Tasveer Ghar (A House of Pictures)
The Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas: A Visual Record
The Jingban tianwen quantu Map of the World
Like many maps in the pre-modern and early-modern world, this map from China at the end of the 18th century reflected a deeply egocentric worldview. Steeped in a pervasive "sinocentrism," this map portrays China as the symbolic center of the world as well as the largest entity in both the western and eastern hemisphere as depicted at the top of the map, squeezing the rest of the continents... Read More »
The Mercator Projection
Although the Flemish geographer and cartographer Gerardus Mercator's rendering of the earth has been criticized for the way it distorts reality, it was revolutionary in the way it organized space and distance. By imposing a sense of order on the illustrated world by plotting it on an east-west and north-south grid, and having that grid apply everywhere, Mercator made it possible to chart more... Read More »
The Pennsylvania Gazette: Free blacks and mulattos flee (4 December 1793)
Along with whites, free blacks and mulattos were also among those who fled the Haitian uprising. Mulattos could own slaves and plantations, and many of them did. Free blacks often manned the militias used to hunt down runaway slaves. Like the white settlers, both groups therefore had reason to flee. But, as this source relates, states such as South Carolina feared the consequences of their... Read More »
The Pennsylvania Gazette: White Refugees (17 July 1793)
This newspaper article reports sympathetically on the situation of the white refugees fleeing Haiti because of uprising. The articles details how the cities of Baltimore and Philadelphia met the influx of these refugees.
The South Seas
Through Masai Land
Joseph Thomson traveled through Kenya Maasailand from 1883 to 1884 on a journey of exploration from the coast to Mt Kenya and Lake Victoria, under the auspices of the Royal Geographical Society. He was the second European to visit the area. Thomson travelled with a trading caravan, for traders knew the routes across Maasailand well. They often spoke the language and had contacts with local... Read More »
Urban Dharma, Buddhism in America
