Diary of a New York Merchant in the Age of Revolutions

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This presentation discusses the travel notebook of Philip DePeyster, a New York merchant of Dutch descent. From 1807 to 1813, DePeyster used the notebook to record the accounting of three of his business voyages and later to chronicle his adventures amidst the devastating Venezuelan Earthquake of 1812, the capitulation of the Confederacy of Venezuela to the Spanish crown, and the Anglo-American War at sea. This project has already produced a Twitter edition in "real time" at @peyster1812 and a completed manuscript of an annotated, critical edition in Spanish translation. With its riveting story of survival and wealth of details about a bygone era, the travel notebook of Philip DePeyster has the potential to showcase a complex and exciting Atlantic world to general and scholarly audiences. 

Dr. Olga González-Silén

Independent scholar and a visiting scholar in the Latin American Institute. She earned her Ph.D. in History from Harvard University.