5 Chapter 5: Travel and Exploration

Learning Objectives ~ Chapter 5 “Travel and Exploration”

  • Outline the experience of Celebi and his remarkable travels through the Ottoman empire
  • Discuss the artistic impact of early travel to African nations
  • Discuss the social and cultural impact of early travel to African nations
  • Examine how indigenous art was used to give evidence to racist ideas
  • Describe the experience of Equiano and the ways his narrative presented a unique and profound perspective on the slave trade

 

Evliya Celebi: Travels Through the Ottoman World

 

Evliya Celebi statue

When we think of travel and exploration that occurred during the 16th and 17th centuries, our thoughts might go to the highlights of western European history, the so-called “Age of Discovery.”  See here for Encyclopedia Britannica review of the major routes and explorers: Age of Discovery

But obviously, exploration happened on a global scale.  This section introduces you to Evliya Celebi, a traveler and “blogger” of the 17th century.  His travelogue, known as Seyahatname or The Book of Travels, is a remarkable combination of personal observation, myth, and literary license.  Nevertheless, it is an extraordinary work that takes the reader on a tour of the Ottoman world.

Celebi was born March 25, 1611, in Unqupani, which is modern day Istanbul, Turkey.  His father was a goldsmith and his mother grew up as a slave girl in the palace of Ahmed I.  Oddly enough, both of their positions enabled them to be well-connected in society and governmental realms.  He received a fine religious education and graduated from a school for Koran recitation.  Celebi frequented intellectual circles and lectures.  In 1636, he began his studies in the arts and sciences at the Palace School.  He was known for his wit, his ability to entertain, his musicianship, his knowledge of the Koran and his ability to tell a great story!  In 1638 he becomes a member of the state cavalry, which sends him off on various missions throughout the Ottoman Empire.  During this tenure, he writes of what he sees and experiences.

E.Ç.’s great travelogue Seyahatname is a first person narrative in ten volumes, which combines the autobiography of its author with the most extensive geographical description of the Ottoman world. The Seyahatname serves as a source for linguistic investigations in that it includes information about various foreign languages and for the development of Ottoman prose. Although most authors have exploited the Seyahatname in one way or another, the fact remains that “the fundamental unit of the Seyahatname is the entire work … It has a unified plan and style.” Its quasi-symmetrical structure using the descriptions of Istanbul (vol. 1) and Cairo (vol. 10) as “frame-books” as well as frequent cross-references within the work indicate that the Seyahatname was composed with the help of a diary or other provisional notes.

The descriptions of towns (evsaf) follow a standard scheme and includes in most cases information concerning the town’s history (including the legendary pre-Islamic past and the date of Muslim conquest), fortifications, mosques and other Islamic foundations with special attention to commercial buildings and bath-houses, as well as its inhabitants, their manners, speech and clothing, excursion spots, etc. Though the figures E.Ç. gives in his account are mostly limited to Muslim population, he also makes references to Christian and Jewish institutions, particularly to conspicuous monasteries and churches beyond the Ottoman core lands (e.g., in Echmiadzin [Üç Kilise], Košice [Kaşa], and Vienna [Beç]).

There are blank spaces throughout the work, including paragraphs lacking names, numbers as well as headings. Other chapters describe only a small number of Friday mosques, skip the other buildings and special features altogether, but concentrate on “talismans” (mutasalamat) and sacred and holy places (ziyaretgah). A striking aspect is E.Ç.’s predilection for statistical surveys which combine in many cases realistic numbers for inhabitants, buildings, etc. However, he sometimes also includes noisome exaggerations contradicting his own descriptions.”

E.Ç. was concerned not only with the physical and monumental surface of the Ottoman world but also with a fuller understanding of the “Ottomanness” of the well-protected domains. He clearly discriminates the Ottoman Rum elite from the other subjects of the Sultan, a feature which is particularly noticeable in the tenth volume of the Seyahatname focusing on Egypt.

