Obadiah Rich

Obadiah Rich (November 25, 1777 – January 20, 1850) was an American diplomat, bibliophile and bibliographer specializing the history of Latin America. He was credited with making the field of Americana a recognized field of scholarship by the bibliographer Nicholas Trübner.

Obadiah Rich was born on Cape Cod, at Truro, Massachusetts, on November 25, 1777. He was the son of Captain Obadiah Rich (1758–1805) who commanded the brig Intrepid in the American Revolutionary War and his first wife Salome Lombard (1761–1807). He was the older brother of the botanist William Rich.

Obadiah Rich was elected to the Massachusetts Historical Society at the early age of 22, and helped found the Anthology Society in 1804, which later became the Boston Athenæum. President James Madison appointed him American consul in Valencia, Spain, in 1816. He was consul in Madrid from 1823, and was working full-time in the book trade in London by 1830. He was again resident in Madrid and in Mahón on the island of Minorca between 1834 and 1835. He was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1834.

While in Spain, Rich compiled an extensive collection of ancient Spanish and Latin American books and manuscripts, and was part of the circle of Latin America historians and scholars that included George Ticknor, William H. Prescott, and Washington Irving, who researched his 1828 biography of Christopher Columbus while staying with Rich in Madrid.

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