Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues, Thomas Hariot, and John White:

Same Story, Different Day

By

Shannon K. Struble

January 2012

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the degree requirements for the

Master of Arts in History,

Dual Degree Program in Archives Management,

Simmons College, January 2012.

The author grants Simmons College permission to include this thesis in its Library and to make it

available to the academic community for scholarly purposes.

Submitted by

_______________________________________

Shannon Struble

___________________________________ ___________________________________

Stephen Berry (thesis advisor) Laura Prieto (second reader)

Assistant Professor of History Associate Professor of History

© 2012, Shannon K. Struble

2

Contents

Introduction - Page 3

Chapter One: The French in Florida – Page 14

Chapter Two: The English in Virginia – Page 36

Chapter Three: The Narratives Come Together – Page 59

Conclusion – Page 73

Appendix A – Page 81

Appendix B – Page 82

Appendix C – Page 85

Bibliography – Page 87

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Introduction

The sixteenth century was a time of great change in Europe. Protestantism was taking

hold across the continent, leading to religious and civil wars. European nations were vying to get

a piece of the New World pie, causing strife as Spain and Portugal defended what they

considered theirs. Changing political alliances and marriage among the royalty created periods of

uncertainty requiring the ability to adapt quickly. Philip II of Spain (1527-1598) himself married

into four different ruling families during his lifetime. In 1558, his second wife, Mary I of

England died, and he married Elisabeth of Valois, the daughter of Henry II of France and

Catherine de Medici, the following year. It was in this climate that the French colonies of

Charlesfort and Fort Caroline in Florida and the English colonies at Roanoke in what would

become North Carolina were attempted; out of their failures, they produced the travel narratives

by Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues and the team of Thomas Hariot and John White.

Jacques Le Moyne (c. 1533-1588) was a French artist and Huguenot who traveled to

Florida in 1564 to observe and record the French colony established near current-day

Jacksonville and the surrounding area. Thomas Hariot (1560-1621) was an English

mathematician and member of the Church of England who, along with John White (c. 1545-

1598), an artist, joined the expedition to Roanoke Island in 1585, to observe and record the

colony and nearby flora, fauna, and native inhabitants. The resulting narratives and illustrations

were eventually published as the first and second books in the collection of “Grand Voyages”

published by Dutch Protestant Theodore de Bry (1528-1598). De Bry was originally a goldsmith

who fled his native country during the Spanish persecution of Protestants in the mid-sixteenth

century. He eventually settled in Frankfurt and began engraving illustrations in copper for

printing in books. He set up shop as an engraver and began publishing books in 1590.

4

A cursory look at the narratives, Hariot and White‟s A Briefe and True Report

of…Virginia1 (hereafter Report), published in 1590, and Le Moyne‟s 1591 Brevis narratio eorum

quae in Florida Americae provicia Gallis acciderunt2 (hereafter Narratio), might indicate that

they are completely different. They document separate and often warring nations, the French and

the English, traveled to different locations in the New World and encountered distinct groups of

Native Americans at different periods in time. An artist wrote and illustrated the former, while

the latter contains renderings by an artist with text by a scientist. Le Moyne‟s work tells a story,

whereas Hariot/Whites‟s reads like an advertisement for the colony and thus, is more concerned

with documenting the positive aspects of the colony than the actions of the colonists. The

Narratio is overtly religious in tone and content, while the Report appears to be closer to an early

ethnographic study that describes the people and culture of the area in an effort to show potential

colonists that the inhabitants were not dangerous.

Despite these apparent differences, the two colonial experiences, and their resulting travel

narratives, are so similar as to be virtually the same. This resemblance did not necessarily happen

on purpose or as a result of overt action, though de Bry‟s editorial control over both narratives

does provide a bit of continuity. Primarily, however, the similarity came out of a shared

European culture, religion, history, and milieu that extended beyond national and cultural

boundaries. This shared understanding connected radically different people, places, and

experiences, allowing them to identify with one another in new ways. In the case of the Narratio

1 Thomas Harriot, 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. Discouered by the English Colony there seated by Sir Richard Greinvile Knight In the yeere 1585. Which remained under the governement of twelve monethes (Francoforti ad Moenvm: Theodori De Bry, 1590). 2

Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues, Brevis narratio eorum quae in Florida Americae provincia Gallis acciderunt: secunda in illam navigatione, duce Renato de Laudonniere classis praefecto, anno MDLXIIII. Quae est secunda pars Americae, additae figurae & incolarum eicones ibidem ad vivum expressae, brevis item declaratio religionis, vituum, vivendique ratione ipsorum. (Francoforti ad Moenum: Typis Ioannis Wecheli, sumtibus vero Theodori de Bry, 1591).

5

and the Report, the cross-cultural identification helped them become extremely popular in their

time and influence later narratives for centuries.

The Report appeared in Latin,3 English,

4 German,

5 and French,

6 while the Narratio was

published in German7 and Latin.

8 Some languages, such as the German, were more popular than

others, and De Bry‟s heirs reprinted both narratives around 1596 from a combination of sheets

newly printed using the original blocks and sheets left over from the first editions. This reuse

makes identifying first editions complicated and, in some cases, compromised the quality of the

printing as the original blocks wore down. I observed the spectrum of editions at the John Carter

Brown Library while doing research in their extensive collection of De Bry‟s “Great Voyages”

series. The library owns the first editions of both narratives, as well as duplicates, later printings,

3 Thomas Harriot, Admiranda narratio fida tamen, de commodis et incolarum ritibus virginiae nuper admodum ab

anglis, qui à Dn. Richardo Greinvile equestris ordinis viro eò in coloniam anno M.D.LXXXV. deducti sunt inventae svmtvs faciente Dn VValtero Raleigh Eqvestris ordinis viro fodinaru stannic praefecto ex avctoritate serenissimae reginae Anglia. (Francoforti ad Moenvm: Theodori de Bry, 1590). 4 Thomas Harriot, 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. Discouered by the English Colony there seated by Sir Richard Greinvile Knight In the yeere 1585. Which remained under the governement of twelve monethes (Francoforti ad Moenvm: Theodori De Bry, 1590). 5 Thomas Harriot, Wunderbarliche, doch Warhafftige Erklärung, Von der Gelegenheit und Sitten der Wilden in

Virginia, welche newlich von den Engelländern, so im Jar 1585. Vom Herrn Reichard Greinvile, einem von der Ritterschafft, in gemeldte Landschafft die zu bewohnen geführt waren, ist erfunden worden In verlegung H. Walter Raleigh. Ritter und Obersten dess Einbergwercts auss vergunstigung der Durchleuchtingsten vnnd Vnvberwindlichsten Elisabeth Königin in Engelland u. (Franckfort am Maehn: Dieterich Bry, 1590). 6 Thomas Harriot, Merveillevx et Estrange Rapport, Tovtesfois Fidele, des Commoditez qvi see Trovvent en Virginia,

des Facons des Natvrels Habitans d’Icelle, Laqvelle a Esté novvellement descovverte par les Anglois qve messier Richard Greinville Chevalier y Mena en Colonie lan 1585 à la charge principale de Messire Walter Raleigh Chevalier Svritendant des Mines d’Estain, Faorisé par la Royne d’Angleterre, et Avtorisé par ses letters patentes. (Francoforti ad Moenvm: Theodori De Bry, 1590). 7 Jacques le Moyne de Morgues, Der ander Theyl, der Newlich erfundenen Landtschafft Americae, Von dreyen

Schiffahrten, so die Frantzosen in Floridam (die gegen Nidergang gelegen) gethan. Eine unter dem Häuptmann H. Laudonniere, Anno 1564. Die ander unter H. Ribald 1565. Die dritte, unter H. Guorguesio 1567. Geschehen. Mit beschreibung und lebendiger Contrafactur, dieser Provintze, Gestalt, Sitten und Gebräuch der Wilden (Frankfurt: Th. de Bry, 1591). 8 Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues, Brevis narratio eorum quae in Florida Americae provincia Gallis acciderunt:

secunda in illam navigatione, duce Renato de Laudonniere classis praefecto, anno MDLXIIII. Quae est secunda pars Americae, additae figurae & incolarum eicones ibidem ad vivum expressae, brevis item declaratio religionis, vituum, vivendique ratione ipsorum. (Francoforti ad Moenum: Theodori de Bry, 1591).

6

and hand-colored copies, so I was able to compare the texts in every language in which they

were issued.

Structurally, the copies I viewed of the Narratio and the Report at the John Carter Brown

Library varied. Pages and plates appeared in different locations throughout the text. Each

language edition was dedicated to a different patron, most of whom were German noblemen,

with separate dedication pages for each. Decorations, such as the initials and head- and tail-

pieces, typography, and page layout also differed from one language to another, and even from

one copy to another. These differences in structure do not affect the substance of the narratives,

the engravings, all of which appeared in every edition, and the text.

As with most translated texts, the translator had to interpret the author‟s words while also

accounting for readability and understanding in the foreign language. These factors challenged

the translator, but they also gave him some flexibility as to how he conveyed the meaning of the

text. De Bry worked closely with his translators on the Report, which had originally been written

in English, and the Narratio, which was in French, to tailor the translation to the audience who

would be reading the text in a particular language. In general, the Latin editions, intended for

scholarly study, mirror the original language of the narratives. However, the German editions,

which were aimed at the wealthy in the general public, contain slight deviations in language that

make them a bit more sensational.9 For example, in the Report, the word “opinion” is changed to

“fantasy,” casting aspersions on the validity of the Native Americans‟ beliefs.10

However, it is

not within the scope of this paper to analyze the linguistic differences between the translations of

the narratives. My purpose here is to engage as closely with the author‟s original text as possible,

9 Michiel van Groesen, The Representations of the Overseas World in the De Bry Collection of Voyages (1590-1634)

(Leiden: Brill, 2008), 244. 10

Ibid., 246.

7

so I chose to use the English edition of the Report and the Latin edition of the Narratio as my

primary source documents. To facilitate study, I used a close English translation of the Latin

edition of the Narratio and have quoted from it throughout this paper.11

I draw on a number of secondary sources arising from a range of fields. Because the

narratives were so influential for such a long period of time, they incited a great amount of

research on a variety of topics. A number of scholars have focused on one or both narratives in

different contexts. Also, there has been quite a bit of research on European ideologies, identities,

and constructions that, while not referring directly to the two narratives I chose, do relate to the

idea of a transnational travel narrative.

The three most informative texts about Jacques Le Moyne and the Florida colony are

helpful for different reasons. Painter in a Savage Land by Miles Harvey is a biography of Le

Moyne that attempts to trace the steps of a man who was often a ghost in the historical record.12

This book provides information about episodes in Le Moyne‟s life, such as his interactions with

Raleigh, Hariot, and de Bry, and is well-documented, but it is a work of popular history, and the

author often digresses from the main topic with tangentially related stories and first-person

accounts of the author‟s visits to sites important in Le Moyne‟s life. It is as much a travelogue as

it is a biography.

A more general history of the French settlement in Florida is The French in Early

Florida: In the Eye of the Hurricane by John T. McGrath, which digs deep into the background

11

Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues, Narrative of Le Moyne, An artist who accompanied the French Expedition to Florida under Laudonnière, 1564, trans. William Appleton (Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1875). 12

Miles Harvey, Painter in a Savage Land: The Strange Saga of the First European Artist in North America (New York: Random House, 2008).

8

story of the colonizing effort, the Spanish retaliation, and aftermath.13

McGrath analyzes the

French and Spanish interactions and concludes that the French commanders were inept and that

the Spanish acted in the only way they could. As he explained, the Spanish believed that Florida

was actually Spanish territory and that, by trying to establish a colony there, the French were, at

best, misguided and should be made aware of Spain‟s claim, and, at worst, attempting to

establish a base from which French pirates could attack Spanish ships in the Caribbean.

McGrath‟s conclusion was that the Spanish felt that they were justified in removing the French

from their territory, using any means necessary. McGrath provided a significant amount of

details to support this conclusion, including everything from the type of ships the French and

Spanish were sailing to the political motivations of the major players in the colonies‟

establishment. These details, more than McGrath‟s argument, helped paint a clearer picture of

the French colonization efforts, although the author‟s argument also provided a counterpoint,

supported by both French and Spanish sources, to the anti-Spanish narratives. Charles E.

Bennett‟s Laudonnière & Fort Caroline also provides a good description of the events in the first

part of the Le Moyne‟s narrative and includes translations of many of the Spanish and French

sources McGrath cited in his book.14

“The History” chapter gives an overview of the events that

led to the creation and eventual destruction of the French colonies, but the story is told from

Laudonnière‟s perspective and does not often look at the experiences of the non-decision-

makers, such as Jacques Le Moyne.

There have been several biographies of Thomas Hariot, despite the scarcity of evidence

of his life outside the period he was involved with the colony in Virginia. The most complete and

13

John T. McGrath, The French in Early Florida: In the Eye of the Hurricane (Gainesville, University Press of Florida, 2001). 14

Charles E. Bennett, Laudonnière & Fort Caroline: History and Documents (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2001).

9

up-to-date is John W. Shirley‟s Thomas Hariot: A Biography.15

Shirley has written or edited

several books and articles on Hariot and knows his subject well. Unfortunately, not much is

known about Hariot‟s life, so some information is more inference than documented biographical

material. The article “Sir Walter Ralegh‟s [sic] Indian Interpreters, 1584-1618” by Alden T.

Vaughan fills one of the holes left in Shirley‟s biography by discussing Hariot‟s interactions with

the Native Americans brought back to England to act as teachers of the Algonquian language.16

Vaughan traces the entire history of Raleigh‟s language program, from the first voyage to

Virginia to the last voyage to Guiana, describing the interactions between the Native Americans

and the English and the contributions of the North and South American Indians. This article gave

me a better idea of Hariot‟s understanding of the Algonquian language and his encounters with

Native Americans before arriving in the New World.

Similar to Hariot, John White‟s common name and early obscurity have not prevented the

emergence of texts about his life and works. The most recent, which incorporates previous

research in the areas of American history, art history, Indian studies, Atlantic studies, ethno-

history, natural history, archaeology, literary criticism, and cartography, is titled A New World:

England’s First View of America and is edited by Kim Sloan.17

Besides essays on White‟s life,

the Virginia colony, and watercolors, the book also includes a catalog of White‟s watercolors

contrasted with de Bry and later imitators‟ etchings, with explanatory descriptions. Placed side

by side, the direct visual and textual comparison between the original watercolors and the

etchings drawn after the watercolors shows the large amount of influence the etcher, such as de

Bry, has on the look and feel of the work, even when the work is based on another image.

15

John W. Shirley, Thomas Hariot: A Biography (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983). 16

Alden T. Vaughan, “Sir Walter Ralegh's Indian Interpreters, 1584-1618,” The William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser., 59 no. 2 (Apr., 2002), 341-376. 17

Kim Sloan, A New World: England’s First View of America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007).

10

Michiel van Groesen‟s survey of the de Bry collection of “Grand Voyages,” titled The

Representations of the Overseas World in the De Bry Collection of Voyages (1590-1634) is

extraordinary in its attention to the inner workings of the print shop, publisher, and bookstore.18

Groesen describes in great detail the influence de Bry had over the narratives he published and

the thematic elements that tie many of them together. Unfortunately, as he mentions, “many

elements of the first two volumes are at odds with the general picture the collection presents.”19

Therefore, while some themes that he describes apply to Hariot/White and Le Moyne‟s

narratives as well, they are anomalous in their treatment of the New World and Native

Americans often enough to require their own consideration. Another book that studies de Bry‟s

engravings after White‟s watercolors, but in a much more theoretical and technical way, is

Michael Gaudio‟s Engraving the Savage: The New World and Techniques of Civilization, which

looks at the creation of engravings and their meaning beyond the symbolism scratched into the

copper.20

For an understanding of European modes of thought, religious influences, and the way

the New World fit with these, I most frequently turned to the works of Karen Ordahl

Kupperman, Anthony Pagden, and Stephen Greenblatt. Sabine MacCormack‟s essay, “Limits of

Understanding,” edited by Kupperman in America in European Consciousness,21

echoes the

themes in the first chapter of Pagden‟s book, Lords of All the World.22

Both argue that around the

18

Michiel van Groesen, The Representations of the Overseas World in the De Bry Collection of Voyages (1590-1634) (Leiden: Brill, 2008). 19

Ibid., 212. 20 Michael Gaudio, Engraving the Savage: The New World and Techniques of Civilization (Minneapolis: University of

Minnesota Press, 2008). 21

Sabine MacCormack, “Limits of Understanding: Perceptions of Greco-Roman and Amerindian Paganism in Early Modern Europe,” in America in European Consciousness, 1493-1750, ed. Karen Ordahl Kupperman (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1995). 22

Anthony Pagden, Lords of all the World: Ideologies of Empire in Spain, Britain, and France, c. 1500-c.1800 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995).