During his stay in hundreds of towns and cities and thousands of villages E.Ç. seems to have been in contact with almost the complete leading class of his era, including sultans, grand viziers, provincial governors, military leaders, and an immense number of local notables. Important personalities among these are Ottoman sultans such as Murad IV (1032-49/1623-40), İbrahim (1049-58/1640-48) and Mehmed IV (1058-99/1648-87) and rulers like Mehmed Giray Han and Abdal Han of Bidlis (d. 1065/1665?). Paşas such as Ketenci Ömer (d. > 1035/1625-26), Defterdarzade Mehmed (d. 1066/1656), Silahdar Murtaza (d. ?), Qara Mehmed (d. 1095/1684), Özdemir Osman (d. ?), İpşirli Mustafa (d. 1065/1665), Köprülü Mehmed Paşa (d. 1072/ 1661) and Kethuda İbrahim (d. ?) played a major role as his protectors. E.Ç. spent 12 years in the service of Melek Ahmed Paşa and followed this kinsman during his governorships at Sofia (Sofya), Diyarbekr (Diyarbakır), Van, Osijek (Özi) and Bosnia (Bosna).

Seyahatname is a valuable source for many aspects of Ottoman politics, society, and culture. Even though E.Ç. compares his work with that of “other historians” and is classified by Bursalı Mehmed Tahir and Franz Babinger among others as a historian, nonetheless, the Seyahatname cannot be regarded as a ‘history.’ Yet, the quality of the work as a first-rate ‘historical source’ is beyond question. According to Murphey and Dankoff E.Ç.’s “partisan remarks enrich rather than distort our understanding of Ottoman realities. Moreover, precisely by recording controversial and deeply felt contemporary opinion Evliya’s account achieves its unique standing and value as a source for the study of seventeenth-century Ottoman society and politics.” E.Ç. does not hesitate to decry Ottoman corruption, oppression and injustice both implicitly (by comparing the conditions during his time with those in previous decades, for example, with the age of Süleyman) and explicitly.

Despite his general superior attitude toward non-Muslims, E.Ç. concedes that the Europeans are better skilled in building fortifications and complains about the decay of Islamic pious foundations in comparison with flourishing Christian institutions such as as a monastery at Chios.

Source:

OttomanHistorians~ Celebi

The Transatlantic Slave Trade

Please read this article by Dr. Christa Clarke:

Historical overview: from the 1600s to the present

Figure: Seated Portuguese Male, 18th century, Nigeria, Court of Nebnin, Edo peoples, brass, 12.7 x 5.1 x 6 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Figure: Seated Portuguese Male, 18th century, Nigeria, Court of Benin, Edo peoples, brass, 12.7 x 5.1 x 6 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Western trade with Africa was not limited to material goods such as copper, cloth, and beads. By the sixteenth century, the transatlantic slave trade had already begun, forcibly bringing Africans to the newly discovered Americas. Slavery had existed in Africa (as it did elsewhere in the world) for centuries prior to the sixteenth, and many socially stratified African societies kept slaves for domestic work. The sheer number of slaves traded across the Atlantic, however, was unprecedented, as over 11 million Africans were brought to the Americas and the Caribbean over a period of four centuries. Driven by commercial interests, the slave trade peaked in the eighteenth century with the expansion of American plantation production, and continued until the mid-nineteenth century. While Europeans primarily profited from the slave trade, certain West African kingdoms, like Dahomey, also grew wealthy and powerful by selling captives of war. By the late eighteenth century, the slave trade began to wane as the abolitionist movement grew. Those who survived the forced migration and the notorious Middle Passage brought their beliefs and cultural practices to the New World.

Within this far-flung diaspora, certain cultures—such as the Yoruba and Igbo of today’s Nigeria, and the Kongo from present-day Democratic Republic of Congo—were especially well represented. African slaves brought few, if any, personal items with them, although recent archaeological investigations have yielded early African artifacts, like the beads and shells found at the African burial grounds in New York’s lower Manhattan, which date to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

The influence of Africans in the Americas is perhaps best seen in diverse forms of cultural expression that have enriched our society tremendously. Architectural elements such as open-front porches and sloped hip-roofs reflect African influence in the Americas. The religious practices of Haitian Vodou have roots in the spiritual beliefs of Dahomean, Yoruba, and Kongo peoples. Some elements of cuisine in the American South, such as gumbo and jambalaya, derive from African food traditions. Certain musical forms, such as jazz and the blues, reflect the convergence of African musical practices and European-based traditions.

