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Abstract

The primary visual sources depicting the treatment of Indigenous peoples by conquerors, particularly the works of Protestant engraver Theodore de Bry, offer valuable insights into the interactions between European explorers and Indigenous Americans. De Bry's illustrations, influenced by Bartolomé de Las Casas's accounts of Spanish atrocities, serve as a condemnation of Spanish Catholic colonization in the Americas. Through his engravings, de Bry politicizes and weaponizes Indigenous bodies, portraying them as deserving of conquest and civilizing, albeit by Protestant conquerors. His depictions of Indigenous peoples, based on biased accounts relayed from explorers, perpetuate stereotypes used to justify colonization. De Bry's Protestant vision, evident in his works, advocates for Protestant colonization as a preferable alternative to Spanish Catholic conquest. Despite condemning Spanish abuses, de Bry's ultimate goal is not to end colonialism but to promote Protestant colonization in the Americas.

INTRODUCTION

When looking at primary, visual sources that depict the treatment of Indigenous peoples by conquerors, Protestant engraver Theodore de Bry's works are incredibly popular and insightful.1 De Bry, born in 1528 and working until his death in 1598, illustrated and wrote his own books containing engravings that depicted the customs, communities, and atrocities committed against Indigenous Americans as they came into contact with European explorers. Aside from his own writing, de Bry also illustrated a version of Bartolomé de Las Casas's Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias almost 50 years after it was written.2 In Brevísima relación, Las Casas, a Spanish bishop, chronicled many of the abuses committed against indigenous populations encountered by the Spanish.

Despite illustrating Las Casas' accounts of atrocities committed against indigenous peoples, de Bry does so not as a moral plea to bring to light such horrors but rather as a condemnation of the Spanish Catholic conquistadors behavior in the Americas. As many Europeans' first visual introduction to the New World, de Bry's intention wasn't to condemn conquest and colonialism, as his depictions of indigenous men and women are riddled with stereotypes used by colonial powers to justify their conquest. Instead, de Bry uses the atrocities as a political tool, a way to condemn Spanish-Catholic colonization of the New World and to subtly call for Protestant colonization instead. Through de Bry's engravings, Indigenous bodies and the cruelties committed against them become politicized and weaponized; they are constructed as deserving of conquest and civilizing, yet they are being "civilized" by the wrong conquerors. Beginning with the depiction of Indigenous peoples within de Bry's work, one can better understand his views towards those he engraved and the motivations behind his portrayals.

In Tzvetan Todorov's The Conquest of America, he posits that for Las Casas, a Christian, he "loves the Indians because of this" and that [End Page 458] "precisely because he was a Christian, his perceptions of Indians were poor."3 Las Casas and de Bry held similar contempt for the conquistadors behavior in the Americas, and perhaps the same can be true of de Bry's views towards Native Americans. De Bry was also a Christian, and Christian Europeans held complex and paradoxical views towards indigenous peoples. On one hand, they believed them to be closer to paradise and the site of the hierophany; on the other, they were viewed as "savage" and "uncivilized." Due to their perceived inferiority to Europeans, there was a desire to civilize them and bring them closer to the European ideals of a moral civilization. While perhaps paradoxical, it is true that both Las Casas and de Bry can love Indigenous peoples as Christians yet simultaneously perceive them as inferior and in need of civilizing. Therefore, their perceptions of indigenous peoples are poor.

De Bry engraved a number of works that depicted the customs and daily lives of indigenous peoples in the Americas. These portrayals were based on the work of other engravers or explorers and formed an odd game of telephone for the perceptions of indigenous peoples in Europe.4 Those encountering indigenous peoples most likely encountered them with preconceived notions in mind and relayed their biased experiences back to Europe, where engravers like de Bry transformed their accounts into visual representations, which were further skewed by their own preconceptions.

In this work (figure 1) by de Bry from 1584, we see a triumphant Columbus, posed and proper, encountering the Taínos of Hispaniola,5 who are unclothed, while others flee from the Spanish ships in the background. Columbus' men follow behind him, raising a cross, and are the visual representation of civilization arriving in the Americas—a Spanish and Catholic one at that. The Taínos in the foreground are offering Columbus large amounts of treasure, most likely gold, in a display of their perceived stupidity. The depiction of the Taínos falls into contemporary stereotypes for Native Americans; unclothed, uncivilized, in awe of European civilization, cowardly, and ignorant. These traits, while grossly untrue...