By July 1, 1829, Joseph Smith had finished translating the Book of Mormon, the U.S. copyright application had been filed, and Egbert B. Grandin had published the title page as a "curiosity" in the Wayne Sentinel weekly newspaper. See the excellent Joseph Smith Chronology published by BYU Studies. Ancient America was poorly understood in 1829, particularly in the English speaking world. This article will outline the sparse information environment potentially available to Joseph Smith through 1829, then document the steady stream of publications that began appearing after the Book of Mormon went on sale to the public on March 26, 1830. The floodgates opened after the Nephite masterwork was finally in print.
- 1688 Diego Lopez de Cogulludo (1613 - 1665)'s work in Spanish entitled Historia de Yucatan was published in Madrid. John L. Stephens carried a copy of Cogolludo's book with him on his second journey around Yucatan (1841 - 1842).
- 1777 William Robertson (1721 - 1793) published his 3 volume History of America in Dublin. In Volume 2, Book IV he said "The inhabitants of the New World were in a state of society so extremely rude as to be unacquainted with those arts which are the first essays of human ingenuity in its advance toward improvement." He argued that the Spanish exaggerated what they found in the Americas, that the so-called temples were simple mounds of earth and their "houses were mere huts, built with turf, or mud, or the branches of trees, like those of the rudest Indians."
- 1780 Francisco Javier Clavijero Echegaray published La Historia Antigua de Mexico in Italian. An English translation by Charles Cullen was published in 1787. American editions were published in Richmond, Virginia in 1806 and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1817.
- 1814 Alexander von Humboldt (1769 - 1859) published the English translation of his 2 volume 1810 French Vues des Cordilleres et monuments des peuples indigenes de l'Amerique as Researches concerning the institutions and monuments of the ancient inhabitants of America: with descriptions and views of some of the most striking scenes in the Cordilleras with Longman, Hurst, Rees, et al. in London. Humboldt reproduced an image of the Aztec calendar stone, unearthed in 1790, and five pages from the Dresden Codex. He recognized artistic and historical merit in pre-columbian structures and artifacts, but ultimately concluded that the indigenous peoples in the Americas had been despotic and barbaric.
- April 7, 1829 Oliver Cowdery (1806 - 1850) began writing for Joseph Smith (1805 - 1844).
- July 1, 1829 Translation of the Book of Mormon was completed.
- March 26, 1830 The Book of Mormon went on sale to the public in Palmyra, NY.
- 1831 Edward King, Lord Kingsborough (1795 - 1837), published Volume 1 of his monumental Antiquities of Mexico with Augustine Aglio in London. This large format book that ultimately would run to 9 volumes contained "fac-similes of ancient Mexican paintings and hieroglyphics, preserved in the royal libraries of Paris, Berlin, and Dresden, in the Imperial Library in Vienna, in the Vatican Library, in the Borgian Museum at Rome, in the library of the Institute at Bologna, and in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. Together with the Monuments of New Spain, by M. Dupaix with their respective scales of measurement and accompanying descriptions. The whole illustrated with many valuable inedited manuscripts."
- 1836 Mariano Fernandez de Echeverria y Veytia (1718 - 1780)'s masterwork Historia Antigua de Mexico was published by Juan Ojeda in Mexico City.
- 1841 John L. Stephens (1805 - 1852) and Frederick Catherwood (1799 - 1854), published their 2 volume blockbuster Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan with Harper & Brothers in New York. This book more than any other forever dispelled the notion that the indigenous peoples of the Americas descended from rude barbarians.
- 1843 William H. Prescott (1796 - 1859) published his acclaimed History of the Conquest of Mexico, with a Preliminary View of Ancient Mexican Civilization, and the Life of the Conqueror, Hernando Cortes with Harper & Brothers in New York.