Bry, Theodor de. Adam and Eve in America. 1590. Engraving. The Library of Congress. Washington, D. C. https://www.loc.gov/item/2002712175/
This image may be interesting to educators who are teaching historical and literary texts about the British colonization of North America. It is part of the genre of travel literature. Hariot’s text, which this image is drawn from, focuses on the economic potential of the colonies and serves as an example of promotional material for possible British investors. De Bry’s engravings in this text participated in this goal and also helped to shape European ideas about Native people and their land. An important outcome of teaching this text is to have students identify and challenge the biased narratives of European cultural superiority that de Bry (and Hariot) promote here.
Many students struggle with the language of seventeenth century texts; this image can help them begin to think about how European ideas of America were constructed and circulated. This image centers a Christian creation myth, the story of Adam and Eve, and places that myth in the context of the colonization of the Americas. In the Hariot text, this image falls immediately before a series of engravings of different aspects of Algonquian life. how is this image meant to introduce a European reader to Native people? Students should discuss why this myth is here at all, and how it is incorporated into a text that was meant to both advertise and justify British colonization.
Many students struggle with the language of seventeenth century texts; this image can help them begin to think about how European ideas of America were constructed and circulated. This image centers a Christian creation myth, the story of Adam and Eve, and places that myth in the context of the colonization of the Americas. In the Hariot text, this image falls immediately before a series of engravings of different aspects of Algonquian life. how is this image meant to introduce a European reader to Native people? Students should discuss why this myth is here at all, and how it is incorporated into a text that was meant to both advertise and justify British colonization.
Many students struggle with the language of seventeenth century texts; this image can help them begin to think about how European ideas of America were constructed and circulated. This image centers a Christian creation myth, the story of Adam and Eve, and places that myth in the context of the colonization of the Americas. In the Hariot text, this image falls immediately before a series of engravings of different aspects of Algonquian life. how is this image meant to introduce a European reader to Native people? Students should discuss why this myth is here at all, and how it is incorporated into a text that was meant to both advertise and justify British colonization.
This image features the Christian creation myth of Adam and Eve but places them in the Americas. This image plays with time, presenting Adam and Eve in the foreground and on the verge of falling into sin by eating the apple; in the background of the image, however, the consequences of “the Fall” are already present (e.g., Native Americans in the background are presented as laboring and caring for children). The image incorporates the Americas into Christian mythology by imagining them as an Edenic paradise, but one available to Christian, European settlers; it also reinforces ideas of European cultural superiority, using a developmental narrative that portrays Native people as “primitive” in order to justify colonization.
This image is one of a series of engravings by Theodor de Bry. It is included in Thomas Hariot’s A briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia (1590). Hariot participated in a British expedition to Roanoke in 1585; this text is based on his experiences. Hariot was accompanied by an illustrator, John White, whose art served as the basis for many of de Bry’s engravings in this volume. This particular engraving of Adam and Eve is placed at the beginning of the second half of the text. It precedes different images of and narratives about Algonquians, all drawn from a European perspective.
- What do you notice about this engraving? What details first capture your attention?
- This engraving portrays two characters from a Christian myth of creation, Adam and Eve. What moment in the myth does this image depict? How would you describe Adam and Eve’s expressions, or those of any of the creatures around them?
- What is happening in the background of this image? Who is depicted here? What are they doing?
- Why is an image of Adam and Eve part of a text about British colonization?
Common Core State ELA Standards
RL.9-10.9: Analyze how an author draws on and transforms source material in a specific work (e.g., how Shakespeare treats a theme or topic from Ovid or the Bible or how a later author draws on a play by Shakespeare).
- Students will examine how this image draws on and transforms the Christian creation myth of Adam and Eve. Students will discuss what elements of the myth are changed or adapted in this engraving. Students will analyze what relationship this image has to European colonization of the Americas.
RL.11-12.9: Demonstrate knowledge of eighteenth-, nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century foundational works of American literature, including how two or more texts from the same period treat similar themes or topics.
- This engraving is part of Thomas Hariot’s A briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia. By teaching this text alongside other early American texts like John Smith’s “A Description of New England,” students can analyze how both documents use Christian mythology to make an argument for European colonization of the Americas.
- Consider introducing this text by having students first read excerpts from Roxane Dunbar-Ortiz’s An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States. Excerpts from the introduction, “This Land” and, in particular, Dunbar-Ortiz’s discussion of national origin narratives will provide useful framing for helping students think about this image.
- Teach this image alongside brief excerpts from John Smith’s “A Description of New England,” published in 1616. Smith’s account is also an advertisement for British colonization, and, like de Bry’s portrayal of Adam and Eve, also uses Christian mythology to make an argument for European colonization.
- Smith writes, “But, to conclude, Adam and Eue did first beginne this innocent worke, To plant the earth to remaine to posteritie: but not without labour, trouble & industrie. Noe, and his family, beganne againe the second plantation; and their seede as it still increased, hath still planted new Countries, and one countrie another: and so the world to that estate it is. But not without much hazard, trauell, discontents, and many disasters…” (Smith 1616).
- In response to this passage, teachers should ask, “What arguments does Smith make? Why and how does he rely on allusions to Christian mythology to make those arguments? How does Smith portray Indigenous people in this account? What cultural biases shape his perspective?”
- Finally, teach this text alongside selections from anthologies like Early Native Literacies in New England: A Documentary and Critical Anthology.
- This image contains some nudity. Additionally, this image is part of a text that ultimately justifies European settler-colonialism. There is a potential for challenge from parents/guardians who do not want their students to learn about settler colonialism or the history of racism in America.
Links to resources for approaching those topics
- For the first point, Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Teaching the Nude in Art.
- For the second, view Learning for Justice, What is Settler Colonialism?
- A map from the same volume as [Adam and Eve in America], “The arriual of the Englishmen in Virginia,” could also be used as an alternative source to have students use image analysis to understand British narratives about the Americas.
- Teachers could start with a classical text from John Milton discussing the fall of man. This could be the start of the context conversation for the engraving that could reduce the challenge to the engraving.
- Smith’s text, A Description of New England, is a complementary primary source; the end of the text (partially cited above) refers to figures from Christian mythology like Adam and Eve, Noah, and Christ.
- Link to complete text at Documenting the American South: Thomas Hariot, A Briefe and True Report.
- Excerpts from Richard Frethorne’s letters could also be used as an alternative source.
- The National Humanities Center has a short lesson on “Illustrating the New World” that might be helpful as a supplemental resource.
- Smarthistory’s essay, “Inventing ‘America,’ the Engravings of Theodore de Bry.”
- Smith, John. “A description of New England: or The obseruations, and discoueries, of Captain Iohn Smith (admirall of that country) in the north of America, in the year of our Lord 1614 with the successe of sixe ships, that went the next yeare 1615; and the accidents befell him among the French men of warre: with the proofe of the present benefit this countrey affoords: whither this present yeare, 1616, eight voluntary ships are gone to make further tryall.” In the digital collection Early English Books Online. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed December 15, 2024. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/A12460.0001.001.