Figurative Harp (Domu), 19th-20th century, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mangbetu, wood, hide, twine, brass ring, 67.3 x 21.6 x 30.5 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Figurative Harp (Domu), 19th-20th century, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mangbetu, wood, hide, twine, brass ring, 67.3 x 21.6 x 30.5 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Although the slave trade was banned entirely by the late nineteenth century, European involvement in Africa did not end. Instead, the desire for greater control over Africa’s resources resulted in the colonization of the majority of the continent by seven European countries. The Berlin Conference of 1884–85, attended by representatives of fourteen different European powers, resulted in the regulation of European colonization and trade in Africa. Over the next twenty years, the continent was occupied by France, Belgium, Germany, Britain, Spain, Italy, and Portugal. By 1914, the entire continent, with the exception of Ethiopia and Liberia, was colonized by European nations.

The colonial period in Africa brought radical changes, disrupting local political institutions, patterns of trade, and religious and social beliefs. The colonial era also impacted cultural practices in Africa, as artists responded to new forms of patronage and the introduction of new technologies as well as to their changing social and political situations. In some cases, European patronage of local artists resulted in stylistic change (for example the harp, left) or new forms of expression. At the same time, many artistic traditions were characterized as “primitive” by Westerners and discouraged or even banned.

Although African artifacts were brought to Europe as early as the sixteenth century, it was during the colonial period that such works entered Western collections in significant quantities, forming the basis of many museum collections today. African artifacts were collected as personal souvenirs or ethnographic specimens by military officers, colonial administrators, missionaries, scientists, merchants, and other visitors to the continent. In many of these instances of collecting, objects were gathered through voluntary trade.

In one extreme instance, an act of war initiated by Britain against one of its colonies, thousands of royal art objects were removed from the kingdom of Benin following its defeat by a British military expedition in 1897 (image below). European nations with colonies in Africa established ethnographic museums with extensive collections, such as the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren, Belgium, the Völkerkunde museums in Germany, the British Museum in London, and the Musée de l’Homme in Paris (now housed at the Musée du Quai Branly). In the United States, which had no colonial ties to Africa, the nascent study of ethnography motivated the formation of collections at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and the Field Museum in Chicago. In 1923, the Brooklyn Museum became the first American museum to present African works as art.

Plaque: Equestrian Oba and Attendants, 1550-1680, Nigeria, Court of Benin, Edo peoples, brass, 49.5 x 41.9 x 11.4 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Plaque: Equestrian Oba and Attendants, 1550-1680, Nigeria, Court of Benin, Edo peoples, brass, 49.5 x 41.9 x 11.4 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Independence movements in Africa began with the liberation of Ghana in 1957 and ended with the dismantling of apartheid in South Africa during the 1990s. The postcolonial period has been challenging, as many countries struggle to regain stability in the aftermath of colonialism. Yet while the media often focuses on political instability, civil unrest, and economic and health crises, these represent only part of the story of Africa today. From its many urban centers to more tradition-based rural villages, Africa is increasingly entering the global marketplace. The proliferation of systems of communication, such as computers and cell phones, throughout Africa has facilitated increased interaction with other parts of the world. As Africa moves into the twenty-first century, hope lies in its natural and human resources and the commitment of many Africans to work toward a stable and prosperous future.

