American Literature and Culture

• ‘King Philipp’
• Sachem (Chief) of the Wampanoag Indians (ca. 1639-1676) 
• chief during the so-called King Philipp's War 1675-76 = bloodiest and most destructive conflict in Am. history, killing 5% of the English settlers and about 40% of the native tribal population

Increasing tensions between NAs and English settlers caused by...

• Expansion of settlements, excessive acquisition of land by white settlers
• Legal pressure on trade between native and settlers (NAs affected by the restrictions on trade b/c they depended on trade with the settlers, their livelihood was in danger)
• Growing tensions and distrust
• Competition and conflict between different tribes and the various settlements and communities (in/ outside Plymouth colony; praying Indians, frontier settlements)
• Violence and increasing hostilities 
• execution of three tribe members by English settlers for killing an Englishman => violated the NAs' right to deal with the affair on their own => lead to the attack of Lancaster in June 1675

-->1675-76 “King Philip’s War”: Bloodiest and most destructive conflict in American history, killing 5% of the English settlers and roughly 40% of the native tribal population 

• victim of the attack of Lancaster (later described the carnage of the attack in her captivity narrative)
• Begin of Indian attacks: June 1675 (reaction to execution of 3 tribe members, severe living conditions and English expansion)
• Rowlandson taken captive on February 20, 1676 
• By (re)moving the captives from one settlement to the next, the Indians try to escape the English pursuit (see also the narrative structure of removes in Rowlandson’s text), even talked to Metacomet to discuss her return with him
• Setting her own ransom prize (20 pounds) Rowlandson is released on May 2, 1676; two months later her remaining children are free as well (her youngest child died during her captivity)
• After her return to Lancaster: wrote a record of her captivity; supported by influential Puritans, it is finally published (several editions) --> Narrative of punishment, hope and redemption, captivity narrative became a popular literary genre enjoying immense commercial success (glimpse of the violence that the victims of the Indians suffered, confrontation between white colonists (portrayed as superior, civilized) and the natives
• her captivity narrative = canonical text in Am. lit., wrote about her experiences during captivity, suffering => representation of an individual experience in captivity, narrative divided into 20 different 'removes'
• instance of Puritan literary conventions: willingness to communicate her 'conversion narrative', personal narrative of belief, emphasis on the private nature and authenticity of the text to demonstrate humility (publication not in order to put herself on the same level with male authors, but for the public benefit), idea of providential affliction, emphasis on God's sovereignty and goodness, references to the covenant of grace
• appeared in different forms (e.g. book-length narratives, poems, letters, appendixes to sermons, etc.) 

first one by Rowlandson: one of the most popular and well-known texts well into the 18th and 19th century

• record of an individual's experiences while under captivity: display of the NAs' violence towards the victims; experience as a testimony of God's grace
• Captivity and Removal as test of belief (penitential pilgrimage, can be read like a conversion narrative)
• Spiritual dimension of real experience (cf. typology)
• Narrative of punishment, hope and redemption: captivity and affliction as God's punishment, hope of being saved through faith, the indivudial has the chance to regain her faith by being rendered completely helpless by God (dependence on God, therefore reading real events as a proof of God'sgrace), return to safety as salvation/redemption and reward for regaining faith, return to righteousness and belief, evidence of being chosen and a sign that God is on her side, unshakeable trust
• Typological interpretation of suffering: i.e. Bible as a framework for interpreting her experiences, religious interpretation of real events, frequent references to/citations from the Bible (source of consolation and a means to make sense of the experiences and the conflict between the natives and the Puritans)
• Religious education and affective identification through the sympathetic connection with Rowlandson
• didactic function (instructing readers); confirming Puritan beliefs (esp. the belief of God's providence); repeated, created, and reaffirmed in Puritan texts
• redemption = governing metaphor in captivity narratives; trust and belief in God, His providential scheme (belief that He has foreseen the events before human history)
• later transformed into a general story of cultural conflict, the fear of cultural otherness, and a nation under attack which has to defend itself

• 1st brutal war between settlers and NAs
• at first: Native tribes sprinkled all ober the place, no danger to settlements
• nevertheless fear that the natives would form alliances against the English
• expansion of the colonists lead to resistance from the Pequots => resulted in war (erupted at the native settlement of Mystic)
• war as a stunning experience, organized effort to kill the native tribes, Pequots almost entirely extinguished, violence and brutality
• English used the internal fractions in the tribal system to their advantage, used another tribe to fight the Pequots
• goal = to wipe out all forms of resistance and to clear the land of the natives
• image of the natives in English publications changed considerably, changed mutual self-descriptions + perceptions of the English and the NAs towards each other: NAs = savage, uncivilized; English = cunning, merciless
• writings negotiating the idea of danger and the colonists' ability to defend themselves

