First printing press in the Americas
Primera imprenta de América
- Date
- 1539 · confidence medium
- Place
- Mexico City, Mexico
- Credited to
- Juan Cromberger (Seville printer, backer), Juan Pablos and Esteban Martín (printers)
- Field
- Communication
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A workshop set up in Mexico City at the request of Bishop Zumárraga and Viceroy Mendoza, a branch of Cromberger's Seville press. It printed Christian doctrines, Nahuatl vocabularies and works of viceregal culture.
The first book (Breve y más compendiosa doctrina cristiana, 1539) has not survived; the oldest extant is the Manual de adultos (1540). Scholars debate whether the first printer was Esteban Martín or Juan Pablos.
What it led to
- Printed diffusion of Indigenous languages (Nahuatl, Otomi, Purépecha)
- Presses in Lima (1584) and other viceregal capitals
- Institutionalisation of viceregal written culture