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Recent additions--Professor Ed Gallagher's class recently contributed six new images and captions to this page:
A Taino Zemi Three-Pointer Stone
On Columbus's first voyage to the New World, the first culture he came into contact with was the Taino. The Zemi Three-Pointer Stone is the essential symbol of the Taino people. This stone consists of three cardinal points, in which reside the Yaya, Hubia, and the Goiz. Yaya, the creator, is located on top of the Zemi Stone. Hubia, located near the chin, is the Spirit of the Dead. Lastly, Goiz, the Spirit of the Living Humans, is located on the back of the head. Reproduced from Fatima Bercht, et al. Taino: Pre-Columbian Art and Culture from the Caribbean (New York: Monacelli, 1997), p. 99.
A Mayan Ballgame
This image from a piece of Mayan pottery depicts a ballgame, and the two figures are thought to be Hunaphu and Xbalanque, the Hero Twins of the Popol Vuh. The Hero Twins of the Mayan creation myth, like their father and uncle, were ballplayers summoned to life-and-death competition with the lords of Xibalba, the Mayan Underworld. Reproduced from Michael D. Coe, Old Gods and Young Heroes (Jerusalem: Israel Museum, 1982), p. 182.
The Iroquois Constitution
This picture shows Iroquois and American colonial leaders (Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin) sharing the tree of knowledge and peace. There is evidence that a meeting took place between Franklin and representatives of the Iroquois League, at which Franklin learned the intricacies of Iroquois governance. Since Franklin was a major contributor to the New York State Constitution, which in turn was a source for the United States Constitution, it has been argued that the Iroquois constitution was an indirect influence on our form of government. Art work by John Kahionhes Fadden, reproduced from Donald A. Grinde, Jr. and Bruce E. Johansen, Exemplar of Liberty: Native America and the Evolution of Democracy (Los Angeles: American Indian Studies Center at UCLA, 1991), frontispiece.
Columbus, the Visionary
In this 1856 picture by Jose Maria Obregon, Columbus is seen looking for something better on the other side of the ocean. Columbus has always been portrayed as a man who dared to dream that the Earth was indeed round and there was more land yet to be found. Reproduced from Zvi Dor-Ner, Columbus and the Age of Discovery (New York: Morrow, 1991), p. 45.
De Bry on Las Casas
Bartolome de las Casas's Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies (1542, 1552) unrelentingly documents Spanish atrocities against the Native Americans. A half century later the illustrations by Theodore de Bry so intensified the indictment that they are credited for helping to inaugurate the anti-Spanish "Black Legend." Reproduced from Rene Jara and Nicholas Spadaccini, Amerindian Images and the Legacy of Columbus (Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1992), p. 109.
Vespucci Rediscovers America
Johannes Stradanus's America, circa 1575-1580, is one of the baldest statements of imperialism imaginable. Vespucci, clad in the symbols of European power, meets America in the form of a naked, sleeping woman. "Americus rediscovers America," the motto reads, "He called her but once and thenceforth she was always awake." Reproduced from Michel de Certeau, The Writing of History (New York: Columbia UP, 1988), frontispiece.
This painting is an illustration from the Codex Ixtlilxochitl (Mexico, 16th Century). It represents the Aztec water god Tlaloc and is notable for its uneasy conjunction of Precolumbian and European style. The illustration accompanies La relacion de Texcoco, by Juan Bautista Pomar, a mestizo official in the village of Texcoco who was descended from the Aztec rulers. (Mexico: Splendors of Thirty Centuries [New York 1990], p. 275). Color
Engraving by Peter Pelham. American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass. B&W
This image and the others by Mark Catesby are from his Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands(London, 1731-43). Catesby was a British naturalist who wrote the book and engraved the prints himself, based on his observations in America from 1712 to 1726. His work was sponsored by the Royal Society and was the first broad study of American flora and fauna in English. It was also unusual at the time for its attempt to portray animals in motion accurately with characteristic plants from their natural habitats. (W. Graham Arader III, Native Grace: Prints of the New World 1590-1876 [Charlottesville, Virginia: Thomasson-Grant, 1988])
The Ilathera Duckis the Bahama pintail or white-cheeked pintail, a rare bird from the Bahama Islands. The plant is the sea ox-eye, or sea-bush. (Native Grace, p. 45)
According to Arader, there were many bison in the south- eastern piedmont region of North America when Catesby was there in the 1720s, but they had all been killed by 1800. (Native Grace, p. 33)
Catesby, Blue Grosbeak/Sweet Flowering Bay)
Native Grace, p. 5.
Catesby, Green Lizard of Jamaica
This chameleon is portrayed on a tropical logwood, which produced a dark dye that was the cause of occasional strife between Spanish and English colonists (Native Grace, p. 42).
This is the only portrait of Boone from his lifetime. It was painted by Chester Harding in 1820, just before Boone died at the age of 85. Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston. Reproduced from Alistair Cooke, Alistair Cooke's America (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1973), p. 157.
There are no reliable portraits of Columbus from his lifetime. This one was painted by Sebastiano del Piombo shortly after Columbus's death in 1506. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Reproduced from Alistair Cooke, Alistair Cooke's America (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1973), p. 27.
Painted in the 1640s. American Antiquarian Society. Reproduced from Alistair Cooke, Alistair Cooke's America (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1973), p. 80.
This painting depicts Washington's ascent into heaven, a motif within the more general apotheosis of Washington in the years after his death in 1799. While many of the literary and visual works on this theme share the crude, exaggerated style seen here, this painting is unusual because as Cooke observes it was done on glass by a Chinese artist, probably for sale in America. There was a flourishing trade in glass and other decorative arts between China and the United States during this period. The Henry Francis duPont Winterthur Museum. Reproduced from Alistair Cooke, Alistair Cooke's America (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1973), p. 134.
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Catesby, Blue Grosbeak