Martin Rakotoarimanana, Mantle (Lamba Mpanjakas), 1998, Madagascar, Antananarivo or Arivonimamo, Imerina village, silk, 274 x 178.1 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Martin Rakotoarimanana, Mantle (Lamba Mpanjakas), 1998, Madagascar, Antananarivo or Arivonimamo, Imerina village, silk, 274 x 178.1 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

In spite of Africa’s political, economic, and environmental challenges, the postcolonial period has been a time of tremendous vigor in the realm of artistic production. Many tradition-based artistic practices continue to thrive or have been revitalized. In Guinea, the revival of D’mba performances in the 1990s, after decades of censorship by the Marxist government, is one example of cultural reinvention. Similarly, in recent years, Merina weavers in the highlands of Madagascar have begun to create brilliantly hued silk cloth known as akotofahana, a textile tradition abandoned a century ago.

Photography, introduced on the continent in the late nineteenth century, has become a popular medium, particularly in urban areas. Artists like Seydou Keïta, who operated a portrait studio in Bamako, Mali, in the colonial period, set the stage for later generations of photographers who captured the faces of newly independent African countries. It is also important to mention developments in modern and contemporary African art. During the colonial period, art schools were established that provided training, often based on Western models, to local artists. Many schools were initiated by Europeans, such as the Congolese Académie des Arts, established by Pierre Romain-Desfossé in 1944 in Elisabethville, whose program was based on those of art schools in Europe. Less frequently, the teaching of modern art was initiated by indigenous Africans, such as Chief Aina Onabolu, who is credited with introducing modern art in Nigeria beginning in the 1920s. Since the mid-twentieth century, increasing numbers of African artists have engaged local traditions in new ways or embraced a national identity through their visual expression.

Artists in today’s Africa are the products of diverse forms of artistic training, work in a variety of mediums, and engage local as well as global audiences with their work. In recent decades, contemporary artists from Africa, both self-taught and academically trained, have begun to receive international recognition. Many artists from Africa study, work, and/or live in Europe and the United States. Kenyan-born Magdalene Odundo, for example, was trained as an artist in schools in Kenya and in England, where she now lives. The burnished ceramic vessels she creates, which are purely artistic and not functional, embody her diverse sources, including traditional Nigerian and Kenyan vessels as well as Native American pottery traditions of New Mexico. The work of contemporary African artists like Odundo reveals the complex realities of artistic practice in today’s increasingly global society.

© 2006 The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (by permission)

https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/slav/hd_slav.htm

 

The “Invention of America” Through Art

Inventing “America,” The Engravings of Theodore de Bry


Theodore de Bry’s Collected travels in the east Indies and west Indies

In the center of this image we see a finely-dressed Christopher Columbus with two soldiers. Columbus stands confidently, his left foot forward with his pike planted firmly in the ground, signaling his claim over the land. Behind him to the left, three Spaniards raise a cross in the landscape, symbolizing a declaration of the land for both the Spanish monarchs and for the Christian God.

Theodor de Bry, Christopher Columbus arrives in America, 1594, etching and text in letterpress, 18.6 c 19.6 cm (Rijksmuseum)

Theodore de Bry, Christopher Columbus arrives in America, 1594, engraving, 18.6 c 19.6 cm, from Collected travels in the east Indies and west Indies (Collectiones peregrinationum in Indiam occidentalem), vol. 4: Girolamo Benzoni, Americae pars quarta. Sive, Insignis & admiranda historia de primera occidentali India à Christophoro Columbo (Frankfurt am Main: T. de Bry, 1594) (Rijksmuseum)

Unclothed Taínos, the indigenous peoples of Hispaniola, walk toward Columbus bringing gifts of necklaces and other precious objects. Further in the background, on the right side of the print, other Taínos, with arms raised and twisting bodies, flee in fear from the Spanish ships anchored offshore.

This print from 1592, by the engraver Theodore de Bry, presents Columbus and his men as the harbingers of European civilization and faith, and juxtaposes them with Tainos, who are presented as uncivilized, unclothed, and pagan. This print, along with hundreds of others de Bry made for his 27 volume series, published over more than forty years, Collected travels in the east Indies and west Indies (1590–1634), affirm and assert a sense of European superiority, as well as invent for Europeans what America—both its land and its people—was like.