11

sixteenth century, European thought was influenced by Greco-Roman values, knowledge,

religion, and culture. Further, Pagden‟s European Encounters with the New World suggests that

new knowledge was manipulated to fit into existing models or understood in a way that was

different from the original meaning.23

Greenblatt illustrates this phenomenon when he analyzes

how Christopher Columbus linked the word “marvelous” with the New World.24

The word‟s

classical and religious connotations are transferred to the land and, thus, appropriated.25

The texts mentioned above, as well as Kupperman‟s Indians and English26

and Colonial

Identity in the Atlantic World, 1500-1800, 27

edited by Nicholas Canny and Anthony Pagden,

present a combined vision of European consciousness and understanding of the New World that I

applied to my own understanding of the Hariot/White and Le Moyne narratives. Europe‟s Greco-

Roman cultural heritage, religious history, intermarrying royalty, and international intellectual

community influenced the literary and scholarly figures in each individual country in similar

ways. The secondary sources show that Europe was not a space divided into self-contained

political entities, but an area sharing a past, present, and future. It is within this framework that I

place my analysis of the two accounts.

Finally, I drew upon a few sources related to gender and Native American studies.

Although Le Moyne and Hariot/Whites‟s works depict Native Americans, this work focuses on

how the European mind constructed these people rather than how they actually lived. I tried to

23

Anthony Pagden, European Encounters with the New World: From Renaissance to Romanticism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993). 24

Stephen Greenblatt, Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991). 25

Ibid., 74. 26

Karen Ordahl Kupperman, Indians and English: Facing Off in Early America (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000). 27

Nicholas Canny and Anthony Pagden, Colonial Identity in the Atlantic World, 1500-1800 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987).

12

delve into the thoughts and ideologies of the colonizers, and specifically, the three authors of the

narratives. As such, I sought out sources that intersected with European consciousness in some

way. One such source is Louis Montrose‟s article “The Work of Gender in the Discourse of

Discovery,” which focuses on Sir Walter Raleigh‟s use of gender in his The Discoverie of the

large, rich, and beautifull Empire of Guiana.28

Because Raleigh was associated with Hariot,

White, and Le Moyne at one time or another, I looked for any overlap in the representations of

the New World and Native American bodies. The book The White Man’s Indian by Robert E.

Berkhofer, Jr. was also helpful in tracing the changing words used to describe Native

Americans.29

This thesis seeks to show that two separate, seemingly incompatible narratives can be

part of a larger transnational narrative, or metanarrative, that looks at the stories in different

ways, brings them together, and leaves one story told in two ways. This metanarrative

incorporated similar imagery, rhetorical strategies, and themes related to the European

understanding of the New World, the “savage,” and their relationship to these two ideas. My first

two chapters look at the Report and the Narratio as separate entities, outlining the history behind

the narratives and the stories that result. These chapters also include analysis of the text and

illustrations of the narratives. I then compare the analyses to each other, bring the stories together

as a single product in the creation of travel narratives, and integrate the narratives into the

concept of a larger metanarrative.

A shared space of meaning and knowledge lies between all of these different layers of

understanding the Report and the Narratio. The worlds of Jacques Le Moyne, Thomas Hariot,

28

Louis Montrose, “The Work of Gender in the Discourse of Discovery,” Representations, 33 (1991), 1-41. 29

Robert F. Berkhofer, Jr., The White Man’s Indian: Images of the American Indian from Columbus to the Present (New York: Vintage Books, 1978).

13

and John White intersected in many ways, some of them physical, and others more ephemeral, in

their similar life experiences, religions, sensibilities, and cultural views. Their works reflect these

traits and, by finding the similarities, one can come to see the overall, combined narrative.

14

Chapter One: The French in Florida

The publication of Jacques Le Moyne‟s Narratio followed a very tumultuous period in

his own life and in French history. The Wars of Religion that had turned France against itself and

drawn other European nations, including Spain and England, into the fray between 1562 and

1598, had also extended across the Atlantic, accompanying the French and Spanish men who met

on the eastern coast of Florida in 1565. The first part of this chapter focuses on tracing the

complicated political and ideological background behind this fateful meeting. Only after

comprehending these elements can one understand Le Moyne‟s Narratio. The second half of the

chapter delves into the narrative itself, examining the text and illustrations to discover Le

Moyne‟s purpose in writing and illustrating the work and locating the cultural factors behind the

portrayal of the story.

The History

By the year 1562 CE, France had been unsuccessful in its efforts to establish permanent

colonies in the New World. The French made a first attempt at Quebec in 1541, but the

settlement encountered a number of problems and was quickly abandoned. Another settlement

established in Brazil in 1555 also failed when the Portuguese drove out the colonists. However,

in February 1562, French ships sailed from Havre-de-Grâce (Le Havre) to make an attempt to

establish a colony in the region called Florida.

Gaspard de Coligny (1516-1572), Admiral of France, instigated this most recent mission

to the New World. At that time, he was very popular at court and with the regent, Catherine de

Medici. He used his influence to convince her and the young King Charles IX that a colony in

Florida would be beneficial to France in a number of ways. Besides providing a possibility of

15

acquiring untold wealth through the exploitation of the land, the colony would be a starting point

for further French claims to the New World, could act as a base of maritime operations in the

West Indies, and would give the French leverage when negotiating with Spain for rights to trade

or colonize along the North American coast.30

For these reasons, Catherine de Medici gave

Coligny approval to start a settlement in Florida, though it was with the understanding that there

would be no overt attempts to antagonize the Spanish.

The Spanish claimed rights to all the non-Christian lands west of a meridian 370 leagues

west of the Cape Verde islands. The Treaty of Tordesillas, ratified in 1494 and supported by a

series of papal bulls, divided the New World between the Spanish and Portuguese, though other

European countries did not necessarily acknowledge the treaty. The Spanish had discovered

Florida in 1513, but they had been unsuccessful in establishing a permanent presence there by

1562. Previous explorers had found little evidence of the sort of advanced civilizations and overt

wealth seen in Mexico and Peru, and the landscape and weather proved to be a severe hindrance

to the cause.31

Therefore, despite the need for a strong colony along the coast to protect Spanish

ships entering and leaving the Bahama Channel, even Philip II of Spain “was expressing doubt

„whether it would be expedient to continue populating … Florida, or not.‟”32

For this reason the

French took the chance to send an expedition to Florida to try once again to claim a piece of the

New World.

Two French ships left Havre-de-Grâce in February, 1562, bearing one hundred fifty

people, most of them either sailors or soldiers, and most of them Huguenots. As French

30

McGrath, The French in Early Florida, 63-65. 31

Ibid., 22-25. 32

Philip II to Luis de Velasco, September 23, 1561, cited by David J. Weber in The Spanish Frontier in North America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), quoted in McGrath, The French in Early Florida, 25.

16

Calvinists, the Huguenots did not necessarily adhere to Roman Catholic religious edicts, such as

papal bulls, and so the colonists traveling to Florida would not have felt bound by the papal bulls

supporting the Spanish and Portuguese Treaty of Tordesillas. Besides being Admiral of France,

Coligny was a prominent Huguenot and was leader of the Protestant forces against the Catholics

in all three French Wars of Religion, which began a month after the ships sailed for Florida and

did not end until 1570.

Coligny recruited primarily from the north of France, an area heavily exposed to

Calvinism, and there has been some debate as to whether Coligny intended for the colony in

Florida to eventually become a safe haven for Huguenots to escape the rising anti-Protestant

sentiment in France.33

Coligny was loyal to France, but he was a Calvinist first, as shown by his

role in the Wars of Religion, and spent most of his career fighting for religious tolerance of

French Protestants in the predominantly Catholic country.34

He was also practical in his outlook,

however, and it is difficult to believe that he would not have considered the idea that a colony

populated primarily by Huguenots could act as an enclave for escaping Huguenots if needed.

Regardless of his future plans, Coligny chose Jean Ribault (1520-1565), another Huguenot who

had studied the New World and Atlantic maritime travel under John Cabot in England, to lead

the first expedition to Florida to explore the area.35

The ships traveled for over two months and

reached the coast of Florida near present day Jacksonville on April 30, 1562.

33

McGrath, The French in Early Florida, 61; Stefan Lorant, The New World: The First Pictures of America, Made by John White and Jacques le Moyne and Engraved by Theodore de Bry, with Contemporary Narratives of the French Settlements in Florida 1562-1565 and the English colonies in Virginia 1585-1590 (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1965), 6; Laura Fishman, “Old World Images Encounter New World Reality: René Laudonnière and the Timucuans of Florida,” The Sixteenth Century Journal, 26 (Autumn, 1995), 548. 34

McGrath, The French in Early Florida, 166-167. 35

Ibid., 51.

17

Upon their arrival, the French took in the wonders of the land they had found. It was

“„the fairest, frutefullest and pleasantest of all the worlde,‟” according to Ribault, populated by

Native Americans who were “„very gentill, curtious and of a good nature.‟”36

These were

members of the Timucua, who formed a group of fourteen or fifteen distinct tribes that inhabited

the area that is now southern Georgia and northwestern Florida.37

The French placed a stone

pillar emblazoned with the arms of France at the mouth of the newly named River of May (the

St. John‟s River) to take symbolic possession of the land and establish a formal declaration of

ownership, much like planting a flag in the ground. This symbol would state to subsequent

visitors that France had already claimed the land. After erecting the pillar, the French party

began to make their way north, eventually arriving at a natural harbor formed at the entrance of

what became Port Royal (the Broad River in South Carolina). From there, the men traveled

inland, searching for “„great and precious comodyties.‟”38

They explored for two weeks, and

then Ribault prepared to return to France, having observed the area and deemed it acceptable to

establish a permanent colony.

Before departing, Ribault built a fort, named Charlesfort, on an island (Parris Island) and

left a group of men in Florida to maintain France‟s claim to the area until he returned with

reinforcements. Under the direction of Albert de la Pierria, the group was comprised of soldiers,

who spent their time hunting, fishing, and interacting with the Native Americans rather than

planting food for an extended stay without the provisions from home they had been

36

Jean Ribault, The Whole & True Discouerye of Terra Florida (London: Thomas Hacket, 1563), quoted in Lorant, The New World: The First Pictures of America, 7. 37

Harvey, Painter in a Savage Land, 19-20. 38

Ribault, The Whole & True Discouerye of Terra Florida, quoted in Lorant, The New World: The First Pictures of America, 7.

18

anticipating.39

However, Ribault did not return in the expected six months, having arrived in

France in the middle of a religious civil war. He joined the Huguenot forces under Coligny but

fled to England when the city of Dieppe fell. There he published an account of his time in

Florida, hoping to garner support for a relief mission back to the fledgling colony. He was

ultimately unsuccessful, and the colony did not receive relief for over two years.

While Ribault attempted to get aid for the colonists, the soldiers themselves spiraled out

of control. They eventually ran out of food and had to rely on the local Timucua, who did not

have much surplus food themselves and eventually turned against the French. With food short

and no hope of relief in sight, tempers flared and led to unrest among the men, which Captain

Albert aggressively countered. The men “„fell into a mutinie, because that many times he put his

threatening in execution; whereupon they so chased him, that at the last they put him to death,‟”

but they were still left alone with no food and no means of leaving.40

They decided to build a

boat by which they could return to France and set sail in August of 1562, but the journey was a

disaster, resulting in exhaustion of supplies, hunger, thirst, cannibalism, and death. By some

miracle, an English ship discovered and brought them to England, where they told their tale to an

enthralled audience. The Spanish burned down the fort they had left behind, obliterating the first

French attempt at establishing a colony in the New World.

On April 22, 1564, three French ships left Havre-de-Grâce, this time bearing three

hundred people, including several women. These new colonists had learned the fate of the first

fort from the survivors who had made the harrowing journey back to Europe in 1562. Despite the

earlier colonists‟ stories, the new group of travelers was ready to start anew. The first French

39

Lorant, The New World: The First Pictures of America, 8. 40

Ribault, The Whole & True Discouerye of Terra Florida, quoted in Lorant, The New World: The First Pictures of America, 8.

19

War of Religion had ended with the Peace of Amboise in 1563, and Coligny was ready to make

another attempt for Florida, but for settlement rather than reconnaissance. The ships carried

skilled tradesmen, agricultural supplies, animals, and personal items, everything needed for an

extended stay.41

They also carried young noblemen taking the trip to Florida to find

undiscovered riches. The colony was to be administered by René de Goulaine de Laudonnière (c.

1529-1582), another Huguenot who had been second-in-command under Ribault on the first

mission to Florida.

Huguenot artist Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues (c. 1533-1588) was also in this group as

official recorder of the colony. He was an artist specifically hired to “map the seacoast, and lay

down the position of towns, the depth and course of rivers, and the harbors; and to represent also

the dwellings of the natives, and whatever in the province might seem worthy of observation.”42

Little is known about Le Moyne before he joined the group bound for Florida, besides that he

lived in the city of Dieppe for a time and that he was familiar to members of the French court.43

He states in his Narrative that he had “received orders to join the expedition” and that he asked

“the particular object which the king desired to obtain in commanding [his] services,” indicating

that he had been selected by someone in the royal entourage, if not the king himself.44

In any

case, Le Moyne accompanied the settlers to Florida and did his job, observing and recording the

events that befell the colony over the course of their seventeen months there.

The group arrived at the River of May on June 24, 1564 and decided to stay there rather

than moving on as had the exploratory expedition. They named the area La Caroline after their

41

Bennett. Laudonnière & Fort Caroline, 17. 42

Le Moyne. Narrative of Le Moyne, 2. 43

Harvey, Painter in a Savage Land, 10. 44

Le Moyne, Narrative of Le Moyne, 1, 2.

20

king and began building a fort, which they named Fort Caroline. Laudonnière quickly sent ships

back to France for more supplies and to bring more colonists, and the rest of the settlers spent

their days building homes, outfitting them, and exploring their new home. Laudonnière parlayed

with the Native Americans in the area, the Timucuans the French had encountered during their

first voyage but had not interacted with extensively because they moved on soon after arriving.

He and a few others spoke some words in the native language, and they learned that the

Timucuans remembered them and, as Le Moyne described in the Narratio, even appeared to

worship the stone left by Ribault as an idol, kissing it and leaving offerings at its base.45

To ease

their way and stay on good terms with them, Laudonnière offered the chief of the local Timucua,

Saturiba, “a treaty by which he should become a friend to the king here, and to his allies, and an

enemy to their enemies.”46

This treaty, or Laudonnière‟s breaking thereof in search of more

powerful allies, would later help lead to the colony‟s downfall.

Laudonnière and men from the colony, including Le Moyne, travelled up the River of

May and met other Timucua tribes unaffiliated with Saturiba. They learned that, in fact, Saturiba

was a rebel leader asserting his independence from the major chief, Outina.47

He did not actually

have a large amount of resources to support the French as they had assumed.48

They learned that

Outina was more powerful than Saturiba and had access to sources of gold and silver.49

Thus,

when King Saturiba called upon the French as his allies to help him make war against Outina,

Laudonnière was reluctant to lend his support. After a show of force by the French that displayed

their firepower and weaponry, Saturiba gave way and left the fort disappointed.

45

Le Moyne, Narrative of Le Moyne, Descriptions of Illustrations, 4. 46

Ibid., 3. 47

McGrath, The French in Early Florida, 103. 48

Ibid., 103-104. 49

Le Moyne, Narrative of Le Moyne, 4.

