The English-American, His Travail by Sea and Land: Or, a New Survey of the West-India's

In 1648, England was convulsed in civil war. Into this chaos exploded an account unlike any that had come before: the first eyewitness English report from deep inside the Spanish empire in the Americas. Thomas Gage had spent twelve years in Mexico and Central America as a Dominican friar, living, preaching, and praying as one of the conquerors until he renounced his vows, returned to England, and converted to Protestantism. His book is the account of what he saw. This is not a gentle travelogue. Gage writes with the fervor of a man who escaped a spiritual fraud and wants to expose it. He describes the staggering wealth of the mines and monasteries, the brutal labor of Indigenous workers, the corruption of a church that enriched itself while the colonized suffered. He maps routes, estimates troop numbers, assesses ports. Parts read like an intelligence report. Other parts read like a confession. The book helped restart England's conflict with Spain, providing justification for renewed colonial ambition. It remains a remarkable document: one man's twelve-year infiltration of the enemy's empire, told in his own voice upon his return.