Erfindung und Schiffarten (Wie der Kaiser von Guayana seine Edelleute zuzurichten pflegt, wenn er sie zu Gast hält.)

Title

Erfindung und Schiffarten (Wie der Kaiser von Guayana seine Edelleute zuzurichten pflegt, wenn er sie zu Gast hält.)

The illustration shows how the inhabitants of Guyana drink more than all other nations during festivals. In the foreground, a local is being coated with a white balsam and blown through a small tube filled with gold sand. The back depicts Colonel Sir Walter Raleigh arriving on the island of Trinidad with his ship and capturing a Spanish officer.

ca. 1628

Artist

Bry, de - Merian (1528-1598)

In 1631, Matthäus Merian and Johann Ludwig Gottfried published Historia Antipodum, a heavily abridged, single-volume version of Theodor De Bry’s 14-part America series. After De Bry’s death, his sons continued the project. Merian, a skilled engraver, later married De Bry’s daughter and collaborated with Gottfried. The Historia Antipodum reorganized numerous travel accounts into three chapters covering nature, exploration, and recent colonial developments. Merian and Gottfried significantly reworked the content, merging reports and integrating illustrations into the text. Their depiction of the natural world and Indigenous cultures—drawing in part on José de Acosta’s writings—was particularly influential. The book stands as one of the most ambitious works of early modern travel literature.

Historical Description

The name Guyana" was derived from the original name of the Guiana region. The region includes Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana, and parts of Venezuela and Brazil. Today's Guyana consisted of the colonies Essequibo, Demerara and Berbice founded by the Netherlands in the 17th and 18th centuries. The ownership of these areas changed several times between the colonial powers Netherlands, Great Britain and France until 1815. After the defeat of Napoléon Bonaparte, the three colonies were transferred to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland at the Congress of Vienna in 1815. In 1831 the colony of British Guiana was founded from this. The British geologist and topographer Charles B. Brown traveled to the largely unexplored hinterland of the region between Suriname and Venezuela from 1868 to 1871 on behalf of the colonial administration. Brown was commissioned with the exact measurement of the river courses and geological investigations. Thanks to his 40-month research trips in the tropical rainforest, numerous local settlements, deposits of mineral resources and topographical features in the interior of the country were documented. Guyana finally achieved independence from the United Kingdom on May 1966.