21

Along with the problems with the native inhabitants arising from his shifting alliances,

Laudonnière also had trouble keeping order in the fort. Most of the colonists were more

concerned with finding riches than thinking of practical matters, so, as with the first expedition,

the settlers relied upon the stores of food brought with them and trading with the friendly

Timucuans. They did not plant or begin preparations for growing their own foodstuffs. Also,

there was unrest arising from Laudonnière‟s command style, which Le Moyne indicates was “a

man too easily influenced by others.”50

He wrote:

…the noblemen who had come from France to the New World from ambitious

motives only, and with splendid outfits, began to be greatly dissatisfied at finding

that they realized none of the advantages which they had imagined, and promised

themselves; and complaints began daily to be made by many of them. M. de

Laudonnière…evidently fell into the hands of three or four parasites, and treated

with contempt the soldiers …And, what is far worse, indignation began to be felt

by many who professed the desire of living according to the doctrine of the

reformed gospel, for the reason that they found themselves without a minister of

God‟s word.51

In September, a Captain Bourdet arrived at the colony with ships and men to reinforce the colony

and departed with a few of the worst conspirators against Laudonnière. However, the men

Bourdet left were apparently even worse because, in December, over sixty soldiers mutinied,

captured Laudonnière, forced him to sign a statement to the Spanish indicating that they had

authorization to trade for food, stole two ships, and left the colony.52

After departing from

Florida, the mutineers commandeered a Spanish vessel, gaining another ship for themselves, but

also attracting the attention of the Spanish, whose vengeance ultimately fell on the French

colony.

50

Le Moyne, Narrative of Le Moyne, 4. 51

Ibid., 42. 52

McGrath, The French in Early Florida, 106.

22

Meanwhile, the settlers in Florida were not faring well. They interfered too often in

Timucua intertribal conflicts, making enemies of all sides and losing their primary food source.53

With little food, the French became severely weakened and were preparing to leave when

English corsair John Hawkins arrived, provided them with ten days‟ supply of food, and offered

passage home to France. Laudonnière declined the offer for fear of losing the colony to the

English, but he traded some of his artillery for additional foodstuffs with which to supply his

own ships for the return trip.54

The French were in the final stages of preparation to leave when

the long-awaited supply ships, led by Ribault, arrived.

Ribault quickly took control of the colony from Laudonnière, Coligny having heard of

the internal strife under Laudonnière and deciding to grant Ribault the leadership role. The

settlers were unloading their much-needed supplies, when six Spanish ships under the command

of Pedro Menéndez de Avilés (1519-1574), anchored alongside the four French ships. Agents in

France alerted the Spanish to the colony and convinced them that it was a base for launching

corsair raids on Spanish flotas, fleets of ships carrying silver from the New World, a conclusion

confirmed by the actions of the French mutineers.55

Menéndez had been sent by the Spanish

King Philip II to “„capture any of the said corsairs, to proceed against them and punish them in

conformity of justice, executing it then upon the sea with all rigor.‟”56

Because the Spanish saw

the French colony as a base for French corsair ships, the whole settlement was subject to the

punishment for piracy, which was death.

53

McGrath, The French in Early Florida, 108. 54

Bennett, Laudonnière & Fort Caroline, 32. 55

Ibid., 34-35. 56

Instructions to General Pedro Menéndez, 1562, AGI, Indiferente General 415, cited by Eugene Lyon. Enterprise of Florida: Pedro Menéndez de Avilés and the Spanish Conquest, 1565-1568 (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1976), quoted in McGrath, The French in Early Florida, 113.

23

The French managed to drive the Spanish away from the colony, but Ribault decided to

press his advantage and follow the Spanish to their landing site on the coast at what is today St.

Augustine. The Spanish were not prepared for an assault, but the waters around the area were too

shallow and the French could not get close enough to attack.57

That night, a hurricane developed

that thoroughly occupied the French ships, and, unbeknownst to the Spanish, caused them to run

aground. Menéndez ordered his men to march back to Fort Caroline, and four days later, at first

light, they attacked the sleeping settlement.58

Reports vary on the resulting action. The carpenter Nicolas Le Challeux portrays a

frenzied attack by the Spanish that resulted in the vicious deaths of women and children.

Laudonnière rather briefly describes the fight, trying more to place the blame for the Spanish

incursion and resulting capture of the fort on anyone but himself than giving a thorough account

of the attack, before moving on to his escape and subsequent departure from Florida. The

Spanish express a great triumph for Catholicism against the Protestant heretics after making

“„war with fire and blood…upon all who might have come to these parts to settle and to plant

this evil Lutheran sect…‟.”59

It did not matter that the Huguenots were not Lutheran; what

mattered is that they were not Catholic and should, therefore, die as heretics rather than be taken

as prisoners.

Le Moyne includes elements of both Le Challeux and Laudonnière‟s accounts, describing

the dismemberment of his friend who had surrendered to the Spanish but primarily focusing on

his own escape. When the Spanish entered the fort, they attacked the officer‟s quarters first, led

57

McGrath, The French in Early Florida, 142-143. 58

Le Moyne, Narrative of Le Moyne, 18. 59

Menéndez letter. October 15, 1565, in “Letters of Pedro Menéndez de Avilés,” ed. Horace E. Ware, Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society 8 (1892-94), 2

nd series, January 1894, 438-439, quoted in McGrath, The

French in Early Florida, 151.

24

by a Frenchman from the group who mutinied under Laudonnière. Menéndez indicates that he

ordered that the women and children be spared, and since Le Challeux is the only author to

outright negate this claim, it seems likely.60

Laudonnière attempted to fight the Spanish but

escaped when he realized the fort was lost. Le Moyne, Le Challeux, and others were also able to

get to a ship anchored in the river captained by Jacques Ribault, the son of Jean Ribault. They

fled for France two days later, not learning the fate of the other colonists until much later. Le

Moyne does not appear again in the historical record for almost twenty years.

Menéndez took possession of Fort Caroline, and between that base and St. Augustine,

shored up his resources. He had no knowledge of Jean Ribault and the French fleet‟s fate until

some days later when he local Timucuans told him of the shipwreck survivors, who were stuck

on a sandbar. They asked for transportation back to their fort, but upon learning of its fate, asked

to surrender instead. Menéndez responded that “„they might give up their arms and place

themselves at my mercy; that I should deal with them as the Lord should command me, and that

he had not moved me from this nor could move me, unless god Our Lord should inspire in me

something different.‟”61

The French decided to take the chance and surrendered to Menéndez,

whereupon Menéndez ordered all but the Catholics‟ throats be slit, some one hundred fifty

Huguenots. Later, the Spanish found another group of survivors, this one including Ribault.62

A

similar episode took place with similar results. The Spanish spared the Catholics plus a drummer

and fifer, while the rest, another two hundred Frenchmen, were put to death.

60

McGrath, The French in Early Florida, 146. 61

Menéndez letter. October 15, 1565, in “Letters of Pedro Menéndez de Avilés,” 428-429, quoted in McGrath, The French in Early Florida, 151. 62

McGrath, The French in Early Florida, 150.

25

The massacre of the colonists ended the French colony in Florida and led to the

permanent establishment of a Spanish settlement at St. Augustine. Fifty to sixty settlers managed

to escape or were spared by the Spanish for being Catholic. Catherine de Medici half-heartedly

sought recompense for the murdered Frenchmen, but the Spanish maintained that the colonists

had been corsairs and were dealt with as such. This outcome angered many Huguenots and

sailors in the Atlantic ports who believed the French crown was siding with the Catholic Spanish

and not doing enough to redress the issue. The perceived lack of action further inflamed the

already hostile relations between the two countries and between Protestants and Catholics inside

and outside of France. Finally, in 1567, a Gascon by the name of Dominique de Gourgues

destroyed three Spanish forts along the coast of Florida in reprisal for the massacre of the Fort

Caroline colonists, helping to assuage the wounded pride and outrage of the French public.63

Thus French designs on Florida ended, leaving the area to the Spanish, and, later and further

north, the English.

The Publication of the Narratio

Upon his return to France from Florida in 1566, Le Moyne found a country rife with

hatred of Huguenots, even more so than when he left. Finally, in August 1572, matters erupted

on St. Bartholomew‟s Day during the celebration of the marriage of Marguerite, the king‟s sister,

to Henri de Navarre, a Huguenot leader. Admiral Coligny engineered the marriage as an attempt

to bring peace to the country. It took place in Paris, a center for anti-Huguenot activities, and

resulted in the brutal death of Coligny and many others as the uprising swept the country.

Sometime after that, Le Moyne and his family left France, later appearing in the historical record

63

McGrath, The French in Early Florida, 163-164.

26

in London in 1581, requesting to become denizens of England.64

London is where Theodore de

Bry approached Le Moyne, most likely having learned of his presence in the city from one of Le

Moyne‟s patrons. By the time this meeting took place, over twenty years had passed since Le

Moyne and the surviving colonists had left the New World.

René de Laudonnière had recently published his record of the second attempt to settle in

Florida, so the French colony was fresh in people‟s minds. In his English translation of

Laudonnière‟s narrative, Richard Hakluyt, one of the most prominent geographers of the

sixteenth century, mentioned that Le Moyne “„hath put down in writing may singularities which

are not mentioned in this treatise; which he meaneth to publish together with portraitures before

it be long, if it may stand with your good pleasure and liking.‟”65

By this note, it seems that Le

Moyne was hoping for financial assistance in publishing the narrative. Therefore, when de Bry

approached Le Moyne in 1587 hoping to capitalize on the colony‟s newfound popularity, he and

Le Moyne shared a cordial visit in which de Bry “„gathered information on a great many

questions‟” and, according to de Bry, “„reached an agreement about publishing‟” but de Bry

ultimately went away empty-handed, indicating that Le Moyne still hoped to publish the

narrative on his own.66

He never did because he died in May of 1588.

De Bry returned to London after Le Moyne‟s death and bought Le Moyne‟s Florida

materials, including a journal, a map of the coast of Florida, and paintings, from Le Moyne‟s

64

Harvey, Painter in a Savage Land, 188-189. 65

Richard Hakluyt, dedicatory letter to Walter Raleigh, in René de Laudonnière, A notable historie containing foure voyages made by certayne French captaynes vnto Florida…newly translated out of French into English by R.H…., trans. Richard Hakluyt (London, Thomas Dawson, 1587), quoted in Harvey, Painter in a Savage Land, 209. 66

Theodore de Bry, introduction to the 1609 edition of Brevis Narratio, in The Works of Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues: A Huguenot Artist in France, Florida, and England, ed. Paul Hulton (London: British Museum Press, 1977), 119, quoted in Harvey, Painter in a Savage Land, 219.

27

widow.67

He hoped to publish the account as the first in a new series of travel narratives, but

Hakluyt and Sir Walter Raleigh convinced him first to publish the Report by Thomas Hariot and

John White to assist in the recruitment for Raleigh‟s colony in Virginia. Therefore, Le Moyne‟s

Narratio did not first appear until 1591.

Unlike the Narratio, the Report was published in French, English, Latin, and German, as

suggested by Hakluyt, in order to reach the widest readership and make sure that all knew of

England‟s claims to the province of Virginia.68

Around the time of publication, however, De

Bry, Hakluyt, and Raleigh ended their association. This falling out might help explain why De

Bry did not offer the Narratio in English or French, or perhaps there was simply not enough

demand for the text in those languages. Instead, De Bry printed the book for a more targeted

audience.69

He published it in Latin, the language of scholars and intellectuals, and German, the

language of his patrons and his wealthy customers in Germany, where his storefront was located.

Despite the limitation on the translations offered, the book was extremely popular, selling out its

estimated 2,000 printed copies and going into multiple editions.70

Another difference between the production of the Narratio versus the Report is the fact

that the author was dead and only one of Le Moyne‟s original paintings survived. De Bry did not

shy away from editing the text and illustrations of the narratives he published to fit with his

views, conform to the expectations of his target audience, and to sell books, but in the case of the

Report, copies of Hariot‟s 1588 publication and quite a few of White‟s original paintings survive

67

Harvey, Painter in a Savage Land, 219. 68

Groesen, Representations of the Overseas World, 112. 69

Ibid., 116. 70

Ibid., 113.

28

for comparison, so editorial decisions are more transparent. The line between illustrator/author

and engraver/publisher is much murkier in the Narratio.

This editorial hand was never more obvious than in the text of the captions written for the

illustrations. De Bry sometimes received text for the captions from the author himself, but more

often he paraphrased the text of the narratives, or found “prominent humanists willing to write

captions, and thus contribute to the collection.”71

Here it seems that de Bry actually paraphrased

text from Laudonnière‟s “Second Voyage” when there was not enough descriptive text in the

narrative itself.

For example, the caption under “The natives of Florida worship the column erected by

the commander on his first voyage” describes Laudonnière‟s visit with the Timucuan chief

Athore to the column Ribault left on their first voyage to Florida. The text of the caption says, in

part, “On approaching, they found that these Indians were worshipping this stone as an idol; and

the chief himself, having saluted it with signs of reverence such as his subjects were in the habit

of showing to himself, kissed it. His men followed his example, and we were invited to do the

same.”72

The same episode is described in Laudonnière‟s “Second Voyage” as the following:

“They kissed the stone on their arrival with great reverence and asked us to do the same. As a

matter of friendship we could not refuse…”73

The Narratio does not mention this occurrence,

and while it is likely that Le Moyne would have been included in the group that visited the

column in his capacity as observer and recorder of the colony, the ambiguity illustrates the issue

of the edition‟s uncertain authorship.

71

Groesen, Representations of the Overseas World, 126. 72

Le Moyne, Narrative of Le Moyne, Descriptions of Illustrations, 4. 73

Laudonnière, Three Voyages, 61.

29

Le Moyne‟s Narratio provides a much more straightforward travel narrative than the

Report, following a linear progression of events in the tradition of such accounts. He offers a

more measured depiction of the Native Americans, so that instead of presenting them as peaceful

passive receptacles for colonization like Hariot and White, or as bloodthirsty beasts completely

incapable of human interaction like so many previous narratives, they are portrayed as essentially

human, with the good and bad that goes with humanity. They are initially described as friendly

and generous, with an organized hierarchical society that would have appealed to the French. Of

course, Le Moyne does not imagine that they are in any way equal to the French in terms of

intelligence or civility. He remarks of their ritual adornments, “All the men and women have the

ends of their ears pierced, and pass through them small oblong fish bladders, which when

inflated shine like pearls, and which, being dyed red, look like a light-colored carbuncle. It is

wonderful that men so savage should be capable of such tasteful inventions.”74

Even as he

compliments their “tasteful inventions,” his description makes clear that they are not “civilized,”

wearing fish bladders in place of the pearls and rubies Europeans would favor. By juxtaposing

the wild product of nature, the fish bladders, with precious refined jewels, Le Moyne also

compares “these savages” with European “civilization.” In his eyes, their savage nature should

make them unable to even conceive of such products of civility.

During one tense encounter, the chief of the neighboring tribe, Le Moyne describes how

Saturiba attempted to attack the French in retaliation for breaking their oath to him, but he was

easily frightened away by the sounds of drums, trumpets, and a brass cannon fired in his

presence.75

News of this incident spread, leading to the belief among the neighboring tribes that

the French were more powerful than they were. When the Timucua first met the French, Le

74

Le Moyne, Narrative of Le Moyne, Descriptions of Illustrations, 14. 75

Ibid., 4.

30

Moyne notes that they seemed to be in awe of the French ships and technology and, as the

previously mentioned episode at the stone column reveals, were shown worshiping at an altar to

French civilization.76

However, the episode with Saturiba reinforced these views for a time and

supported French ideas about the ignorance of the native population.

One theme that sets the Narratio apart from the Report is the acknowledgement of the

Native Americans as capable of violence. The text follows Saturiba‟s ongoing war with the rival

chief Outina, which causes tensions with the French, who want to ally with Outina. More

compelling are the illustrations, which depict many scenes of war and other forms of bloodshed,

definitively showing that the Timucua were certainly not passive or peaceful.77

Many of the images of their daily life reflect tranquility. However, a few hint at the

savagery that the French expected to see. The illustration titled “How they treat their sick”

[Illustration A (see Appendix A for illustrations)] provides what the French would view as a

barbarous scene in which a sick individual is laid upon a bench and then:

…cutting into the skin of the forehead with a sharp shell, they suck out blood with

their mouths, and spit it into an earthen vessel or a gourd bottle. Women who are

suckling boys, or who are with child, come and drink this blood, particularly if it

is that of a strong young man; as it is expected to make their milk better, and to

render the children who have the benefit of it bolder and more energetic.78

A man is shown sucking the blood from the wounded man‟s head, while behind him, a woman

drinks from a bowl and another nurses a child. Though not as sensationalist or graphic as other

narratives, this procedure smacks of cannibalism, or at least the potential for the Timucua to

become cannibals.

