Peter Parley's Tales About America and Australia

Columbus's search for support and his westward voyage open this history for young readers, told through the voice of Peter Parley. Samuel G. Goodrich presents navigation, encounters between peoples, and the growth of settlements as a sequence of historical episodes. The contents range across America and Australia, including Mexico, Peru, the rise of the United States, New South Wales, gold regions, and exploration. Descriptions of plants and landscapes sit alongside accounts of political power and conquest.

One passage follows the exchanges between Cortez and Montezuma's representatives, with picture writing, finely worked cotton, feather pictures, and gifts of gold and silver. These objects bring craftsmanship, wealth and diplomacy into the account of the Spanish advance. The direct address to children shows how distant places were made familiar to young audiences. Readers today can study this teaching style while considering the period's colonial outlook and judgments about the people it describes.