Skip to main content

Views Of A New World

March 2023
1min read

The illustrations accompanying this article are among the earliest European pictures of America. All are from a set of about two hundred marvelous drawings in ink and watercolors that was given to the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York in 1983. Before that they were essentially unknown, hidden in a series of private collections since they were first found in England in 1867. They illustrate Francis Drake’s voyages in the Caribbean in 1572-73 and 1585-86, and his circumnavigation of the globe from 1577 to 1580. In 1586, after raiding Spanish settlements around the Caribbean and razing St. Augustine, Drake stopped at Roanoke and took Raleigh’s colonists from there back to England. About ten of the drawings—none of those used here—show plants, animals, and perhaps one Indian seen in Florida and on the Carolina coasts. But the most informative are those from the Caribbean and South America.

Some of the paintings were prepared from sketches made from life, while a few apparently were based only on verbal descriptions. All of them are labeled, and many are described in considerable detail in sixteenth-century French, written in three different hands. The artist, who has not yet been identified, was probably a Frenchman who accompanied Drake.

The illustrations and their captions were more than simply a sampling of exotic plants, animals, and cultures. Drake’s purpose was not only to capture Spanish-American treasure but also to establish an English foothold in a part of the world largely claimed by Spain. The artist was recording information he thought might further those aims.

We hope you enjoy our work.

Please support this 72-year tradition of trusted historical writing and the volunteers that sustain it with a donation to American Heritage.

Donate

Stories published from "August/September 1985"

Authored by: Abraham Lass

An old pro tells what it was like to play for the silents

Authored by: Oswald Wynd

How the Japanese made sense of our silent movies

Authored by: Vernon C. Squires

Two letters from a Navy lieutenant to his wife tell the story of the last hours of World War II

Authored by: Kenneth Kinkel

Artfully composed still-life photographs from a rare 1871 album transform brushes, sponges, and stationery supplies into symbols of a proud, industrial society

Authored by: Barton J. Bernstein

In a conflict that saw saturation bombing, Auschwitz, and the atom bomb, poison gas was never used in the field. What prevented it?

Authored by: Elting E. Morison

He had all the right qualities. Only the time was wrong.

Authored by: David Haward Bain

Starting with thirty “liberated”
rifles, Augusto Sandino forced American troops out of Nicaragua in 1933

Authored by: Wallace Stegner

Much has changed in Utah since World War II, but outside of the metropolitan center in the Salt Lake Valley, the addiction to rural simplicity and the idea of home is still strong.

Authored by: Neil Harris

It might seem that building a mausoleum to the great general would be a serenely melancholy task. Not at all. The bitter squabbles that surrounded the memorial set city against country and became a mirror of the forces straining turn-of-the-century America.

Four hundred years ago the first English settlers reached America. What followed was a string of disasters ending with the complete disappearance of a colony.

Featured Articles

Rarely has the full story been told about how a famed botanist, a pioneering female journalist, and First Lady Helen Taft battled reluctant bureaucrats to bring Japanese cherry trees to Washington. 

The world’s most prominent actress risked her career by standing up to one of Hollywood’s mega-studios, proving that behind the beauty was also a very savvy businesswoman. 

Often thought to have been a weak president, Carter was strong-willed in doing what he thought was right, regardless of expediency or the political fallout.

Why have thousands of U.S. banks failed over the years? The answers are in our history and politics.

In his Second Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln embodied leading in a time of polarization, political disagreement, and differing understandings of reality.