76

Le Moyne, Narrative of Le Moyne, Descriptions of Illustrations, 1, 4; Narrative of Le Moyne, 4. 77

Le Moyne, Brevis Narratio, Plates XIII, XV, X, XXXI, XXXII, XLII. 78

Le Moyne, Narrative of Le Moyne, Descriptions of Illustrations, 8.

31

From Christopher Columbus onward, narratives describing the inhabitants of the New

World often contained accounts of cannibalism. De Bry himself published many such narratives,

and his illustrations of cannibals became very well known. Cannibalism and its association with

the “other” went back much further, to ancient times, and spanned the globe, appearing in works

about Africa and East Asia as well. The abhorrence of and fascination with cannibalism only

encouraged more sensationalist accounts of the practice, which titillated readers and continued

the cycle. The practice became a symbol of “savagery” and paganism, as it violated the Christian

commandment against killing and prevented the body from achieving resurrection on the Day of

Judgment.79

The fact that the Narratio only hints at cannibalism and does not capitalize on the

sensationalism of featuring images of men and women consuming human limbs or roasting

bodies on fires speaks to the relative mildness of Le Moyne‟s narrative. In comparison, the next

book published by De Bry in 1592 was a collection of three texts about Brazil, including a

reissue of Hans Staden‟s 1557 account of his time living with a cannibalistic tribe.80

Unlike its

first appearance in print, which contained a few rough woodcuts, the De Bry edition of Staden‟s

narrative was lavishly illustrated with engravings of the Brazilian tribe dismembering and

feasting on human flesh, and these images became famous as representations of the “savagery”

of New World inhabitants.81

Similar to cannibalism, the illustration “How sentinels are punished for sleeping on their

posts” [Illustration B] depicts the aftermath of a blow on the head so severe “as almost to split

79

Groesen, Representations of the Overseas World, 188. 80

Hans Staden, Jean de Léry, and Nicolas Barré. Americae tertia pars Memorabile provinciae Brasiliae Historiam continens […] Addita est Narratio profectionis Ioannis Lerij in eamdem Provinciam, qua ille initio gallicè conscripsit, postea verò Latinam fecit. His accessit Descriptio Morum & Ferocitatis incolarum illius Regionis, atque Colloquium ipsorum idiomate conscriptum. (Frankfurt, Th. De Bry, 1592). 81

Groesen, Representations of the Overseas World, 182-3.

32

the skull open,” complete with blood and brain matter.82

This punishment is used for other

crimes as well, making it into a routine form of violence. It is a jarring reminder amidst the

majority of the illustrations depicting everyday life that beneath the surface veneer of

friendliness and generosity portrayed by the Native Americans, there might be elements of

violence that could degenerate into the raging savagery and cannibalism depicted in other travel

narratives. Le Moyne connects to his predecessors without losing the ambiguous nature of the

Native Americans he is describing.

The inclusion of French spectators in most of the illustrations further emphasizes the

uncivilized portrayal of the Native Americans by offering a ready yardstick against which to

measure them. Many times they simply stand in the background, silent symbols of civilization

that, by their very tranquil presence, make what is going on around them seem more wild and

uncivilized.83

An example of this is “First-born children sacrificed to the chief with solemn

ceremonies” [Illustration C], in which mothers offer their first-born children in honor of the

chief.84

The scene is frenzied as dancers circle around a mother holding her child in preparation

for the sacrifice. Another mother, having already completed the sacrifice and killed her child,

squats on the ground and weeps. In the foreground of this image, Laudonnière sits with the chief

and looks on. He leans away from the scene, as if disgusted by what he sees. This “civilized”

man‟s symbolic rejection of the practice highlights the opinions of the French on the matter

without even doing so in the text.

The battle scene [Illustration D] between the French and their native allies on one side

and opposing army on the other continues the juxtaposition of the “civilized” with the

82

Le Moyne, Narrative of Le Moyne, Descriptions of Illustrations, 12; Le Moyne, Brevis Narratio, Plate XXXII. 83

Groesen, Representations of the Overseas World, 206. 84

Le Moyne, Narrative of Le Moyne, Descriptions of Illustrations, 13; Le Moyne, Brevis Narratio, Plate XXXIIII.

33

“savage.”85

The French are shown in their armor with guns and shields at the ready, very self-

contained and focused, while the attackers are virtually naked, wildly swinging clubs or shooting

arrows. One in the foreground even has what appears to be a tail, emphasizing his more

animalistic nature. A later illustration [Illustration E] shows the aftermath of the battle in which

the French allies scalp and dismember their enemy‟s dead before hanging the body parts on their

spears and marching home in victory.86

Le Moyne uses this image of the enemy dead to state subtly that the Spanish were as

uncivilized as Native Americans. During the Spanish attack and Le Moyne‟s escape, he came

upon the tailor Grandchemin, who travelled with him in search of safety for a time. However,

Grandchemin became impatient when he saw no sign of the coast and the waiting ships, so he

decided to surrender to the Spanish. Le Moyne writes, “As they came up to him, [Grandchemin]

fell on his knees to beg for his life. They, however, in a fury cut him to pieces, and carried off the

dismembered fragments of his body on the points of their spears and pikes.”87

The image

described here is virtually the same as the text in the caption of the illustration: “They also are

accustomed, after a battle, to cut off with these reed knives the arms of the dead near the soldiers,

and their legs near the hips, breaking the bones, when laid bare, with a club, and then to lay these

fresh broken, and still running with blood, over the same fires to dry. Then hanging them, and

the scalps also, to the ends of their spears, they carry them off home in triumph.”88

In their

killing frenzy, the Spanish had degenerated to the state of savagery embodied by the Native

Americans in Le Moyne‟s eyes.

85

Le Moyne, Brevis Narratio, Plate XIII. 86

Ibid., Plate XV. 87

Le Moyne, Narrative of Le Moyne, 19. 88

Le Moyne, Narrative of Le Moyne, Descriptions of Illustrations, 7.

34

Le Moyne‟s Narratio makes it explicit that he does not consider the Spanish the true

villains of the tale, any more than the Timucua were. By likening the Spanish to the Native

Americans, he put them on the same level of ambiguity, neither peaceful and passive nor

mindless and bloodthirsty. The real villains, he determined, were actually the French themselves.

He does not explicitly state why he came to that conclusion, but he emphasizes throughout that

the journey he took was an experience that proves that “victory is not of man, but of God, who

does all things righteously according to his own will.”89

When a Frenchman was killed by some

Native Americans with whom he had been trading, Le Moyne excused their actions because “he

exercised authority … tyrannically, requiring the Indians to obtain for him things quite out of

their power, that he made himself hated by all of them.”90

Because of his greed, he deserved to

die. Likewise, the downfall of the colony was self-made because of their actions, not the

Spanish‟s: “it becomes us to accuse ourselves and our own sins for blame in the matter, and not

the Spaniards, whom the Lord made use of as rods for scourging us according to our deserts.”91

The turning point that ensured the colony‟s destruction was Ribault‟s rejection of

Laudonnière‟s warning against taking the ships to meet the Spanish. By this, he sealed their fate,

as far as Le Moyne was concerned: “Ribaud alone, however, contemning [sic] all their reasons,

persisted in his own determination, which was no doubt the will of God, who chose this means of

punishing his own children, and destroying the wicked.”92

The French had been greedy and

complacent, and, in the end, they were punished for it. The fact that the storm that destroyed the

French fleet was itself an act of God only supported that belief.

89

Le Moyne, Narrative of Le Moyne, 20. 90

Ibid., 9. 91

Ibid., 23. 92

Ibid., 17.

35

Therefore, Le Moyne had his own underlying agenda that he advanced throughout the

text. Rather than supporting the colonizing effort, however, Le Moyne‟s narrative almost

opposed the colony. He disdained the actions and motivations of the French there and showed

through his descriptions of the Native Americans and the Spanish that Europeans did not have

far to fall.

The fact that the Narratio was published twenty years after Fort Caroline disappeared and

that the French no longer had colonizing interests there probably contributed to this

interpretation of events. Also, Le Moyne no longer lived in France, having been driven out

because of his religion, so there might have been an element of revenge in there as well. By

describing the collapse of the French colony and placing the blame for its destruction principally

on the head of the colonists themselves, he is pointing out failure of the French in their

colonizing efforts. He also perhaps makes a statement about the damaging effects of colonizing

in pursuit of wealth on the morality of the colonizers. Even though the French involved were

primarily Calvinists, Le Moyne‟s own religion, he did not hesitate to show them as wicked men

who were being punished by God.

Le Moyne‟s narrative serves as a counterpoint between Laudonnière‟s text, which shows

the events from the point of view of the decision-makers and tries to justify their choices, and Le

Challeux‟s account, which describes the events on the ground from the standpoint of a working

man in the most sensational terms, capitalizing on the anti-Spanish sentiment that was still

rampant when it was published in 1566. The Narratio fits between the two, documenting the

events as seen through the eyes of the hired observer, who was not a decision-maker with a

vested interest in seeming to be right, but who also wanted to show events as they happened

rather than sensationalizing them.

36

Chapter Two: The English in Virginia

The history of the English colonies in Virginia is no less fraught than that of the French

colonies in Florida. And similarly, the background is essential to understanding the Report that

came out of Thomas Hariot and John White‟s experiences in the New World. The country from

which they were sent was also enduring religious turmoil, threats of war with Spain, and the

knowledge that they were lagging behind in the race to colonize America. However, the Report

was published at a very different time in the course of settlement and for a different purpose. The

first section of this chapter looks at the history of the English colonization efforts along with

Hariot and White‟s roles in those colonies. The second section focuses on the publication of the

Report and how its role in the settlement process affected its contents.

The History

The English colonizing efforts in the New World did not begin in earnest until the end of

the sixteenth century. Italian explorer Giovanni Gaboto (John Cabot) claimed “Terra Nova,” or

what is today Newfoundland, for the English in 1497, and fisherman made regular trips to the

coast of North America throughout the sixteenth century. However, once Queen Elizabeth I took

the throne and England lost the dynastic links with Spain provided by Queen Mary‟s marriage to

King Philip II, exploration was confined to areas very far north of Spanish holdings so as not to

provoke a fight England would most likely lose.

Martin Frobisher and John Davis made three voyages each to Baffin Bay between 1576

and 1587, searching for the Northwest Passage. They did not find a route to Asia, but Frobisher

discovered what he thought was gold and established a mining camp at Kodlunarn Island (in

modern-day Nunavut territory in Canada) between 1577 and 1578. The camp was an expensive

37

undertaking as all the personnel and supplies, from the tools to the timber, had to be shipped to

the island. It eventually housed one hundred miners, who extracted 1500 tons of ore to ship back

to England.93

Unfortunately, what the colonists thought was gold was later determined to be

simple rock. The colony folded, investors lost money, and England was embarrassed in front of

the other European powers.

Also in 1578, Elizabeth granted Sir Humphrey Gilbert a patent “„to inhabit and possess at

his choice all remote and heathen lands not in actual possession of any Christian Prince.‟”94

Gilbert ultimately failed to found a colony and died on his way back from Newfoundland. His

half-brother, Walter Raleigh (c. 1552-1618), later Sir Walter Raleigh, in 1584, took up the cause

and was granted a similar charter by Elizabeth “„to discover search fynde out and viewe such

remote heathen and barbarous landes Contries and territories not actually possessed of any

Christian Prynce.‟”95

This time, however, because Elizabeth, wary after the Kodlunarn Island

debacle, expected Raleigh to establish, fund, and recruit for the overseas venture with no help

from the Crown.

Writers, such as Richard Hakluyt, had been attempting to persuade Elizabeth I to

continue to grant patents to explore the New World and, specifically, to allow for the

establishment of permanent settlements.96

Hakluyt argued that “a permanent English presence in

North America would deter Spanish encroachment and would guarantee the flow of American

commodities back to England. Settlement would also provide work for various classes of English

93

Sloan, A New World: England’s First View of America, 53-54. 94

Patent granted to Sir Humphrey Gilbert by Elizabeth I, quoted in Lorant, The New World: The First Pictures of America, 123. 95

Patent granted to Sir Walter Raleigh by Elizabeth I, quoted in Shirley, Thomas Hariot: A Biography, 81. 96

Sloan, A New World: England’s First View of America, 54-55.

38

people and would give vent to English manufactures, which colonists would need to import.”97

Raleigh‟s proposed colony would do all that and more, serving as a base from which English

ships could be sent to raid Spanish ships and colonies nearby in Florida or search for the

Northwest Passage. The colony would be everything the Spanish had feared from the French

colony in Florida and controlled by a nation that did not worry about appeasing the Spanish as

the French did.

Raleigh began making preparations for the colony immediately after receiving his

charter. In this period, the figure of Thomas Hariot emerges. Little is known about Hariot before

this time. He was born in 1560 in Oxford, England. A few years after his graduation from Oxford

University in 1580, Hariot went to work for Sir Walter Raleigh as a mathematician, scientist, and

tutor. He created charts for the voyage across the Atlantic, tutored Raleigh‟s sea captains in

nautical navigation, and worked with ship builders to develop a vessel for the crossing.98

Hariot was most likely also part of the reconnaissance mission, led by Philip Amadas and

Arthur Barlowe, that Raleigh sent out later in 1584 to survey the east coast of America and

determine the best location for the new colony. His knowledge of shipbuilding and navigation

would have been invaluable on the voyage, and his experience on the mission would have better

prepared him to tutor Raleigh‟s captains. In addition to finding a likely spot to establish a

settlement, the group also brought two Native Americans back from the New World, as ordered

by Raleigh. Raleigh did not want to go into the area blind, so he invited Carolina Algonquians,

one from Croatoan Island named Manteo and the other from Roanoke named Wanchese, to

return to England to learn English as well as to provide information about their land, culture,

97

Sloan, A New World: England’s First View of America, 55. 98

Shirley, Thomas Hariot: A Biography, 100-110.

39

political structure, religion, and language, a practice that others continued long after Raleigh

died.99

Hariot learned the Algonquian language from Manteo and Wanchese in preparation for

departing on the first voyage to establish the colony.100

He was to act as a surveyor and

historiographer of the land and its inhabitants in conjunction with John White, an artist. To

facilitate his understanding of the people, Hariot set out to learn the native language. He created

“„An universall Alphabet‟ of thirty-six symbols in which „to expresse the Virginian speche‟” to

help his own pronunciation and that of other Englishmen who wished to become bilingual.101

He

also learned all he could about the geography surrounding the proposed settlement site and the

culture of its inhabitants. The two Native Americans further served to bring investors on board

by describing the wonders of the land to which they were going. Finally, Hariot taught them

enough of the English language that they would be able to act as interpreters for the English in

America.102

In exchange for the information and service they provided, Manteo and Wanchese

received information on the English to take back to their people and the possibility of service for

them in the future. By making the journey to England, they had the opportunity to observe the

English, learn their culture, strengths, weaknesses, language, and customs. Upon returning to the

Carolinas, they would be able to provide their respective communities with intelligence on the

99

Vaughan, “Sir Walter Ralegh's Indian Interpreters,” 347. 100

Ibid., 347; Shirley, Thomas Hariot: A Biography, 107. 101

Vaughan, “Sir Walter Ralegh's Indian Interpreters,” 347. 102

Ibid., 347-348.

40

English colonizers, as well as having ready access to English goods and the possibility of an

alliance against their enemies.103

The colonists, which consisted mostly of soldiers and adventurers, departed Plymouth,

England on April 9, 1585 and were bound for the Outer Banks region of what is now North

Carolina. This location had been chosen by the exploratory group as an ideal place for the new

colony due to its coastal position, the availability of natural resources, the non-hostile nature of

the native inhabitants, and its proximity to Spanish settlements to the south.104

Raleigh called the

land Virginia, in honor of Queen Elizabeth. By then, Raleigh was one of her favorites, so he was

not allowed to make the journey to the New World himself. Despite that, the colonists arrived in

Virginia in June of 1585 whereupon one of their ships ran aground, destroying most of their food

supplies. Nevertheless, they settled on an island in the Outer Banks and began to explore the

area.