Though de Bry is most famous for his engravings of European voyages to the Americas (and Africa, and Asia), he never actually traveled across the Atlantic. It is not surprising then that de Bry’s depiction of the indigenous peoples of the Americas was a combination of the work of other artists who had accompanied Europeans to the Americas (artists were often brought on journeys in order to document the lands and peoples of the Americas for a European audience) as well as his own artistic inventions. For instance, he adapted (without credit) some of the images created by Johannes Stradanus, a well-known illustrator who created early images of the Americas. In his Collected travels in the east Indies and west Indies, de Bry republished (and translated into multiple languages) the accounts of others who had spent time traveling around the globe, and created more than 600 engravings to illustrate the volumes. The engraving above of Columbus and the Taínos comes from volume 4 of the Collected travels in the east Indies and west Indies. This volume reprinted the accounts of the Milanese traveler Girolamo Benzoni, who himself had drawn on the accounts of Columbus in his own writings.

The volumes of the Collected travels in the east Indies and west Indies that treat the voyages across the Atlantic to the Americas are known as the Grands Voyages, while the Petit Voyages (small voyages), were those to Africa and Asia.

Documenting America

De Bry’s copperplate engravings were among the first images that Europeans encountered about the peoples, places, and things of the Americas, even if he began making them almost a century after Columbus’s initial voyage. In the engraving with Columbus on the shoreline, the barely clothed Taínos resemble Greco-Roman sculptures, especially their poses and musculature. De Bry apparently had no interest in documenting the actual appearance of the Taínos.

Left: Apollo Belvedere, c. 150 C.E., Roman copy of a original bronze statue of 330-320 B.C.E. (Vatican Museums); right: detail. Theodor de Bry, Christopher Columbus arrives in America, 1594, etching and text in letterpress, 18.6 c 19.6 cm (Rijksmuseum)

Left: Apollo Belvedere, c. 150 C.E., Roman copy of an original bronze statue of 330-320 B.C.E. (Vatican Museums) (photo: Tetraktys, CC BY-SA 3.0); right: detail. Theodore de Bry, Christopher Columbus arrives in America, 1594, etching and text in letterpress, 18.6 c 19.6 cm (Rijksmuseum)

De Bry’s Collected travels belongs to the genre of travel literature, which had been popular since the Middle Ages. Accounts of the Americas became wildly popular after Columbus’s first voyage. For example, Columbus’s 1493 letter to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabel (who had helped finance the voyage) was published in seventeen editions by 1497, and often included woodcuts depicting select moments of his voyage.

De Bry and his audiences

De Bry was a Protestant, and fled Liège (today in Belgium) where he was born to avoid persecution. He made his way to Frankfurt, which is where he started work on Grands Voyages. After his death in 1598, his family continued his work and finished the remaining volumes in 1634. Interestingly, different versions of the Grands Voyages catered to different Christian confessional groups. The volumes in German were geared towards Protestants, while those in Latin appealed to Catholics. De Bry created images that he could market to either audience, but he made changes to the texts to appeal more to either Catholics or Protestants. Psalms that Calvinists felt encapsulated their beliefs or longer passages criticizing Catholic beliefs or colonial practices were omitted from Latin versions, which were often filled in with more engravings duplicated from other parts of the text.

General subjects of the Grands Voyages engravings

Theodor de Bry, Indians pour liquid gold into the mouth of a Spaniard, 1594

Theodore de Bry, Indians pour liquid gold into the mouth of a Spaniard, 1594, from Collected travels in the east Indies and west Indies (Collectiones peregrinationum in Indiam occidentalem)

While some of de Bry’s prints in Grands Voyages focus on the exploits of famed European navigators like Columbus, others show indigenous groups and their customs. Some of these images display the atrocities that occurred in the wake of Europeans’ arrival, violent conquest, and colonization. Indigenous peoples are fed to dogs, hanged, or butchered. Still others depict native responses to the European invasion, such as drowning Spaniards in the ocean or pouring liquid gold into invaders’ mouths.

