text records the date it was made in 681 and identifies the lord pictured on the lid. The Library has published multiple views of the box, including details of the carving that wraps around its sides.
How to visit
The Thomas Jefferson Building is at 10 First Street SE. Admission is free, and the Library requires a timed-entry ticket for the building. The Library releases advance tickets up to 30 days ahead and makes a separate allotment available online at 9 a.m. Eastern on the day of a visit. Check the reservation page for available times, including on opening day.
The Nov. 19 evening program runs from 5 to 8 p.m. Eastern and includes a gallery challenge. The exhibit continues after opening day. If you are traveling to see a particular object, check the Library’s listing before you go because individual pieces can rotate.