The group made contact with the local Algonquian tribes in July, while also sending men

to explore the mainland and other islands. Manteo acted as interpreter for the expedition to the

mainland and helped to smooth the Englishmen‟s interactions with the surrounding Algonquian

tribes. However, around this time they had their first negative encounter with the Native

Americans. As was recorded in one of the ships‟ logs, “„The 16. We returned thence [to

Secotan], and one of our boates withe the Admirall [Philip Amadas] was sent to Aquascococke

to demaund a siluer cup which one of the Sauages had stolen from vs, and not receiuing it

according to his promise, we burnt, and spoyled their corne, and Towne, all the people being

103

Vaughan, “Sir Walter Ralegh's Indian Interpreters,” 348. 104

Shirley, Thomas Hariot: A Biography, 104.

41

fledde.‟”105

It is unclear why the English reacted so harshly to a stolen cup. Perhaps they were

attempting to instill fear in the native population, or perhaps other events precipitated this one.

This was just the first of several conflicts that Hariot described as being “iustly deserued” by the

English.106

At the same time, Hariot and White ranged across the area, interacting with the native

population, observing the plant and wildlife, and recording as much of it as possible. White

worked on creating a highly accurate map of the area and detailed drawings of the plants,

animals, and inhabitants. Hariot‟s language abilities stood him in good stead; he was able to talk

with the native priests about their religion, discuss farming practices, and observe rituals.107

It is

unclear how much of what he saw was tailored for an audience or misunderstood by him. He

definitely had preconceived cultural and religious ideas that affected how he interpreted what he

saw. The Native Americans might not have wanted him to see or understand certain details about

themselves, or he could have deliberately changed his records about certain aspects of their life

to suit his own purposes. However, Hariot would have certainly been able to interpret more than

others who did not speak the language.

The colonists eventually established a fort on Roanoke Island, and a portion of the group

returned to England for more supplies, naming Ralph Lane as governor over those who

remained. There is some indication that White went back to England with this group, as he had

completed his map, an engraving of which appears in De Bry‟s edition of the Report, and his

105

Ship’s log, quoted in Shirley, Thomas Hariot: A Biography, 133. 106

Thomas Harriot. 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. Discouered by the English Colony there seated by Sir Richard Greinvile Knight In the yeere 1585. Which remained under the governement of twelve monethes (Francoforti ad Moenvm: Theodori De Bry, 1590), 30. 107

Sloan, A New World: England’s First View of America, 43.

42

skills would no longer be needed. He most likely took his drawings with him, which survives to

today. As an observer and speaker of the language, Hariot stayed with the colonists in America.

After being left in charge of the colony, Ralph Lane proceeded to send more groups on

exploratory missions in search of precious metals and other tradable commodities.108

He

established a second fort on an island north of Roanoke and went on several expeditions to native

villages further inland, hoping to learn the location of gold or silver. However, he did not

allocate men to plant and instead relied on food provided by the neighboring tribes, whether it

was readily available or not. This added burden on their food supply, along with a few violent

encounters, caused the Native Americans, who had previously been friendly with the English, to

begin amassing forces against them.

Conditions rapidly deteriorated, and only Manteo‟s intervention saved Lane and his

scouting party from being killed by hostile natives who were singing, not “in token of our

welcome to them” but “that they ment to fight with us.”109

The colonists withstood several

skirmishes with the tribes in the area and began planning to expand their settlement for better

defense.110

The supply ship still had not arrived from England as anticipated, food was extremely

low, and summer hurricanes battered the colony. Eventually, the colonists killed the king of one

of the tribes near them who had allegedly conspired to cut them off from receiving any food.

Only the timely arrival of Sir Francis Drake in June 1586, making his way up the coast from

raiding in the West Indies, saved them from violent reprisal.

108

Shirley, Thomas Hariot: A Biography, 138. 109

Ralph Lane, “Discourse on the First Colony,” in Captain John Smith: Writings with other Narratives of Roanoke, Jamestown, and the First English Settlement of America (New York: Library of America, 2007), 846. 110

Shirley, Thomas Hariot: A Biography, 141.

43

Drake offered Lane food and the use of one of his ships, but that ship quickly sank in a

storm. Lane finally saw that there was no other choice but to leave a small group of colonists on

Roanoke Island to maintain the colony, while the rest of the colonists, including Thomas Hariot,

returned to England to regroup and resupply. Unfortunately, during the transfer from the shore to

Drake‟s ship, Hariot‟s writings and samples were lost. Once he returned to England, he would

have to recreate that information in preparation for its use in marketing the colony.111

John White returned to the site of the failed settlement in 1587, but this time, not by

choice. He was made governor of the colony by Raleigh, and the aim for this attempt was to

establish a permanent community that would consist of tradesmen, farmers, merchants, women,

and children, including White‟s own daughter.112

However, from the beginning, nothing seemed

to go right. The pilot, Fernandez, refused to carry the colonists where they were supposed to go,

that is, Chesapeake Bay, saying that it was too late in the season. Instead, he left them at the site

of the previous colony, in the midst of hostile Native Americans. One of the colonists was soon

killed, and White escalated matters when his retaliation wounded friendly Native Americans.113

Finally, the colonists asked White to return to England to get aid and more supplies, which he

did in August of 1587.

The threat of the Spanish Armada and the need for all available ships for the war

prevented White from attempting to return to the colony until the following year. Raleigh was

able to negotiate for two ships on which White was able to sail to make his return voyage to

Virginia.114

However, problems arose again when the captain of the expedition diverted from his

111

Sloan, A New World: England’s First View of America, 45. 112

Ibid., 45. 113

Ibid., 46. 114

Ibid., 46.

44

course in order to engage in privateering, which resulted in the loss of the group‟s provisions and

White getting wounded. The expedition eventually had to return to England, and the colony was

left without aid.

Finally, White returned to the colony in 1590, but under just as discouraging

circumstances. He was forced to leave the provisions and colonists he had hoped to bring behind

and boarded the ship alone. The captain of this ship also engaged in privateering along the way.

When White arrived, he found an empty and destroyed settlement. The colonists had been

planning to move to another location after he left for England, and they left a message that said

they had gone to Croatoan Island, but White was not able to go there to look for them. White was

only given one day to search for the colonists who had been waiting for supplies since 1587.115

Once again, he had to leave the settlers behind, but this time, he would never return. It would

become known as the “Lost Colony,” and while some speculate that the colonists were adopted

into neighboring tribes, killed by those tribes, moved on to another location, or died from another

cause, there is still no definitive answer as to what happened to the colonists.

The Publication of the Report

When Thomas Hariot returned to England in 1586, he quickly prepared a report outlining

the characteristics of the colony‟s land, valuable commodities available in the area, and the

nature of the native inhabitants. A Briefe and True Report of…Virginia was published in 1588 as

a pamphlet and meant to counter unflattering rumors that had arisen as a result of unofficial

reports and eyewitness accounts from others who had returned to England with Sir Francis Drake

that said that the Roanoke colony had been mismanaged. It was also intended to reassure future

115

Sloan, A New World: England’s First View of America, 48.

45

colonists that there were tradable commodities in the area and attract new investors in time for

White‟s planned return to Virginia.116

Hariot stated in his note “To the Gentle Reader,” “I haue

therefore thought it good beeing one that haue beene in the discouerie and in dealing with the

naturall inhabitantes specially imploied; and hauing therefore seene and knowne more than the

ordinarie: to imparte so much vnto you of the fruites of our labours, as that you may knowe howe

iniuriously the enterprise is slandered.”117

Hariot considered himself one of the best people to

write about the establishment of the colony because he had been there. It was also his job, and

therefore, he wrote his Report to show the colony, the colonists, and the native population in the

best light.

A second, expanded edition appeared in 1590, published by Theodore de Bry in Latin,

English, French, and German. This edition of the Report had the original three chapters: “Of

Marchantable Commodities,” “Of Svche Commodities as Virginia is knowne to yeelde for

victual and sustenãce of mans life,” and “Of Svch Other Thinges as is be Hoofll for those which

shall plant and inhabit to know of; with a description of the nature and manners of the people of

the country,” but it also included twenty-seven engravings by de Bry taken from John White‟s

drawings of the land and people of Virginia.118

De Bry accessed White‟s watercolors through

Richard Hakluyt, and De Bry added captions to the illustrations, describing the appearance,

dress, and customs of two tribes the colonists encountered.119

Hariot‟s Briefe Report was meant to be an abstract of a larger work he called “The

Chronicle” that would give detailed descriptions of the land, its resources, and the people that

116

Everett Emerson, “Thomas Hariot, John White, and Ould Virginia,” in Essays in Early Virginia Literature Honoring Richard Beale Davis. ed. J. A. Leo Lemay (New York: Burt Franklin & Co., 1977), 4. 117

Hariot. Report, 5. 118

Ibid., 7, 13, 22. 119

Groesen, Representations of the Overseas World, 112.

46

lived therein.120

“The Chronicle” never came to fruition, so A Briefe and True Report

of…Virginia, with its very clear purpose and intentions, stood alone as Hariot‟s only description

of the Native Americans that he encountered and systematically observed.

Hakluyt heavily influenced De Bry to choose Hariot‟s Report for his first publication. De

Bry had originally thought to begin his publishing career with Le Moyne‟s Narratio.121

However, Hakluyt and Raleigh convinced him to publish Hariot‟s book first. They wanted to

capitalize on its publication to advertise their colonizing efforts and keep Virginia in people‟s

minds. De Bry agreed to the switch because the text had just recently been published and already

had some momentum.

The Report became the first in de Bry‟s series entitled “Grand Voyages,” which would

become the centerpiece of de Bry‟s print shop. This version of the Report shifted its focus from

the land of Virginia to the Native Americans who lived there. With the illustrations and captions

in the 1590 edition, the description of the inhabitants of Virginia became the largest section of

the Report. While the 1588 edition focused on the colony as a business venture, including a

description of the inhabitants and the threat they posed, the 1590 edition presented a proto-

anthropological study of the Native Americans prefaced with a description of the land and its

resources.

The 1590 edition added additional layers to the narrative, as it included Theodore de

Bry‟s engravings after John White‟s illustrations of the Native Americans. These images

supported Hariot‟s depiction of the inhabitants and further emphasized the proto-anthropological

nature of the text, but it is unclear how much editorial influence de Bry had over the portrayal.

120

Hariot, Report, 33. 121

Ibid., 113.

47

What is clear is that he made changes to White‟s original drawings, adding backgrounds, adding

details from the text, and, in some cases, adding whole illustrations that White never drew, such

as the image of “Kivvasa,” the idol [Illustration F (see Appendix B for illustrations)], who looks

more like a Floridian Timucuan than an Algonquian and might have been adapted from an image

by Le Moyne.122

As the publisher, de Bry primarily wanted to sell books, so he also capitalized

on the most sensational, and stereotypical, images, such as the idol and the “Weroan,”

[Illustration G] who looks like he has a tail until one reads the caption and discovers the tail is

actually a tie to hold a quiver.123

Those who were looking to buy the book would think the text

was about the “savage” and “animalistic” natives rather than the peaceful proto-Europeans

Hariot was trying to portray.124

Nevertheless, together, Hariot and White/de Bry depicted the

colony in the best possible light, portraying it as an idyllic Eden ripe with resources and the

native inhabitants as vessels waiting for the civilizing influence of the English colonizers. They

presented this image in a number of ways, using the text and illustrations to their advantage.

Thomas Hariot was a scientist and mathematician, and at first glance, the Report reads

like a proto-anthropological study of the indigenous peoples of America. He described their

appearance and manner of dress, weapons, towns, government, methods of making war, religion,

and interactions with the colonists. He made few outright judgments about the people or their

culture.125

He took the time to learn the Algonquian language in order to better understand the

customs he observed. He even noted the intelligence and ingenuity he saw displayed in the native

population. However, Hariot highlighted every aspect of the culture in the Report for a specific

purpose.

122

Sloan, A New World: England’s First View of America, 114. 123

Groesen, Representations of the Overseas World, 223. 124

Ibid., 227. 125

Hariot, Report, 24-30.

48

Hariot portrayed the Native American inhabitants of America as less evolved, and,

therefore, less of a threat to the European colonizers. As proto-Europeans they would be eager

for conquest so that they might benefit from the more evolved Europeans. Hariot presented

Native Americans as objects of conquest in the New World but not true obstacles to be overcome

because they posed no real threat.

At first, Hariot‟s Report does not seem to be a typical document in the discourse of

discovery. It does not contain depictions of cannibalism or self-mutilation or wildly violent

groups making war on anyone and everyone as other narratives of the period did. Although

Hariot was perhaps more subtle than other authors, he still manipulated his portrayal of the

native population to make the inhabitants of America look harmless, thereby making the colony

more enticing to potential colonists. In a similar manner, Columbus‟ first letter to Spain after

reaching the New World described the beautiful landscape, useful plants and trees, and

“hopelessly timid people. It is true that since they have gained more confidence and are losing

this fear, they are so unsuspicious and so generous with what they possess, that no one who had

not seen it would believe it.”126

Potential colonists would not want to make the trip to a foreign

land to live if there was the potential that hostile native inhabitants would surround them.

As part of his objective to show how “iniuriously the enterprise is slaundered” and how

ready the land is for colonization, Hariot devoted the first two chapters of the Report to the

abundance of natural resources in the land, just waiting to be cultivated by the colonists.127

He

described these so that potential colonists “may generally know & learne what the countrey is, &

thervpon cõsider how your dealing therein if it proceede, may returne you profit and gaine; bee it

126

Christopher Columbus, “The Letter of Columbus to Luis de Sant Angel Announcing His Discovery, 1493,” accessed July 29, 2011, http://www.ushistory.org/documents/columbus.htm 127

Hariot, Report, 5.

49

either by inhabitting & planting or otherwise in furthering thereof.”128

He ostensibly wanted to

give a fair rendering of what was present in the colony, but the Report’s purpose precluded

complete neutrality.

In his essay on Hariot‟s Report, historian Everett Emerson wrote that “Hariot was given

not to imaginative speculation, but to scholarly qualification” because Hariot made sure to not

over-exaggerate the resources in Virginia or confirm the presence of resources that he had not

seen himself.129

However, Hariot still gave the impression of abundance and fecundity in his

descriptions of the land and its produce, “[A]n English Acre conteining fourtie pearches in

length, and foure in breadth, doeth there yeeld in croppe or of come of corne, beanes, and peaze,

at the least two hũdred London bushelles…When as in England fourtie bushelles of our wheate

yeelded out of such an acre is thought to be much.”130

He also emphasized in his conclusion that

this bounty was just the beginning and that, as colonists ventured further inland, they would find

“the soyle to bee fatter; the trees greater and to growe thinner…finer grasse and as good as euer

we saw any in England…more plenty of their fruites; more abundance of beastes” and much

more.131

Without using exaggerated language, Hariot still managed to portray the land as ripe

and waiting to be utilized by the colonists.

The last chapter in Hariot‟s Report and the subsequent illustrations discussed “the people

of the countrey” and presented them as simple, impressionable folk who were awed by the

trappings of English civilization. Hariot acknowledged that, within their own milieu, Native

Americans “shewe excellencie of wit,” but when presented with the evidence of English

128

Hariot, Report, 5. 129

Emerson, “Thomas Hariot, John White, and Ould Virginia,” 8. 130

Hariot, Report, 15. 131

Ibid., 31.

50

civilization in the form of scientific and mathematical equipment, the devices “were so straunge

vnto them, and so farre exceeded their capacities to comprehend the reason and meanes how they

should be made and done, that they thought they were rather the works of gods then of men, or at

leastwise they had bin giuen and taught vs of the gods.”132

The Native Americans realized that

they were “so simple,” compared to the English.133

Hariot acknowledged that the Native

Americans might have been more intelligent than the fish and animals among which they lived,

but the arrival of the English meant that they were no longer the most intelligent or evolved

beings in the land.

De Bry‟s engravings, taken from John White‟s illustrations, are the most obvious

representations of the Native Americans as simple and almost innocent. The first image

[Illustration H], included before the text of the illustrated chapter presents the New World as

Eden, with Adam, Eve, and the serpent in the fore-ground. However, the land is likened to Eden

after the Fall, with a woman having given birth to a child and a man laboring in a field behind

Adam and Eve. Thus, the New World is likened to a fallen paradise, where man (that is,

Europeans) still retains the right to rule over the inhabitants even though he has forfeited his

existence there.134

This illustration, coming before Hariot‟s captions and the pictures taken from

John White‟s drawings, creates a framework through which to view and interpret the later

content.