John White, The town of Secoton; bird's-eye view of town with houses, lake at the top, fire, fields and ceremony, 1585-1593, watercolour over graphite, heightened with white (British Museum)

John White, The town of Secoton (bird’s-eye view of town with houses, lake at the top, fire, fields and ceremony), 1585-1593, watercolour over graphite, heightened with white (British Museum)

Travels to Virginia

The Grands Voyages (the section on cross-Atlantic voyages) begins with a reprint of an earlier text by the English colonist Thomas Hariot, A Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia (1590). It also includes translations of this text into Latin, German, and French. De Bry’s accompanying engravings were based on watercolors by John White, who had settled on Roanoke Island, North Carolina in 1585 and who had created paintings while there. His watercolors document clothing, dwellings, and rituals of the eastern Algonquian peoples.

Even though Virginia and North Carolina were colonized by Europeans after they had seized other areas in the Americas, de Bry placed them in the first volume of his Grands Voyages. This may be because he had visited London just after Hariot’s book was published in 1588, and was given both that text and the watercolors of White. De Bry was clearly not interested in a providing a chronological account of European exploration and colonization.

One of White’s paintings represents the town of Secoton, with people going about their daily life activities. In the right foreground people dance in a circle. Corn grows in neat rows. Dwellings line a road. In his engraving, de Bry made several changes to White’s watercolor. He expanded the village and removed the textual inscriptions that identified important features of the village (instead incorporating a separate key).

Theodor de Bry, Bird's-eye view of a native American village, 1590, engraving after a watercolor by John White for A briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia, of the commodities and of the nature and manners of the naturall inhabitants by Thomas Hariot (British Library)

Theodore de Bry, Bird’s-eye view of a native American village (Secoton), 1590, engraving (after the watercolor by John White above) for  volume 1 of Collected travels in the east Indies and west Indies which reprinted Thomas Hariot, A briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia, of the commodities and of the nature and manners of the naturall inhabitants (British Library)

For his engravings, de Bry also transformed watercolors White had created of Scottish Picts (an ancient pagan indigenous peoples of Scotland who lived in a loose confederation of groups and who painted their bodies). But why include a discussion of Picts in a book on the Americas?

Theodor de Bry, Female Pict, 1590, engraving after a watercolor by John White for A briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia, of the commodities and of the nature and manners of the naturall inhabitants by Thomas Hariot (British Library)

Theodore de Bry, A Young Daughter of the Picts, 1590, engraving (after a watercolor by  Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues — originally attributed to John White) for Collected travels in the east Indies and west Indies which reprints Thomas Hariot, A briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia, of the commodities and of the nature and manners of the naturall inhabitants (British Library)

Hariot’s text states that “Some picture of the Picts which in the old time did inhabit one part of the great Britain,” which according to him “show how that the inhabitants of the great Britain have been in times past as savage as those of Virginia.”[1] White compares them to the Algonquian peoples to suggest that Europe has its own history of uncivilized, pagan people. Despite attempting to reconcile the Algonquian peoples with the Picts in Europe, the manner in which he compares them—as savages—speaks to a presumed European superiority.

Theodor de Bry, Indians worship the column in honor of the French king, 1591, engraving for Collectiones peregrinationum in Indiam occidentalem, vol. 2: René de Laudonnière, Brevis narratio eorum quae in Florida Americae provincia Gallis acciderunt (Frankfurt am Main: J. Wechelus, 1591) (Rijksmuseum).

