CULTURAL READINGS: Colonization & Print in the Americas

Jay I. Kislak Foundation

René de Laudonnière, Brevis narratio eorum quae in Floridae Americae provincia Gallis acciderunt. Frankfurt: Theodor de Bry, 1591. Detail

For his volume on Florida, de Bry relied on the drawings of Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues, a member of the short-lived French colony there. Le Moyne's illustrations as rendered by de Bry depict a noble, statuesque, industrious people, primarily engaged in a variety of quotidian activities. If there is a propagandistic aspect to the illustrations, it is their determination to present the French and the Indians as working harmoniously together. Unlike the Spanish, the illustrations suggest, the French came to the New World in friendship.

Other engravings from this edition

[See also in this exhibition, the text which de Bry paired with Le Moyne's illustrations,
Laudonnière's Histoire notable de la Floride]

Viewers and the Viewed

• Early Impressions
• Black Legends
• [Return to] The de Bry Engravings
• Native Cultures, Ancient Cultures

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