The rest of de Bry‟s engravings and Hariot‟s captions balanced this line between

innocence and sin. The native men and women are shown mostly naked hinting at their “savage”

nature; however, the “virgins of good parentage” [Illustration I], though bare-chested, “couer

132

Hariot, Report, 25, 27. 133

Ibid., 27. 134

Groesen, Representations of the Overseas World, 139.

51

their brests in token of maydenlike modestye.”135

The other women, who are “Ladyes” of their

tribes [Illustration J], also display some modesty in the placement of their arms or necklaces.

None of these women are shown engaged in strenuous labor, rather the illustrations present them

in what were perceived to be proper English gender roles, tending to the children [Illustration K]

and preparing food.136

White and De Bry completely ignored the actual division of labor, in

which women performed agricultural labor while the men hunted and foraged, and both the

original watercolor and the engraving depict the fields of crops empty of human workers

[Illustrations L and M]. White through De Bry illustrated the Native Americans as a curious mix

of objective observation and European ideas of morality and society.

The backgrounds of the engravings depict Native Americans performing various kinds of

activities, including hunting, fishing, and farming, typical activities for European men, within an

idyllic, Eden-like setting. None of these illustrations show any hint of hostile intentions. The

people are not making war against Europeans or other native inhabitants, and they are certainly

not engaging in any form of cannibalism as later illustrators portrayed.137

The “weroan or great Lorde of Virginia” [Illustration G] carries a bow and arrow in his

hands, but the background suggests that these are used primarily for hunting deer. Hariot briefly

states, “They carye a quiuer made of small rushes holding their bowe readie bent in on [sic]

hand, and an arrowe in the other, radie to defend themselues. In this manner they goe to war, or

tho their solemne feasts and banquetts.”138

The bow was meant for “defense” and it is only for

defense that Native Americans would go to war. In the text of the Report, Hariot acknowledged

135

Hariot, Report, 49. 136

Kathleen M. Brown, Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs: Gender, Race, and Power in Colonial Virginia (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996), 25. 137

Montrose, “The Work of Gender in the Discourse of Discovery,” 2. 138

Hariot, Report, 46.

52

that the Native Americans warred against each other, but he emphasized that “set battels are very

rare” and that they mostly relied on the element of surprise or ambushes to defeat their foes.139

In relation to hostility against the English, Hariot allowed for the possibility of war

between the colonists and the native inhabitants, but he assured the reader that the awe in which

the Native Americans held the English and their fear of conflict would send them running from

the battle.140

He obliquely mentioned the colonists‟ conflicts with the native population, writing,

“although some of our companie towards the ende of the yeare, shewed themseues too fierce, in

slaying some of the people, in some towns, vpon causes that on our part, might easily enough

haue been borne withall: yet notwithstanding because it was on their part iustly deserued, the

alteration of their opinions generally & for the most part concerning vs is the lesse to bee

doubted.”141

However, not wanting to depict war-like neighbors of future colonists, and despite

the obvious threat posed by the native population and several examples of their resistance, the

Native Americans described by Hariot and illustrated by de Bry remained passive and non-

threatening, vastly different from the Algonquian tribes who made so much trouble for the

colonists in Virginia.

Another feature of the Native Americans put forward by Hariot as a benefit to the

colonizing process was their malleability and their willingness to convert to Christianity.

According to Hariot, when they saw the amazing devices created by the English and realized

their own deficiency in the face of English civilization, the Native Americans embraced the

presence and influence of the colonists. He wrote:

139

Hariot, Report, 25. 140

Ibid., 25. 141

Ibid., 30.

53

And by howe much they vpon due consideration shall finde our manner of

knowledges and craftes to exceede theirs in perfection, and speed for doing or

execution, by so much the more is it probably that they shoulde desire our

friendships & loue, and haue the greater respect for pleasing and obeying vs.

Whereby may bee hoped if meanes of good gouernment bee vsed, that they may

in short time be brought to ciuilitie, and the imbracing of true religion.142

Hariot took for granted that the Native Americans would want to “be brought to ciuilitie,” with

all its trappings of Christianity, morality, a written language, laws, government, clothing, arts,

and metal goods.143

In Hariot‟s depiction, the Native Americans were naturally headed toward

civility and Christianity because they were proto-Europeans following in the footsteps of the

English and other European nations.

This assumption was also emphasized by the inclusion of White‟s illustrations of Picts,

early inhabitants of Britain, placed after the images of the Native Americans [Illustrations N and

O]. Like the engravings of the Native Americans, the Picts are portrayed as completely or partly

naked with only images and symbols painted on their bodies. De Bry explained that their

inclusion was meant “to showe how that the Inhabitants of the great Bretannie haue bin in times

past as sauuage as those of Virginia.”144

He considered the native population of America to be at

the same level of civilization as the pre-Christian inhabitants of the British Isles, on the brink of

succumbing to Christianity and “civilizing” forces. He showed them together to illustrate the

inevitability and natural progression of civilization. Unlike the Native Americans, however, the

Picts are shown as distinctly warlike, with men and women brandishing several weapons and one

man holding a severed head while another rests at his feet. This suggests that even in their past,

less civilized state, the English were more powerful and superior to the Native Americans.

142

Hariot, Report, 25. 143

Berkhofer, The White Man’s Indian, 10. 144

Hariot, Report, 75.

54

The similarity to the Picts comes through even more because De Bry‟s Native Americans

display European features, unlike White‟s drawings. It has been suggested that de Bry was

simply unable to engrave Native American features.145

This conclusion seems too simplistic

considering the overall complexity of his engravings and the availability of White‟s drawings as

guides [Illustration P]. The Native Americans depicted by de Bry display the physique and

positioning of classical statuary, almost as if they could become true Picts if only they changed

their outward appearance. Altogether, this similarity to proto-Europeans made the Native

Americans less threatening because as more primitive versions of the English, they underlined

Hariot‟s assertion that the native inhabitants of America were ready and willing to become

civilized because they would naturally want to evolve like the English had.

White‟s original watercolor drawings reflect this same message. They continue the

tradition of other proto-ethnographic illustrations that gained popularity in the mid-sixteenth

century, such as those by Jean de Léry, a Huguenot who went to Brazil in the 1550s during

Admiral Coligny‟s early attempt to create a French colony in the New World. De Léry‟s

illustrations were a bit different from earlier proto-ethnographic images, which showed the

common views of Native Americans as cannibals or naked bodies sprouting feathers. De Léry

adapted his illustrations from André Thevet, who spent three months in Brazil from 1555 to

1556, but De Léry “emphasized the more civilized societal, familial, and religious aspects of the

lives of the Indians of America.”146

White, in turn, copied the style of De Léry‟s drawings and

used his illustrations to balance the tone of Hariot‟s text.147

145

John H. Lienhard, “No. 893: Theodor de Bry,” The Engines of Our Ingenuity, accessed July 29, 2011, http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi893.htm 146

Sloan, A New World: England’s First View of America, 227. 147

Christian F. Feest, “Jonn White’s New World,” in Sloan, A New World: England’s first view of America, 67.

55

However, White‟s illustrations also display a resemblance to those that appeared in

costume books. Books of costumes became popular in the mid-sixteenth century and showed

men and women in standardized poses wearing garb from around the world. The images lacked

background ornamentation and simply showcased the subject, as if he or she were on display for

interested viewers. Costume books featuring figures from America appeared as early as 1562,

mostly adapted from travel literature, and John White did drawings based on these and other

costumes.148

He later based his proto-ethnographic depictions of the Algonquian Indians he

encountered in the New World on the form of images in costume books.149

Unlike other travel narratives, including Le Moyne‟s, White did not depict Europeans

alongside the Native Americans. He left out the colonists who were interacting with the groups

he was illustrating. This removed the feeling of juxtaposition of civilized Europeans against the

“other” central to the illustrations in other narratives and left the images of the Native Americans

to be compared to the only other groups in the series of illustrations, the Picts.150

Hariot‟s support for the civilizing of the Native Americans sets up one of the primary

contradictions in the Report. The native population‟s lack of civilization and the fact that they

“lyue cherfullye and att their harts ease” with nature made them less threatening to the colonizers

and, thus, made the location of the colony more desirable.151

However, Hariot‟s assumption that

the colonizers would have a civilizing effect on the Native Americans and would eventually

allow the inhabitants to evolve to the same level as the English does not take the benefit of their

perceived weakness and passivity into account. The non-threatening tribes, which were so

148

Feest, in Sloan, A New World: England’s First View of America, 68. 149

Ibid., 69 150

Joyce E. Chaplin, “Roanoke ‘Counterfeited According to the Truth,’” in Sloan, A New World: England’s First View of America, 62. 151

Hariot, Report, 68.

56

important to the success of the colony, would evolve into the obstacle the English were hoping to

avoid.

Even as Hariot suggested that the native inhabitants were eager to achieve the same

degree of civilization as the English, he praised them for their moderate lifestyle and used the

comparison to show the English as greedy gluttons unable to satisfy their “vnsatiable

appetite.”152

Therefore, on the one hand, he admires the fact that the Native Americans were

“verye longe liued because they doe not oppress nature,” and he wishes that “wee would followe

their example. For wee should bee free from many kynes of diseasyes which wee fall into by

sumptwous and unseasonable banketts, continuallye deuisinge new sawces, and prouocation of

gluttonnye to satisfie our vnsatiable appetite.” 153

On the other hand, he sees the Native

Americans as “savages” in need of civilizing, which included adopting the mores of his society.

This contradiction seems to indicate that he supported the English incorporation of a more

moderate diet, but he would rather the Native Americans strive to become civilized Christians,

even if that meant becoming gluttons, than remain long-lived pagan “savages.”

The primary factor preventing the Native Americans from achieving true civilization,

according to Hariot, was their pagan beliefs. He tempered his praise of their ingenuity and

creativity because they did not thank God for giving them those gifts. He described them as “free

from all care of heaping opp Riches for their posterite, content with their state, and liuinge

frendlye together of those things which god of his bountye hath giuen vnto them, yet without

giuinge hym any thankes according to his desarte.”154

The Native Americans were peaceful and

content, but their failure to praise the Christian god precluded them from achieving civilization

152

Hariot, Report, 60. 153

Ibid., 60, plate XV caption. 154

Ibid., 56.

57

and posed a threat to English dominance. They were not subject to Christian modes of conduct,

so they represented an unknown factor and a potential obstacle to the English.

Hariot mitigated the threat posed by their divergent beliefs by assuring the reader that the

native population was eager to convert to Christianity. Most of his narrative on the nature and

manners of the people focused on their religion. His knowledge of the Algonquian language

allowed him to speak with their priests. He found that “some religion they haue alreadie, which

although it be farre from the truth, yet being at it is, there is hope it may bee the easier and

sooner reformed.”155

Yet, after the English had settled in the area, his inquiries revealed that

“they were not so sure grounded, nor gaue such credite to their traditions and stories but through

conuersing with vs they were brought into great doubts of their owne, and no small admiratiõ of

ours, with earnest desire in many, to learne more than we had meanes for want of perfect

utterance in their language to expresse.”156

The Native Americans were primed for missionary

activity and willing to integrate the English into their lives.

Hariot‟s account revealed additional reasons for the native inhabitants‟ religious

flexibility. His description of the Native Americans‟ first interaction with the English

navigational equipment depicted how the inhabitants perceived the wonder of the devices as

evidence of the colonists‟ proximity to God. When a sickness seemed to develop among the

tribes who had practiced “any subtile deuise” against the English, the Native Americans and the

English both saw this as a sign that God supported the English and their colonizing efforts.

Hariot wrote that “this maruelous accident in all the countrie wrought so strange opinions of vs,

that some people could not tel whether to think vs gods or men, and the rather because that all

155

Hariot, Report, 25. 156

Ibid., 27.

58

the space of their sicknesse, there was no man of ours knowne to die, or that was specially

sicke.”157

Finally, prior to the arrival of the English, Hariot and other astrologers observed an

eclipse, and before the first bought of sickness broke out among the Native Americans, a comet

appeared in the sky. Both signified great change and, possibly, danger. Faced with both earthly

and supernatural proof that a powerful and terrible God protected the English, the Native

Americans naturally sought to worship such a being. The English perceived this desire positively

because once the native inhabitants had been converted to Christianity, they would be subject to

English forms of morality and interaction, thus taking away any hint of a threat to the colony.

157

Hariot, Report, 29.

59

Chapter Three: The Narratives Come Together

Separately, the Narratio and the Report seem like very different examples of travel

narratives. However, when the texts, their circumstances, and the meanings behind each are

compared, the stories and the way they are told become so similar as to be virtually the same.

The first area that suggests a deeper connection is the relationship between the narrative

creators. Le Moyne first came to Raleigh‟s attention because of his keen artistic abilities, but

Raleigh most likely invited Le Moyne into his inner circle because of his experiences in Florida.

The group, including Hariot and White, were preparing to depart on the first voyage to Virginia,

and Le Moyne‟s insight would have been extremely useful.158

His position as recorder of the

colony was the same as Hariot and White‟s, and as Raleigh became Le Moyne‟s patron, Le

Moyne became White‟s mentor.

White‟s illustrative style is similar to Le Moyne‟s in the attention to detail and focus on

natural lines and characteristics. He copied several drawings by Le Moyne, whose originals do

not survive, indicating that at least some of the shared style was probably learned. The paintings

he copied were of a Timucuan chief [Illustration Q (see Appendix C for illustrations)] and wife

[Illustration R], both of whom show similarities in posture, adornments, and style to the original

White drawings of the “weroan” [Illustration S] and “cheiff Ladye” [Illustration T]. Also, the

image of the “yonge dowgter of the Pictes” [Illustration U] was taken from a watercolor

attributed to Le Moyne, indicating that either White made a copy of the image or de Bry

engraved from Le Moyne‟s drawing. In either case, Le Moyne, as White‟s mentor and advisor to

158

Harvey, Painter in a Savage Land, 192-193.

60

the English colonizers, had some degree of influence, no matter how unconscious or indirect, on

the Report.

Le Moyne‟s advice did not prevent an almost exact recreation of events that led to the

destruction of the French colony in Florida, but this time in English Virginia. The details are

eerily similar. Both featured nations beginning their colonizing efforts with exploratory missions.

These missions determined specific locations where the colonists should be sent. The sites were

chosen because of their strategic value but with the accompanying expectation of nearby sources

of wealth. Protestants primarily populated each colony. Both struggled to establish permanent

settlements in completely new locations before leaving a few men at the sites and returning to the

mother country for supplies and reinforcements. In the meantime, neither site yielded the sort of

wealth the colonists were expecting, leading to unrest amongst the people. While stranded in the

New World, neither group attempted to survive by their own labor, preferring to rely on the local

native population for food while they spent their time hunting for precious metals instead.

Their initial contacts with the Native Americans were friendly as the Europeans displayed

their technical advances and described their religion. Le Moyne and Hariot each proselytized to

the Native Americans, garnering supposed expressions of interest, while observing the religion

of those they were trying to covert. However, as time went on and neither colony‟s supply ships

arrived due to wars at home, tensions rose and tempers frayed in direct connection with the

dwindling food supplies. Continued demands for more food caused problems with the Native

Americans, and antagonistic actions taken by the colony leaders further eroded good relations.

These leaders would later write about the events and defend their actions.

61

Just as both colonists had reached their limit, starving and surrounded by hostile Native

Americans, unexpected help arrived in the form of pirates. Though Sir Francis Drake was

technically a privateer, to all the other countries besides England, he was a pirate. In John

Hawkins, there was no doubt. Here, the story deviates, as the English left with Drake while the

French supply ships arrived in time to prevent the departure of the French. In this, there is a

sense of what might have been. The French did not leave the colony when they could have, and

they were massacred a short while later. As a result, they abandoned Florida altogether and did

not attempt another colony for several decades. The English did leave, losing the colony but also

narrowly avoiding all out war with the tribe whose chief they had killed. They quickly returned,

and this last group became the “Lost Colony,” whose ultimate fate is unknown when White

could no longer find them. Historians have not been able to determine whether they had a similar

brutal ending to the French or not, but perhaps the unknown prevented the English from

exhibiting the same caution that the French did. A few short years later, they established a

permanent settlement a bit north of where they had been, but still in the same Virginia area, and

the English never left again.

