In West-Indien 259

Title

In West-Indien 259

Description

View shows the Spaniards on a river in Venezula with sea monsters, locals and native wildlife.

ca. 1600

Artist

Bry, de (1528-1598)

Theodorus de Bry (1528-1598) Frankfurt a.M. Around 1570, Theodorus de Bry, a Protestant, fled religious persecution south to Strasbourg, along the west bank of the Rhine. In 1577, he moved to Antwerp in the Duchy of Brabant, which was part of the Spanish Netherlands or Southern Netherlands and Low Countries of that time (16th Century), where he further developed and used his skills as a copper engraver. Between 1585 and 1588 he lived in London, where he met the geographer Richard Hakluyt and began to collect stories and illustrations of various European explorations, most notably from Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues. Depiction of Spanish atrocities in the New World, as recounted by Bartolome de las Casas in Narratio Regionum indicarum per Hispanos Quosdam devastatarum verissima. In 1588, Theodorus and his family moved permanently to Frankfurt-am-Main, where he became citizen and began to plan his first publications. The most famous one is known as Les Grands Voyages, i.e., The Great Travels, or The Discovery of America. He also published the largely identical India Orientalis-series, as well as many other illustrated works on a wide range of subjects. His books were published in Latin, and were also translated into German, English and French to reach a wider reading public. The two collections of travelogues published by Theodor de Bry in Frankfurt are among the most important of the early modern period and established his reputation for posterity: He created The Arrival of Columbus in the New World in 1594. The West Indian Voyages (ed. 1590-1618) chronicled the discovery and conquest of the Americas by Europeans, while the East Indian Voyages followed the rise of Holland as a trading power in Asia around 1600. Both series appeared in German and Latin, were intended for a European audience, and were richly illustrated with copper engravings. Theodor de Bry was only able to publish six parts of his complete works. After his death, his sons Johann Theodor and Johann Israel and then Johann Theodor's son-in-law Matthäus Merian continued the work until 1634. In the end, it contained 25 parts and over 1500 copper engravings. The brothers were succeeded as engravers and publishers by Sebastian Furck.

Historical Description

In pre-Columbian times, Indian groups, nomadic hunters and gatherers as well as fishermen and farmers lived in Venezuela. Christopher Columbus reached the eastern coast of Venezuela on his third voyage in 1498 and landed at the mouth of the Orinoco River. It was the first time that he and his team had entered mainland America. On August 24, 1499, an expedition by Alonso de Ojeda and Amerigo Vespucci followed, which supposedly gave the country the name Venezuela (Little Venice) because of the frequent use of stilt houses. The first permanent settlement of the Spaniards called Nueva Cadiz was founded in 1522. From 1528 to 1545, the province of Venezuela was pledged by Charles V to the Welser family, who ran the Little Venice colony during this period. The current capital, Caracas, was founded in 1567, and in 1577 the Spanish crown appointed a governor to administer it.The colony was rather neglected by the Spaniards in the 16th and 17th centuries, since they concentrated on gold from other parts of America. The cultivation of cocoa, sugar, tobacco, coffee and cotton resulted in a large number of slaves being brought to Venezuela, which, after much of the native culture had been largely destroyed, influenced the culture in Venezuela. From 1797 to 1821 there were repeated attempts to detach New Granada, whose sub-region was Venezuela, from Spanish rule. In 1821 Simón Bolívar managed to bring the wars of independence to a victorious end in Venezuela.