Theodore de Bry, Indians worship the column in honor of the French king, 1591, engraving for Collectiones peregrinationum in Indiam occidentalem, vol. 2: René de Laudonnière, Brevis narratio eorum quae in Florida Americae provincia Gallis acciderunt (Frankfurt am Main: J. Wechelus, 1591) (Rijksmuseum)

Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues, Laudonnierus et rex athore ante columnam a praefecto prima navigatione locatam quamque venerantur floridenses, gouache (New York Public Library)

Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues, Laudonnierus et rex athore ante columnam a praefecto prima navigatione locatam quamque venerantur floridenses, gouache (New York Public Library)

Travels to Florida

Volume 2, published in 1591, focused on French voyages to Florida, and was based on the accounts of the French colonist René Goulaine de Laudonnière. De Bry created engravings based on the watercolors of Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues, who was part of the French expeditions to Florida that were headed by Jean Ribault in 1562 and Laudonnière in 1564. One of the engravings adapted from Le Moyne’s watercolors shows the Timucua worshipping a column that had supposedly been erected by Ribault. The most prominent figure, identified as chief Athore, stands next to Laudonnière, who has followed him to see the sight. The other Timucua kneel, while raising their arms in gestures of reverence in the direction of the column, itself decorated with garlands. Before it, offerings of food and vegetables abound. De Bry made several notable changes to the print, such as adjusting Athore’s features to look more European, with raised cheekbones and an aquiline nose. Le Moyne’s earlier watercolor had also Europeanized the Timucua peoples: he paints them with the same complexion as Laudonnière, but with even blonder hair.

Cannibalism in Brazil

Theodor de Bry, engraving depicting cannibalism in Brazil for  volume 3 of Collected travels in the east Indies and west Indies which reprinted Hans Staden’s account of his experiences in Brazil, 1594 (British Library)

Theodore de Bry, engraving depicting cannibalism in Brazil for volume 3 of Collected travels in the east Indies and west Indies which reprinted Hans Staden’s account of his experiences in Brazil, 1594 (British Library)

Cannibalism was (and remains) commonly associated with certain indigenous peoples of the Americas. In de Bry’s series, his third volume recounted Hans Staden’s experiences of cannibalism in Brazil. De Bry’s engravings for this volume were among the most well-known in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, in large part because of their gruesome and sensationalistic character. Note that de Bry’s print, “Indians pour liquid gold into the mouth of a Spaniard,” may also depict cannibalism among the figures shown in the background.

Theodor de Bry, engraving depicting cannibalism in Brazil for  volume 3 of Collected travels in the east Indies and west Indies which reprinted Hans Staden’s account of his experiences in Brazil (British Library), 1594

Theodore de Bry, engraving depicting cannibalism in Brazil for volume 3 of Collected travels in the east Indies and west Indies which reprinted Hans Staden’s account of his experiences in Brazil, 1594 (British Library)

Staden, a German soldier who traveled to South America, had been captured in 1553 by the Tupinambá, an indigenous group in Brazil. After his return to Europe in 1557, he wrote about Tupinambá customs, family life, and cannibalism, describing how the Tupinambá practiced it ceremonially, especially eating their enemies. Staden’s initial book included simple woodcuts, but de Bry’s updated engravings proved far more popular and enduring in the European cultural imagination. Perceptions of indigenous Brazilians were shaped by these images, and reinforced the notion that the Tupinambá, and others like them, were depraved, primitive, and sinful.

One of his images depicts naked adults and children drinking a broth made from a human head and intestines, visible on plates amidst the gathering of people. Another depiction of the Tupinamba shows a fire below a grill, upon which body parts are roasted. Figures surround the grill, eating. In the back is a bearded figure, most likely intended to be Staden. Hand-colored versions of de Bry’s prints emphasize the disturbing subject of the images even more.

Cannibalism would come to be closely associated with peoples of the Americas. De Bry would even use images of cannibals to serve as the engraved frontispiece to volume 3. Showing the Tupinambá eating human flesh exoticized them, and justified European control.

Other volumes and the legacy of de Bry

The fourth, fifth, and sixth volumes of the set focus on Girolamo Benzoni’s accounts, such as Historia Mondo Nuovo, with part 6 discussing the atrocities committed against the indigenous population of Peru. Parts 7 to 12 incorporated the travel accounts of Ulricus Faber, Sir Francis Drake and Walter Raleigh, José de Acosta, Amerigo Vespucci, John Smith, and Antonio de Herrera among others. Like the volumes that came before them, de Bry provided numerous images to increase readers understanding of the narratives.