This retelling of the stories obviously blurs the lines between the first and second

attempts to maintain the colonies. The first attempt by the English follows the events of the

French‟s second attempt, when they established Fort Caroline. Also, in some cases, the events

and motivations are oversimplified, but on the whole, the major themes and many small details

match. Besides the colonies themselves, some outside elements also match. Strong female

figures, Catherine de Medici and Elizabeth I, ran both countries and male favorites of both

women spearheaded the colonial ventures with each later losing their support. Coligny and

Raleigh were each called traitors, Coligny for his part in the French Wars of Religion, and

62

Raleigh for his suspected involvement in the Main Plot against King James I. Both eventually

died horrible deaths because of their politics and religion.

Thus, the details of the two colonies combine to present a single narrative of discovery.

However, the narratives presented to the world appear quite different. Hariot/White‟s reads like

an ethnographic study of the New World and its inhabitants, while Le Moyne‟s presents a

straightforward recitation of events. Both publications also implement separate agendas, the

promotion of the colony on the former‟s part, and a condemnation of the colonists on the latter‟s.

They were written at different periods in the development of the colonies they discuss.

Hariot and White produced their narrative in the middle of the colony‟s progress, between the

first and second attempts. Le Moyne‟s text discussed the end of the colony, after it became clear

that it had failed. Perhaps if someone from the “Lost Colony” had survived, their narrative would

have sounded like Le Moyne‟s, with explanations of what had gone wrong and who was to

blame. Also, because Le Moyne‟s account was written well after the fact, he had a greater

benefit of hindsight and reflection than Hariot and White.

Are they really so different, though? The Report and the Narratio have different tones,

the former with a scientific bent reflecting the author‟s training, and the latter presented as a

traditional travel narrative. However, both discuss similar aspects of their respective colonies.

Just as Le Moyne blamed the demise of the French colony on the colonists themselves, Hariot

called out members of his own party who “haue beene there worthily punished; who by reason of

their badde natures, haue maliciously not onelie spoken ill of their Gouernours; but for their

sakes slaundered the countrie itselfe.”159

He goes on to condemn those men who lied about what

159

Hariot, Report, 6.

63

did or did not happen in the colony or who stated that there was nothing to find in the New

World when they had never actually left the settlement to explore the area. The reasons for

blame are very different, but they both inform the purpose of the narratives, in Hariot‟s case, to

overcome the rumors about the colony and encourage more people to travel to the New World,

and in Le Moyne‟s, to give a true rendering of what occurred and why the colony failed.

Hariot‟s and Le Moyne‟s comments on the neighboring native populations also bear

strong similarities. When they first arrived, the Europeans saw the Native Americans as being

awed by their appearance, clothing, ships, and technology. Le Moyne described the Timucua

worship of the French column, a symbol of the French claim on the land, as if the native

population were worshipping French supremacy in the area. Hariot described a similar case in

which he tried to explain the Bible to groups. Even though he tried to explain that the book itself

was a symbol of Christianity, “yet would many be glad to touch it, to embrace it, to kisse it, to

hold it to their brests and heads, and stroke ouer all their bodie with it; to shewe their hungrie

desire of that knowledge which was spoken of.”160

He further stated that because of a “maruelous

accident,” i.e. the deaths of native enemies, “all the countrie wrought so strange opinions of vs,

that some people could not tel whether to think vs gods or men.”161

They, like many other

European colonizers, from Columbus on, experienced what they perceived to be idol worship.

Le Moyne and Hariot both discussed their and their fellow colonists‟ interactions with the

Native Americans. Hariot spoke the language, so he was able to exchange information directly,

but Le Moyne relayed the information from other people‟s exchanges with the Timucua. In their

narratives, they both provide descriptions and illustrations of local settlements, daily life, rituals,

160

Hariot, Report, 27. 161

Ibid., 29.

64

and more. Despite the fact that the illustrations in the Narratio tell a story and the images apply

to specific events, while those in Hariot are more generalized, the authors focused on similar

scenes from life and have a good amount of overlap. The scenes themselves are by no means the

same, as they are discussing two different tribal cultures, but what they decided to record is

similar.

For example, Le Moyne‟s illustration “Drying meat, fish, and other food,” [Illustration V]

has many common elements with “The brovvyllinge of their fishe” [Illustration W] from the

Report.162

Both show two male Native Americans tending to a wooden grate covered in food

cooking over a fire. One man is tending to the fire while the other adds more animals to the

grate. Except for the difference in the clothing and hair of the men, the scenes are essentially the

same. The overlap in the illustrations does not end there, but includes images of the villages,

with their round stockades, feasts and dancing, tattooed chieftains, and funeral rites and other

religious ceremonies. Overall, those areas that had the greatest potential to affect the colonists

appear in both: food, religion, and power distributions.

In the case of the Report’s final images of Picts, there are no comparable illustrations in

the Narratio, including of the Spanish. However, the underlying motivation for the images is

present. As discussed in Chapter Two, the illustrations of the Picts reflect one understanding of

the origins of humanity. Hariot and White equate the Native Americans with ancient Europeans,

subscribing to the theory that the Native Americans simply existed at an earlier stage of cultural

development.163

Le Moyne, on the other hand, held with the diffusionist theory of human

development whereby all of humanity came from a single source at the same stage of cultural

162

Le Moyne, Brevis Narratio, Plate XXIIII; Hariot, Report, plate XIII. 163

Peter Burke, “America and the Rewriting of World History,” in Kupperman, America in European Consciousness, 44.

65

development and dispersed throughout the world.164

After being separated from the streams of

civilization, those groups on the fringes (i.e. non-Europeans) forgot their origins and degenerated

to “savages” and “idol worshippers.” The images of the Timucua women drinking blood as a

precursor to further degeneration into cannibalism and the equation of the Spanish with the

Native Americans illustrates this theory in action. The two theories represent the same need of

Europeans to fit the Native Americans into existing modes of thought without adjusting those

modes to accommodate new information.

Therefore, the message of the narratives is not so different despite the dissimilar formats

and tones. They were written with certain agendas that underlie the texts and in opposition to

members of their own colonizing missions. They also describe the Native Americans in similar

ways, highlighting their naiveté when presented with the trappings of European civilization and

worshipping those symbols of that civilization. Finally, in their descriptions and illustrations,

Hariot/White and Le Moyne focused on certain aspects of Native American life that directly

affected them and their colonizing efforts. The narrative resemblances reflect the similar events

around which they were created.

This leads to the question, why are they so similar? The fact that Le Moyne and Hariot

and White knew each other would suggest that there was some overlap during the writing

process, especially since Le Moyne recreated his narrative and drawings after the fact. There is

no indication when this might have happened, except that it was before de Bry‟s visit in 1587;

however, both narratives parallel the other accounts by Laudonnière and Le Challeux on the

French side and Lane and Barlowe on the English, which would dispute this conclusion.

164

MacCormack, “Limits of Understanding,” in Kupperman, America in European Consciousness, 96.

66

Perhaps deeper-seated, subtler connections provide the reasons for such similar

experiences and narratives, despite the differences of nationality. Both texts reveal an

overarching, transnational framework that is influenced by a common religion, history, and

intellectual culture, and one that informed the actions of the colonizers, while also providing a

structure of imagery, rhetorical methods, and themes around which to fashion a narrative. This

framework caused the colonists to react to situations in predictable ways, essentially causing

history to repeat itself. This common worldview gave them a means to convey their experiences

in a way that could be both understood and internalized becoming another piece in an accepted

tradition.

The Spanish and the Portuguese began the colonizing effort in the Americas, and their

early experiences and subsequent narratives became archetypes of the negative effects of

exposure to savage places on civilized men. Other European nations facilitated, “The Black

Legend” which depicted the Spanish as particularly brutal and without mercy. As a result, when

they entered the trans-Atlantic milieu, French and English explorers framed their attitudes and

actions in opposition to the Spanish.

French and English explorers were hyperaware of the possibility of becoming “savages”

themselves, of losing their civility while they were away from the civilizing influence of Europe,

so they constantly defended their treatment of Native Americans. In the section of the Report

focused on the Algonquians, Hariot states, “There was no towne where we had any subtile deuise

practiced against vs, we leauing it vnpunished or not reuenged (because wee sought by all

meanes possible to win them by gentlenesse),”165

while Le Moyne notes in the Narratio, “M. de

Laudonnière, who soon perceived that our men were acting avariciously in their dealing, now

165

Hariot, Report, 28.

67

forbade, on pain of death, any trading or exchange with the Indians for gold, silver, or minerals,

unless all such should be put into a common stock for the benefit of all.”166

The two authors

focus on their own civility, even when they are faced with “subtle devices” from the

beneficiaries of their benevolence, which only serves to further contrast the two groups.

These defenses seem automatic and formulaic, considering that Le Moyne‟s narrative

further states that their Timucua neighbors “broke off their intercourse with us. One of these

reasons was, that they obtained nothing from us in exchange for their provisions; another, that

they suffered much violence from our men in their expedition after supplies. Some were even

senseless, not to say malignant, enough to burn their houses, with the notion that by so doing we

should be more promptly supplied.”167

Hariot‟s text similarly ends, “And although some of our

companie towardes the ende of the yeare, shewed themselues too fierce, in flaying some of the

people in some towns, vpon causes that on our part, might easily enough haue been borne

withal.”168

The contradiction between their expressed morality with their actual experiences

showed that some of their fears were not wholly unfounded.

As a result of the fear of “turning savage” due to prolonged exposure to the New World,

the French and English colonists did not end up setting down roots. They relied upon supply

ships and goods from Europe rather than “going native.” They were too focused on getting rich

quick to modify the surrounding wilderness to conform to their own ideals of landscape. This

strategy backfired as it led to famine and unrest, and, ultimately, a breakdown of the civilization

they valued so highly. Their fear of degenerating and losing their European identity contributed

166

Le Moyne, Narrative of Le Moyne, 2. 167

Ibid., 14. 168

Hariot, Report, 30.

68

to the destruction of their society and to the failure of the two colonies when they were unable to

survive on their own.

Religion was a major factor in the colonization of the New World, and its influence was

felt on political, cultural, and moral levels. For European nations, it was the basis on which their

claims to the New World rested. Elizabeth‟s charter to Raleigh expressly stated that the purpose

of the expedition to the New World was “„to discover search fynde out and viewe such remote

heathen and barbarous landes Contries and territories not actually possessed of any Christian

Prynce.‟”169

She makes a distinction between the “heathen” and “barbarous” land, or lands

populated by non-Christians, and the “Christian prince,” whose very presence would make the

land ineligible for English possession because it would no longer be non-Christian.

Europeans encountered this contradiction often. They considered non-Christians to be

less civilized, and therefore, not their equal, but that judgment contradicted Christian teachings

on the equality of all humans, regardless of religion.170

Some of that conflict comes through in

Hariot. In the caption for the illustration of “Ther Idol Kivvasa,” Hariot writes, “Thes poore

foules haue none other knowledge of god although I thinke them verye Desirous to know the

truthe… Wherfore that is verye like that they might easelye be brongt to the knowledge of the

gospel.”171

The native priests are easily swayed from their own religion because when confronted

with the Christian God, they implicitly understand the inferiority of their religion.172

A further sense of this basic human equality that opposed the feeling of perceived

European superiority, Le Moyne and Hariot both find some virtues in the Native Americans that

169

Patent granted to Sir Walter Raleigh by Elizabeth I, quoted in Shirley, Thomas Hariot: A Biography, 81. 170

Pagden, Lords of all the World, 24. 171

Hariot, Report, plate XXI caption. 172

William M. Hamlin, “Imagined Apotheoses: Drake, Hariot, and Ralegh [sic] in the Americas,” Journal of the History of Ideas, 57 no. 3 (Jul., 1996), 415.

69

they think should be appear more often among Christians too. Le Moyne writes, “Although they

have great festivities, after their manner, yet they are very temperate in eating, and, in

consequence, they live to a great age … Such facts might well make us Christians ashamed, who

are so immoderate in indulgence both in eating and drinking, who shorten our own lives thereby,

and who richly deserve to be put under the authority of these savages and of brute beasts, to be

taught sobriety.”173

Similarly, Hariot says, “They are verye sober in their eatinge, and trinkinge,

and consequentlye verye longe liued because they doe not oppress nature.”174

Hariot does not go

as far as Le Moyne in acknowledging the hypocrisy of considering Native Americans “savages”

when Europeans so often fall to their inner urges.

Arising from the religious mandate of colonization, many people believed that everything

must fit into a set of preordained, immutable laws.175

These laws drawn from classical and

religious texts suggest another reason why Europeans would perceive Native Americans as

savages. Greco-Roman ideas of civilization pervaded both texts, including the belief that cities

are centers of civilization. As Cicero stated, “„provincials‟…are the „barbarians‟, rule over

whom…‟is just precisely because servitude in such men is established for their welfare‟.”176

Despite the fact that elements of the New World increasingly contradicted the old model and

new knowledge no longer fit nicely within the sphere of old knowledge, authors more often

simply detached incompatible practices from their original contexts and reconnected them to

their own beliefs.177

173

Le Moyne, Narrative of Le Moyne, Descriptions of Illustrations, 11. 174

Hariot, Report, plate XVI caption. 175

Pagden, European Encounters with the New World, 10. 176

Pagden, Lords of all the World, 18-20. 177

Pagden, European Encounters with the New World, 21.

70

Travel narratives followed this pattern of reuse and appropriation. Basing one‟s narrative

on previous accounts or picking elements out to reuse was the best way to establish the

narrative‟s legitimacy and place it within the larger tradition. Symbols, imagery, themes, and

even whole illustrations were used over and over, which contributed to the development of New

World stereotypes. Armadillos, cannibalism, Spanish tyranny, and feathers became stereotypes

of the New World, the presence of any one of which would link the narrative to the larger

network of narratives.178

The stereotypes carried universal meaning, so they facilitated

understanding across cultures, even among the illiterate, and were used as symbols for more

complex ideas.

Feathers, in particular, were important in both the Narratio and the Report. They

symbolized the “other” within the narratives and unified them with representations of the “other”

from around the world.179

For example, the headdress the chieftain wears in Le Moyne‟s

Narratio is made from feathers in the shape of a crown. What should be a symbol of power

becomes a symbol of the savagery. De Bry publications continued to use and reuse images of

feather-wearing indigenous peoples across cultures and continents, bringing them together under

a single umbrella of otherness.180

Feathers also brought to mind the animal in relation to the Native American. Animals had

particular meaning in travel narratives. Wild animals reminded Christians of the Fall, waiting to

be guided by the hand of Man. Domestication echoes civilization. The fact that the Timucua in

Le Moyne‟s account did not have domesticated animals and instead relied upon what Le Moyne

called „hermaphrodites” to carry people like pack mules suggested to the French that they

178

Groesen, Representations of the Overseas World, 201. 179

Ibid., 201. 180

Ibid., 202.

71

themselves were not civilized enough to achieve domestication or were, in fact, part animal

themselves.181

Le Moyne described this part-animal, part-man phenomenon when he stated that

Outina‟s warriors “are able to follow up the traces of the enemy by scent, as dogs do wild beasts”

and that “they station as sentinels men who can smell the traces of an enemy at a great

distance.”182

Even more telling, an illustration shows hunters actually dressed up as deer,

becoming indistinguishable from their prey.183

Hariot and White‟s “Weroan” also suggests that

the native inhabitants have animal-like qualities by showing what looks to be a tail.184

By further

likening the Native Americans to animals, the French and English gain more symbolic control

over their bodies because only Man is lord of the beasts.

From the fight against becoming “savages” through the legitimization of colonization and

dominance over native populations through religion to the evolving symbols and stereotypes of

the New World, the European cultural framework fashioned a system to deal with colonization.

The classical model proved dated and clunky, but it allowed Europeans to follow a planned

model of conquest via the sword and pen that promised to bring rewards the likes of which only

the Spanish and Portuguese had really enjoyed. However, the sword piece of the puzzle failed in

the case of the French and English settlements, perhaps because they refused to do what the

Spanish did and put down roots in the land. Hariot/White and Le Moyne did succeed in

achieving the second part of the model, but everything was unknown. The attempts to establish

colonies rejecting the example set forth by the Spanish were new, so narratives about the

colonies portrayed Native Americans differently from the cannibalistic, wildly violent beings

181

Groesen, Representations of the Overseas World, 159; Le Moyne, Narrative of Le Moyne, Descriptions of Illustrations, 7. 182

Le Moyne, Narrative of Le Moyne, Descriptions of Illustrations, 6, 12. 183

Ibid., 10. 184

Hariot, Report, plate III.

