Interpreting the Visual Evidence
America as an Object of Desire
Under the influence of
Mandeville's Book of
Marvels and a host
of other popular narratives,
Columbus and
his fellow voyagers were prepared to
find the New World full of cannibals.
They also assumed that the indigenous
peoples' custom of wearing little
or no clothingnot to mention their
"sa vagery" would render their women
sexually available. In the letters he sent
back to Europe, Columbus recounts one
notable encounter with a "cannibal girl"
whom he had taken captive in his tent.
Her naked body aroused his desire, but
she resisted his advances so fiercely that
he had to tie her upwhich of course
made it easier for him to "subdue" her. In
the end, he cheerfully reports, the girl's
sexual performance was so satisfying
that she might have been trained, as he
put it, in a "school for whores."
The Flemish artist Jan van der Straet
(1523–1605) would have heard many
such reports of the encounters between
(mostly male) Europeans and the peoples
of the New World. This engraving,
based on one of his drawings, is among
the thousands of mass-produced images
that circulated widely in Europe, thanks
to the invention of printing. It imagines
the first encounter between a male
"Americus" (like Columbus, or Amerigo
Vespucci himself) and the New World,
"America," depicted as a voluptuous,
available woman. The Latin caption
reads: "America rises to meet Americus;
and whenever he calls her, she will always
be aroused."
Images
Questions for Analysis
1. fiogf49gjkf0d fiogf49gjkf0d Study the details of this image carefully.
What does each symbolize, and
how do they work together as an allegory
of conquest and colonization? |
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2. fiogf49gjkf0d fiogf49gjkf0d On what stereotypes of indigenous
peoples does this image draw? Notice,
for example, the cannibalistic campfire
of the group in the background, or
the posture of “America.” |
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3. fiogf49gjkf0d fiogf49gjkf0d The New World itself—America—is
imagined as female in this image. Why
is this? What messages might this—
and the suggestive caption—have conveyed
to a European viewer? |
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