The Grands Voyages, and the entire Collected Travels, relate more generally to the forms of knowledge and collecting popular at the time. Like a cabinet of curiosity, de Bry’s project organized information in text and images so that readers could come to know the Americas. The volumes seek to provide encyclopedic knowledge about the Americas, much as the objects did in a curiosity cabinet. De Bry’s many prints were important resources for Europeans who sought to better understand the Americas. It allowed readers to take possession of these distant lands and peoples, where they could become participants in the colonial projects then underway, allowing them to feel a sense of dominance over the peoples and lands across the Atlantic—lands which many in Europe would never see firsthand. These often inaccurate images and narratives supported a sense of superiority, with Europeans positioned as more civilized and advanced, and the American “others” as less so. De Bry’s images of America would cement for Europeans a vision of what America was like for centuries to come.

[1] “Some Pictvre of the Pictes which in the olde tyme dyd habite one part of the great Bretainne,” which according to him “showe how that the inhabitants of the great Bretainne haue been in times past as sauuage as those of Virginia.” 67. Thomas Hariot, with illustrations by John White, A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia (1590).


Additional resources:

Early Images of Virginia Indians: The William W. Cole Collection at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture

Picturing the New World: The Hand-Colored de Bry Engravings of 1590

White Watercolors and de Bry engravings, on Virtual Jamestown

De Bry engravings of the Timucua, on Florida Memory

Columbus reports on his first voyage, 1493

Kim Sloan, ed., European Visions, American Voices, British Museum Research Publication 172 (2009).

Bernadette Bucher, Icon and Conquest: A Structural Analysis of the Illustrations of de Bry’s Great Voyages (Chicago: U of Chicago Press, 1981).

Michael Gaudio, Engraving the Savage: The New World and Techniques of Civilization (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008).

Stephen Greenblatt, Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World (Chicago: U of Chicago Press, 1991).

Michiel van Groesen, “The de Bry Collection of Voyages (1590–1634): Early America reconsidered,” Journal of Early Modern History 12 (2008): 1–24.

Michael van Groesen, Representations of the Overseas World in the de Bry Collection of Voyages (1590–1634) (Leiden: Brill, 2008).

Maureen Quilligan, “Theodore de Bry’s Voyages to the New and Old Worlds,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 41, no. 1 (Winter 2011): 1–12.

Cite this page as: Dr. Lauren Kilroy-Ewbank, “Inventing “America,” The Engravings of Theodore de Bry,” in Smarthistory, May 18, 2019, accessed January 27, 2020, https://smarthistory.org/engravings-theodore-de-bry/.

Getting Real: Equiano’s “Travels”

Olaudah Equiano led one of the most intriguing existences in the last century of the transatlantic slave trade. Born in 1745 to the chieftain of an Igbo village in Nigeria, he was kidnapped and sold into slavery at the age of 11. By the time he was 21 he had served England’s navy in its war against the French and worked on trading ships in the West Indies and the southern United States, surviving the countless dangers of sea and slavery. He acquired the slave name Gustavus Vassa, later buying his way out of bondage. Equiano managed to save enough money to purchase his freedom, after which he continued to work as a sailor, participating in an early expedition to the Arctic Ocean and visiting the eastern Mediterranean Sea. The ex-slave also aided the abolitionist cause while in London. He was appointed to a post on a project for the black poor going to Sierra Leone, a colony founded by Britain in Africa for freed slaves. He himself did not travel to Sierra Leone, though he had earlier attempted, unsuccessfully, to be ordained and sent to Africa as a missionary. In fact, Equiano left the Sierra Leone project after a conflict with white participants. He and other blacks in England went on to form the Sons of Africa, a group that would enter into public debate on issues such as slavery. His memoir was published in 1789, as the international debate over slavery reached its zenith; both his condemnations of slavery and his unflinching descriptions of slave life proved to be valuable ammunition for the abolitionist cause.

Equiano “Travels”

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The Creative Spirit: 1550-Present Copyright © 2020 by Elizabeth Cook is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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