72

perpetuated by the Spanish and embraced alternative features. The narratives‟ publisher was also

new and just starting the series in which these works appear. After these first two volumes, the

accounts and their illustrations became more streamlined and formulaic. Jacques Le Moyne,

Thomas Hariot, and John White lived on the cusp of a new era of colonial expansion. Borrowing

pieces from the past and innovating new elements for the future, these men created a narrative

legacy that endured for centuries after their subjects had fallen to dust.

73

Conclusion

The question of what sort of legacy the Florida and Roanoke colonies left is an intriguing

one. Both colonies failed, much to the embarrassment and dismay of their investors and

sponsoring countries. However, they left behind extremely popular narratives, which remained

influential long after the memory of the colonies themselves had faded.

In the case of France, they never returned to the Florida region as colonizers. The Spanish

finally established a permanent settlement in Florida, St. Augustine in 1565, which is now

known as the oldest continuously occupied city in the United States. The French would not

attempt another colony until the beginning of the following century, when they shifted their

efforts toward the north to what is now Canada.

Despite the Florida failure, the French learned lessons in establishing settlements. They

changed their method of colonization. The French government shifted control of the settlements

to commercial entities, and the purpose of the settlements was purely profit driven, as opposed to

the Florida colonies, which also included missionary activities and attempts to build a permanent

community. The companies and merchant associations ran outposts along the waterways to

which Native American traders would come and exchange cod, whalebone, walrus ivory, oil, and

furs for European goods.185

They did not attempt to move further inland until they had exhausted

the resources available along the coast. Therefore, their purpose in the New World was primarily

commercial and focused on the extraction of resources rather than the creation of a “New

France” across the Atlantic. The French used this method of colonization until the royal

185

Cornelius J. Jaenen, “French Expansion in North America,” The History Teacher, 34 no. 2 (Feb., 2001), 156.

74

government replaced commercial interests in 1663.186

They had remained in the area for almost

sixty years without being expelled, so they were able to overcome the caution engendered by

their experiences in Florida and establish true colonies in Canada.

The English, on the other hand, returned almost immediately to America. Raleigh lost his

right to establish colonies in the New World when he was put on trial for treason in 1603. Three

years later, the London Company, based in London, and the Plymouth Company, based in the

West Country port cities, received royal patents to settle. The London Company was given the

area between present-day New York City and Cape Fear, North Carolina, while the Plymouth

Company was granted the land between the Chesapeake Bay and present-day Bangor, Maine.187

The London Company expedition, of which John Smith was a part, took John White‟s intended

destination, and set up their settlement at Jamestown Island in the Chesapeake Bay region.188

With this new group of colonists, the portrayal of Native Americans in Virginia changed.

The colonists at Roanoke were some of the first Englishmen to interact with the indigenous

inhabitants of the land, and Hariot‟s account was one of the first to describe those inhabitants. In

Jamestown, colonists attempted to establish permanent settlements in Virginia that would survive

longer than a year. Initially, they were also unsuccessful, but by selling smaller shares in the

colonial venture to spread out the financial burden, maintaining strict military control to prevent

uprisings, and, eventually, bringing women and children to the colony to put down roots,

Jamestown succeeded where the earlier colonies had failed.189

The establishment and expansion

of the settlement stimulated more resistance from the native inhabitants and more armed conflict

186

Jaenen, “French Expansion in North America,” 156. 187

Captain John Smith: Writings, 1198. 188

Emerson, “Thomas Hariot, John White, and Ould Virginia,” 5. 189

Kupperman, Indians and English, 12-3.

75

as a result. Native Americans could no longer be portrayed as non-threatening or passive. The

subtle approach to the presentation of Native Americans within the discourse did not apply to the

changing circumstances, so authors such as John Smith turned to overt “othering,” gendered

language, and racial differentiation. This differentiation increased exponentially after

Opechancanough‟s War in 1622 and contributed to the marginalization of Native Americans in

the subsequent centuries.

Jacques Le Moyne and Thomas Hariot themselves exerted influence beyond their

contribution to the discourse of discovery. A mathematician and astronomer employed by

Raleigh, Thomas Hariot taught Raleigh‟s stable of prospective captains oceanic navigation,

developing a few innovations of his own along the way. While learning the Algonquian language

from Manteo and Wanchese, he created a phonetic alphabet for the Algonquian language that

later English colonizers, such as John Smith, used in Virginia. After the publication of the

Report, Hariot devoted himself to scientific and mathematical endeavors. He would not gain

much attention for his discoveries, but centuries later, thorough study of his remaining papers

revealed astonishing findings. Hariot built his own telescope in England and sketched the moon

and moons of Jupiter months before Galileo did the same.190

He also developed and adapted new

ideas on algebra.

Jacques Le Moyne and, to a lesser extent, his protégé John White, became well known

for their paintings of flowers. Garden culture was just beginning to flourish in England as

interesting specimens were brought back from the New World. As people began cataloging the

natural world scientifically, pleasure gardening followed close behind with a preoccupation with

all things floral. Le Moyne transferred the highly detailed style he perfected in Florida to

190

Henry Stevens, Thomas Hariot (LaVergne, TN, 2010), 58.

76

depictions of flowers, making a name for himself amongst the noble families in England. His

only published work in his lifetime is La Clef des Champs, “a pattern book, providing archetypes

of plants and animals for other craftsmen to copy and use in their own work.”191

Patterns such as

these were beautiful on their own, but the book was also particularly useful for noblewomen as

they reflected the current obsession with flowers in their embroidery and needlework.

White completed botanical paintings during the course of his stay at the Roanoke colony

and depicted the flora and fauna of the New World. They were less “objective and empirical” in

their execution than Le Moyne‟s, presenting “that knowledge in a courtly way which was

diverting and pleasant,” but they still attracted the attention of two of the greatest natural

historians of his day, Conrad Gessner and Reverend Thomas Penny, who included some of them

in their works.192

White‟s paintings, while not entirely based in science, were some of the first to

depict the natural world in America, and as part of Gessner and Penny‟s natural history texts,

they continued to contribute to the fascination with and understanding of the New World, even

after White‟s return to England.

Though the memory of the narrators of the Report and the Narratio survived far beyond

their time, the narratives themselves made a far greater impact. The Report has been described as

a precursor to the works of Charles Darwin and Captain James Cook.193

Its non-narrative form

“foregrounds its presentation of Algonquian custom and belief in something very like the now-

vexed mode of the „ethnographic present‟”194

and the illustrations “served into the nineteenth

century as a visual prototype for the North American Indian.”195

John White‟s maps remained

191

Harvey, Painter in a Savage Land, 206. 192

Sloan, A New World: England’s first view of America, 170-171. 193

Harvey, Painter in a Savage Land, 199. 194

Hamlin, “Imagined Apotheoses,” 411. 195

Gaudio, Engraving the Savage, xiii.

77

unsurpassed for accuracy into the 1670s.196

The text of the Narratio was not as long-lasting

because it was rooted in the story it told rather than the characteristics of the land and its

inhabitants. The Narratio did not offer much new knowledge, but again, the map Le Moyne

created of the area went unsurpassed until the 1630s.197

The illustrations, ultimately, proved to be

the most important aspect of the narratives as they were continually reused and influenced many

subsequent works.

The culture and learning of the seventeenth and even the eighteenth centuries remained

highly derivative, using the classical world to explain the new and to fit established modes of

understanding. This use of the old to illustrate the new also helped the new to gain legitimacy

and acceptance. For example, costume books added John White‟s watercolors of the

Algonquians whose style derived from those same costume books.198

The old knowledge created

the model for encountering the new, which in turn confirmed the truth of the old systems.

Therefore, it is not surprising that illustrations from the Report and the Narratio would be reused

often and in a variety of ways. For centuries afterwards, comparative ethnology texts used those

same images to illustrate the “noble savage.”199

De Bry‟s engravings of White‟s illustrations had a much wider degree of application

because of their publication and wide dissemination in the form of abridged and pirated

editions.200

They can be found in everything from geographic texts and travel compendia to map

cartouches and histories of the Roman Empire. These images became stand-ins for artists‟

196

Groesen, Representations of the Overseas World, 357. 197

Ibid., 357. 198

Ibid., 364. 199

Sloan, A New World: England’s first view of America, 76, 90. 200

Groesen, Representations of the Overseas World, 352.

78

models and authors referred to them as evidence to support their own arguments.201

Even John

Smith‟s Generall Historie of Virginia, published in 1624, made use of the image of Kivvasa on

one of the maps, which was later reproduced in other texts, though Smith and the Jamestown

colonists interacted with a different branch of Algonquians. The accuracy of the depiction in

relation to the subject of the text did not seem to matter. Into the eighteenth century, authors

would employ the illustrations as a form of clip-art, sticking the images into the text if they

needed to show a Native American, regardless of what tribe was actually being described.202

As

a result, de Bry‟s engravings gained widespread familiarity and became synonymous with

images of Native Americans.

The question then arises, that if the two narratives documented failed European colonial

endeavors, why did they become so popular and influential? One would think that such tales

would be quickly disregarded as “of the moment” or quietly swept under the rug as documents of

efforts best forgotten. In actuality, these narratives produced the colonies‟ only lasting legacy.

Otherwise, they were costly endeavors in time, money, and lives with no substantive return on

that investment.

What made the narratives so popular was a combination of timing, utility, and good

marketing. They appeared during a time when people were interested in the exotic. Cabinets of

curiosities were popular, and humanism dominated scholarly thought. The narrative provided a

sense of the lived experience that appealed to intellectuals, who valued first-person testimony as

much as they eventually wanted to fit the testimony into a wider set of norms.

201

Groesen, Representations of the Overseas World, 364-366. 202

Ibid., 374.

79

The lived experience also gave the narratives a sense of authenticity, which made them

useful to prepare people for to travel to other colonies. The Age of Exploration had been in

progress for over a century, but the French and English were just getting started. Scientists,

geographers, cartographers, missionaries, and adventurers all found information that could be

useful in their travels in the narratives. They could learn about the land, available resources,

native inhabitants, and more from the text if they wished, or at least catch a glimpse of what they

would be encountering. Because they were published in Latin and German, they could reach

academic and wider audiences in multiple countries as well.

Finally, De Bry and his sons were terrific marketers of the narratives. They chose texts

that had recently been published or had contemporary relevance to capitalize on the publicity.

Hariot‟s Report had been published just two years before, and the news that the entire colony had

been lost started to circulate when the De Bry edition was released in 1590. Le Moyne‟s

Narratio seized on the popularity of the recent publication of Laudonnière‟s account of the

Florida colony. The reading public most desired the illustrations, and the De Brys capitalized on

that fact. The De Brys printed the illustrations and captions so that they could be removed and

hung in shop windows as advertisements. They chose the most sensational images from the text

to appear on the title page, often deliberately taking them out of context, so that, no matter the

actual subject of the text, the content would seem intriguing. Only later, after looking over the

captions, would the reader find out the truth.

When studying narratives in the discourse of discovery, it is easy, and indeed, expected,

to divide them along national, religious, or topical lines. However, this limited vision does not

take into account the many varied connections that existed across Europe. Religions unified

groups of people across national boundaries. Monarchs, such as Philip II, ruled in multiple

80

countries at once and presided over constantly shifting alliances arising out of marriage, need,

and expediency. Scholars and intellectuals exchanged ideas via letter and the language common

to most European countries, Latin. In short, these, and other elements of European life

transcended national boundaries and helped create a larger, European culture that informed the

thoughts and actions of those who lived in it.

The travel narratives by Jacques Le Moyne, Thomas Hariot, and John White illustrate

and embody this European culture. These events took place twenty years apart, but included

some of the same people who, while aware of the actions that led to the downfall of the first

colony, were unable to prevent the same incidents from happening again. This fact suggests the

power and pervasiveness of the European mentality. The narratives themselves reinforced the

cultural norms by tapping into existing modes of expression. These narratives helped tighten the

bonds between nations, while increasing the cultural connections making the shared European

mentality more influential and prevalent.

81

Appendix A: Images from the Narratio

[A] [B]

[C] [D]

[E]

Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues, “Mode of treating the

sick,” Plate XX in Brevis narratio eorum quae in

Florida Americae provincia Gallis acciderunt.

Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues, “How sentinels are

punished for sleeping on their posts,” Plate XXXII in

Brevis narratio eorum quae in Florida Americae

provincia Gallis acciderunt.

Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues, “First-born children

sacrificed to the chief with solemn ceremonies,” Plate

XXXIIII in Brevis narratio eorum quae in Florida

Americae provincia Gallis acciderunt.

Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues, “Outina, with the help

of the French, gains a victory over his enemy

Potanou,” Plate XIII in Brevis narratio eorum quae in

Florida Americae provincia Gallis acciderunt.

Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues, “How Outina‟s men

treated the slain of the enemy,” Plate XV in Brevis

narratio eorum quae in Florida Americae provincia

Gallis acciderunt.

82

“Their manner of careynge ther Childern and a tyere

of the cheiffe Ladyes of the towne of

Dasamonquepeuc,” Plate X in A briefe and true

report of the new found land of Virginia. Engraving

by Theodore de Bry after a watercolor by John White.

“A cheiff Ladye of Pomeiooc,” Plate VIII in A briefe

and true report of the new found land of Virginia.

Engraving by Theodore de Bry after a watercolor by

John White.

“A weroan or great Lorde of Virginia,” Plate III in A

briefe and true report of the new found land of

Virginia. Engraving by Theodore de Bry after a

watercolor by John White.

Appendix B: Illustrations from the Report

[F] [G]

[H] [I]

[J] [K]

“Ther Idol Kivvasa,” Plate XXI in A briefe and true

report of the new found land of Virginia. Engraving

by Theodore de Bry after a watercolor by John White.

(Frontispiece), in A briefe and true report of the new

found land of Virginia. Engraving by Theodore de

Bry after a watercolor by John White.

“A younge gentill woeman doughter of Secota,” Plate VI in A

briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia.

Engraving by Theodore de Bry after a watercolor by John

White.

83

“The Tovvne of Secota,” Plate XX in A briefe and

true report of the new found land of Virginia.

Engraving by Theodore de Bry after a watercolor by

John White.

“The Trvve picture of one Picte,” Plate I in “Som

Pictvre of the Pictes,” in A briefe and true report of

the new found land of Virginia. Engraving by

Theodore de Bry after a watercolor by John White.

“The trvve picture of a yonge dowgter of the Pictes,”

Plate III in “Som Pictvre of the Pictes,” in A briefe

and true report of the new found land of Virginia.

Engraving by Theodore de Bry after a watercolor by

John White.

[L] [M]

[N] [O]

John White, watercolor original of the engraving

“The Tovvne of Secota,” Plate XX in A briefe and

true report of the new found land of Virginia.

84

[P]

John White, watercolor original of the engraving “A

cheiff Ladye of Pomeiooc,” Plate VIII in A briefe and

true report of the new found land of Virginia.

85

“A weroan or great Lorde of Virginia,” Plate III in A

briefe and true report of the new found land of

Virginia. Engraving by Theodore de Bry after a

watercolor by John White.

“A cheiff Ladye of Pomeiooc,” Plate VIII in A briefe

and true report of the new found land of Virginia.

Engraving by Theodore de Bry after a watercolor by

John White.

Appendix C: Chapter Three

[Q] [R]

[S] [T]

John White, (A Man of Florida). Watercolor. John White, (A Woman of Florida). Watercolor.

86

“The brovvyllinge of their fishe ouer the flame,”

Plate XIIII in A briefe and true report of the new

found land of Virginia. Engraving by Theodore de

Bry after a watercolor by John White.

[U] [V]

[W]

Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues, watercolor after the

engraving “The Trvve picture of a yonge dowgter of

the Pictes,” Plate III in “Som Pictvre of the Pictes,” in

A briefe and true report of the new found land of

Virginia.

Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues, “Mode of drying fish, wild

animals, and other provisions,” Plate XXIIII in Brevis narratio

eorum quae in Florida Americae provincia Gallis acciderunt.

87

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