ABSTRACT
The instructions to sailors helped to shape what could be recognized as knowledge during the period of European maritime expansion by providing the terms and the practices that structured the early modern social imaginary and the knowledge systems that supported it. These early texts are extraordinary in making explicit what might constitute “truth” and the contingencies and partisan nature of “certaintie.” Instructions to sailors directed maritime explorers and sailors on how and when to make notes, and of what, and how best to treat the indigenous people in order to elicit information on natural history and establish successful trade relations. In doing so they also set up the terms with which early modern Europe came to engage with the “foreign” and, in doing so, realign their self-understanding. Paradoxically, while attempting to secure “certaintie” they introduce a language for articulating doubt and self-questioning.
