The earliest extant letter written by a Native person in a Native language in what is now the United States.
Creators: Don Manuel, cacique of Asile
Date of Creation: 1651
Place of origin: Asile, Timucua town of Florida
Physical measurements: 2 pages
Materials: Paper
Process by which it was made: Handwriting
Current location: Original housed at the Archivo General de Indias, Sevilla, Spain.
Further Reading
Alyssa Mt. Plesant, Caroline Wigginton, and Kelly Wisecup, “Materials and Methods in Native American and Indigenous Studies: Completing the Turn,” The William and Mary Quarterly 75:2 (2018) 207-36.
Amy Turner Bushnell, “Patricio De Hinachuba: Defender of the Word of God, the Crown of the King, and the Little Children of Ivitachuco.” American Indian Culture and Research Journal 3, no. 3 (1979): 1-2George Aaron Broadwell & Alejandra Dubcovsky, “Chief Manuel’s 1651 Timucua letter: The oldest letter in a Native language of the United States,” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. Forthcoming.
Alejandra Dubcovsky and George Aaron Broadwell. “Writing Timucua: Recovering and Interrogating Indigenous Authorship.” Early American Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 15, no. 3 (2017): 409-41.
Jerald T. Milanich, The Timucua. (Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers, 1996).
Information contributed by Alejandra Dubcovsky and George Aaron Broadwell.