author
Thomas Gage
d. 1656
A restless seventeenth-century traveler, priest, and writer, he left behind one of the best-known English accounts of Spanish America. His life moved from Dominican missions in the New World to a dramatic break with Catholicism and a controversial career as an author in England.
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About the author
Born around 1603, Thomas Gage came from an English Catholic family and entered the Dominican order after studying in Spain. In 1625 he set out for the overseas missions and spent more than a decade traveling in Mexico and Central America, experiences that later gave his writing its vivid, firsthand character.
After returning to England in 1637, he converted to the Church of England. He became widely known for The English-American, his travail by sea and land (1648), a lively and often sharp account of colonial society, religion, and daily life in the Spanish Indies.
Gage remains an intriguing figure because his work blends travel narrative, observation, and religious controversy. Even when readers disagree with his judgments, his book is valued as an important English-language window into seventeenth-century New Spain and Central America.