Lacking a Smile and Rolling in Investors

Native Americans, when first encountered by the Europeans, were portrayed in a variety of different ways, each accenting the type of people that best fit into the plan of early exploration groups. Columbus saw the indigenous people as humble and subservient; the Massachusetts Bay Colony viewed them as in need of help, guidance and religion, and still others created their own interpretations in keeping with the missions of their venture. Thomas Hariot, in his book A Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia, described the native inhabitants in a clear-cut, economic way, listing their attributes and appearances in a type of log. Going along with Hariot’s narrative were several watercolor paintings of the people they encountered done by John White from personal experiences that were later interpreted and redone as engravings by Theodor De Bry, a man who had never personally encountered the Native Americans. De Bry, then as a type of illustrative conclusion to the narrative, created his own image of an early European or English inhabitant (a Pict) based on White’s original watercolors and Hariot’s description of the modern differences between the Europeans and the Native Americans. This gruesome conclusion of a primitive inhabitant of England, as well as the changes De Bry made between White’s watercolors and his own engravings, works to set a negative, barbaric tone to the images as a whole that is lacking in simply the watercolors alone. 

The changes De Bry made between the watercolors and his own engravings, though seemingly miniscule at first, adjust the whole manner of each picture. Looking, for example, at the picture entitled “Indian Man and Woman Eating”. In the watercolor, the man and woman are clearly shown sitting on a mat with a plate or bowl of food in front of them. They sit back away from the plate as if they were at a table and the food though rather unidentifiable, is in no way barbaric.