L’idole Kiwasa.

Title

L’idole Kiwasa.

Description

View shows a wooden painted idol called Kiwasa that worshiped the people of Virginia

ca. 1585

Artist

Bry, de-Thomas Hariot (1528-1598)

Thomas Hariot (1560-1621) was an English mathematician, astronomer, linguist, and experimental scientist. In the 1580s he was Sir Walter Raleigh's principal assistant in planning and attempting to establish the English colonies on Roanoke Island off the coast of what is now North Carolina. He taught Raleigh's captains how to navigate the Atlantic using sophisticated navigation methods that were unknown in England at the time. He also learned the Algonquian language from two Virginia Indians, Wanchese and Manteo. In 1585, Hariot joined the expedition to Roanoke, which failed, and returned to England the following year. While in America, Hariot helped explore what is now the Outer Banks region and further north on the Chesapeake Bay. He also collaborated with artist John White to produce several maps that were known for their accuracy at the time. Although Hariot left an extensive estate, the only work published during his lifetime was A brief and true report of the new found land of Virginia, which assessed Virginia's economic potential. The report appeared most impressively in Theodor de Bry's 1590 edition, which included etchings based on the White-Hariot maps and White's watercolors of Indian life. After a brief imprisonment in connection with the Gunpowder Plot (1605), Hariot calculated the orbit of Halley's Comet, sketched and mapped the moon, and observed sunspots. He died in 1621. 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. ---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.

Historical Description

Virginia received its name in honor of Queen Elizabeth I of England from Walter Raleigh during his expedition in 1584, when he founded the first settlement on Roanoke Island.Of the native peoples of Virginia, the best known are the Powhatan belonging to the Virginia Algonkin who lived near the coast. Other groups included Nottaway and Meherrin, members of the Iroquois family, southwest of them, Monacan and Saponi, members of the Sioux family, who lived in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, and Cherokee in the far west of the state. The first attempts at settlement by the English took place in Virginia. However, these first attempts were not made by the English government, but by a company called the Virginia Company, which founded the Jamestown settlement in 1607. At that time the English government lacked the money to finance such expensive and unsafe expeditions. Initially, the attempts to colonize were only moderately successful. During the English Powhatan Wars, the colony came under severe pressure. The year 1612 was an economically very important year. John Rolfe planted the first tobacco plant, which he had probably brought from Trinidad, in Virginia. Due to the hot and humid climate and the help of the indigenous population, the tobacco plants thrive splendidly. Rolfe, who had married an indigenous woman named Pocahontas in 1614, made his way to England in 1616 with the first batch of tobacco, where he was a resounding success. In 1617 he returned to Virginia to continue growing tobacco, but without Pocahontas, who had died in England. Rolfe had triggered the first boom in the new English world. As the home of many founding fathers, particularly Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, Richard Henry Lee, James Madison, George Mason and George Washington, Virginia played a prominent role in the American independence movement.