Bry, Theodor de and John White. [The Englishmen’s arrival in Virginia]. 1590. Map. The Library of Congress. Washington, D.C. https://www.loc.gov/resource/cph.3b01308/
This map shows a perspective on the Americas from the 1500s. It shows a view that looks west rather than north, south, or east, and that focuses on the coastline rather than what is beyond it. It values and records the experiences of those arriving from the east by ship, depicting some of the stories the creators of this image heard about this place, and records some geography and some reported information about the people, flora, and fauna then inhabiting that land. The creators of this image are unlikely to have visited this place themselves and seem primarily concerned with the features of this place that are most important to potential colonists. This records a very particular perspective at a very particular time. Any change in perspective or purpose for this image would change the image dramatically. As such, it is an excellent tool for teaching about bias in history and how to learn valuable things from biased sources.
Map showing the coast of Virginia with many islands just off the mainland, two Native territories, Secotan and Weapemeoc, and the Native community of Roanoak on an island at the mouth of a river.
The United States was first explored by Europeans as early as the 1400s. Many explorers arrived throughout the 1500s and 1600s to find new land and resources. This is a time in history when ships were the most used form of transportation in exploration. This is likely a map drawn upon first seeing the land that would become the United States. The people arriving on these ships at this time were coming for the purposes of trade and exploration. They knew relatively little about the Indigenous people of the Americas.
Questions for digesting this source:
- What is depicted?
- What is not depicted?
- Which direction are we facing and why?
- What seems to be most important? How do you know?
- What is accurate or inaccurate in this image?
- Who is the audience for this image? How do you know?
- What is its purpose or message?
- What are our guesses about what the text says?
- What language is this? This is about Englishmen, but is not written in English—what are the implications of that fact?
- How might this image be different if it had been created by an Indigenous person living in that place at the time?
- What are the consequences of modern historians not looking at their sources with a critical eye? Given the specific perspective and purpose for this image, what can we learn from it? Is it still valuable?
Alaska ELA standards Grades 9-12
Reading Standards for Informational Text, Key Ideas and Details
1. Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
- By using the focus questions above, students will be actively practicing analysis and inference skills, broadening their literacy for all kinds of texts.
Integration of Knowledge and Ideas
9. Analyze seminal U.S. and world documents of historical and literary significance (e.g., Washington’s Farewell Address, the Gettysburg Address, Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms speech, King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”), including how they address related themes and concepts.
- This document shows a specific view of a moment in history. This document lets us dive into that history in a visual way.
This source can be used to explore how points of view can shape how history is recorded, told, and passed on to subsequent generations. It can be used to increase visual literacy and to increase a student’s ability to view historical sources (both visual and print) with a critical eye while still learning vital information from them. This source is also an excellent introduction to how students should approach learning about Native American history and/or history in general. Like so many primary sources available from this time period, it shows a clear European point of view on the subject rather than an Indigenous one.
After students have applied the above questions to the text, they can consider how an image might be different if it had been created by an Indigenous person living in that place at the time. Students can attempt to draw this version and then compare it to the original to illustrate how perspective shapes our view. What are the consequences of modern historians not looking at their sources with a critical eye? Given the specific perspective and purpose for this image, what we can learn from it is still extremely valuable.
We can now apply similar lenses to other texts that were created from European perspectives—excerpts from William Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation, for example, or Cabeza de Vaca’s Chronicle of the Narvaez Expedition, or the journals of Lewis and Clark.
When researching Native American histories and reading literature that depicts Native people—even things created recently that might draw primarily from sources such as this—it is always important to consider the source, its possible inaccuracies, its intended audience, and its messages and implications. When we do our own research, especially with Native history, it is wise to be aware of and to challenge the perspective of our sources. American history looks different when we look at it facing east rather than west, for instance. We can still learn very valuable things from sources that have a particular perspective if we know how to look at them carefully.
- There is sometimes pushback when we teach students to consider points of view other than European ones. There is a long history of discrediting sources that come from Native sources or that exist in oral rather than print form. We are not yet past that time. There are some who consider any critical eye on American history to be unpatriotic, and this lesson asks students to develop and practice a critical eye on the surviving primary sources from early American history.
Links to resources for approaching those topics
- Natalie Martinez, an educator active in the Open-Source Educational Resource Project, has a helpful blog post (Indigenous Histories: Teaching from Both Sides of the MIrror) on the OER page about the importance of incorporating Indigenous perspectives in education and the consequences of not doing so. The post articulates the necessity of Indigenous perspectives very eloquently and includes several helpful resources for incorporating Native perspectives in classrooms.
- Captain John Smith’s map of Virginia. “Virginia,”
- https://www.loc.gov/resource/g3880.ct008915/?r=-0.519,-0.001,2.037,0.898,0
- This is another early rendering of the American coast from the perspective of a colonist. This one was made by an Englishman who had actually been there. How does it compare to and differ from the 1590 map?
- Champlain map of the northeast coast of North America, 1607, a facsimile from the Library of Congress.
- “Descripsion des costs, pts., rades, illes de la Nouuele France faict selon son vray méridien : avec la déclinaison de la ment de plussieurs endrois selon que le Sieur de Castes le franc le démontre en son liure de la mécométrie de l'emnt.” https://www.loc.gov/resource/g3321p.np000002/?r=-0.447,-0.042,1.865,0.821,0
- This is Champlain’s rendering of the part of the coast of most interest to the French. How does it compare to and differ from the 1590 map?
- Lisa Brooks’s award-winning 2019 book, Our Beloved Kin, is a great example of how biased sources can be used to great effect to uncover broader histories. Dr. Brooks is an author and professor who used her own Indigenous knowledge to reevaluate colonial sources, most notably the Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, to uncover and explore more of the Native history of King Phillip’s War. An interview with the author about her work and her process can be found here: A Conversation with Lisa Brooks about Our Beloved Kin.
- C. Gwyne’s 2010 book, Empire of the Summer Moon, about the Comanche Wars, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, was researched in large part from primary sources written at the time by white settlers. And because so much of the language and attitudes from the sources filtered into his text, the book has been criticized for how uncritical it is of the racist perspectives of the sources that fed the book and that were then, according to some, perpetuated by the book. The book and its varied receptions can be great fodder for a discussion about the role of researchers, writers, publishers, and readers to make sense of biased history and the consequences of not being fully mindful of those biases. An opinion piece about the language the author chose to use in the book and its nomination for the Pulitzer Prize can be found here: On Racist Discourse in S. C. Gwynne’s Empire of the Summer Moon.