John Smith and William Strachey compiled short dictionaries (Word lists) of the Powhatan language in the period 1612 to 1624, but these lists were far from complete.
A Spanish Franciscan priest wrote the first Nahuatl (Aztec) grammar in 1547, but this was not specifically a dictionary. Nahuatl dictionaries were produced by the Spanish during the 1550s and these are certainly the earliest native American dictionaries. The earliest known example was written by Alonso de Molina and titled Aqui comiença un vocabulario en la lengua castellana y mexicana. [Mexico: Juan Pablos, 1555]
Roger Williams' dictionary of the Natick (Narragansett) language of 1643 is often wrongly stated to be the first native American dictionary, but this is clearly false. The idea seems to be based on the incorrect premise that "native American" only applies to North America - it definitely does not.
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