• the religious and the political converge
• mixture of providence and accident: 'sweet victory', idea that God was so gracious as to give them the victory; gave them the opportunity that made victory possible
• description of the enemy as insulting and proud => denigration of the NAs to justify the cruelty towards them and their extinguishment
• used spiritual descriptions and allusions

• Dominant medium / form of English Renaissance court literature (Sidney, Spencer, Shakespeare ⇒ relation to plays: poetry and drama as the founding forms of English literature) => established tradition: poetry as a an accepted and representative literary expression that England identified with; both an important element of the court and of public culture, form of communication, manipulation and exchange
• greatly influenced by earlier writers ⇒ Homer, Vergil, Dante, Petrarch, the Sonnet    
• polished performance of linguistic competence and wit    
⇒formalized rhetoric
• But: poetry was also used within religious debates and as a form of spiritual (self-)reflection (e.g. John Donne, John Milton, George Herbert, John Bunyan), criticizing other poetical traditions    
• For the Puritans, poetry was a very powerful, but also rather suspicious form of expression and communication (potentially manipulative, dangerous because of its emotive aspect), therefore: ambivalent reaction to poetry: bad if it is produced to publicly perform one's ling. competences (self-empowerment and self-reverence), but good if it encouraged thought and (self-)reflection (which is central to Puritan culture)

• knew that poetry was a very powerful, but also rather suspicious form of expression and communication (potentially manipulative, dangerous because of its emotive aspect)
• therefore: ambivalent reaction to poetry: bad if it is produced to publicly perform one's ling. competences (which would be self-empowerment and self-reverence), but good if it encouraged thought and (self-)reflection
• fear/rejection of imagery ⇒ iconoclastic orientation of Puritan thought and belief (images are like idols, affective and manipulative potential)
• distrust of figurative language (ornament), rejection of mere rhetorical flourish, fear of manipulation and emotive affection, instead: plain style (rejected the rhetorical nature of poetry, not poetry per se)       
• conflicting models of metaphorical/figurative speech: affective engagement vs.effective cognition (transformation of the emotive aspect: poetry is only substantial if affective engagement comes with effective cognition (i.e. (self-)reflection and critical thought about religious matters) --> central to Puritan culture; not pure emotions, but emotions combined with reflection, emphasis on the potential usefulness and objectives of poetry
• Richard Baxter The Saint’s Everlasting Rest (1650): “most […] descriptions of our Glory are expressed as if they were the very flesh and sense, which though they are all improper and figurative, yet doubtless if such expressions had not been best, and to us necessary, the Holy Ghost would both have so frequently used them.”  => rejection of the rhetorical nature of poetry (dangerous)
• Poetry as meditation on/mediation of the relation between the spiritual and the sensuous dimensions of human experience

• 'mother' of Americam literature => beginning of a genuine American literature, production of the emerging American culture and literary tradition
• 1630 arrives with Winthrop on the Arbella  => an English woman sold as an American author
• her poetry as the ideal of poetry: correlates the spiritual and emotive affections, self-reflexive (reflecting on oneself and one's emotional responses to the world)
• Classical education and deep interest in literature / poetry
• 1650 The Tenth Muse, lately sprung up in America. (epic poem)
• 1664-65 Contemplations: celebration of nature as God’s creation, divine text (one of the earliest forms of nature poetry)
• Appropriation and reinterpretation of classical forms and models in English and Renaissance poetry (e.g. Guillaume du Bartas [French Calvinist poet], Edmund Spenser, Philip Sidney)
• Rhetorical apology, self-assertion and irony    
• Contemplations (1664-65) the celebration of nature as God's creation    
• Meditation and desire - both secular and religious: reflecting on her emotional desires and responses to the world in a Puritan fashion
• Expression of female experience    
• Plain style and everyday experience ('domestic poems'): e.g. ‘In Memory of my Dear Grandchild’; ‘A Letter to Her Husband Absent on Public Employment’

Appropriation and reinterpretation of classical forms and models in English and Renaissance poetry (e.g. Guillaume du Bartas [French Calvinist poet], Edmund Spenser, Philip Sidney), frequent references and allusions to classical antique authors  

=> attempt to place herself in the established tradition of poetry (self-positioning), but writing in a colonial setting as a woman

• 1650 The Tenth Muse, lately sprung up in America: Anonymous publication by "a gentlewoman"     
• she never intended to publish it (imagined audience of experts), published anonymously in London by her brother-in-law
• objective: her poetry as an example and proof of the colonies' ability and potential to produce sth. of literary and cultural worth ('high literature') -->political argument), idea that America could produce sth. that was just as cultured, delightful, educative and valuable as the poetry of England:
• Arguably the first genuinely literary production of Puritan America published in Europe (America = not yet a culture, "lately sprung up")
• 'Wit', 'Learning' and 'Delight' as proof of literary talent and accomplishment --> encompasses the the basic function of poetry: delight and educate / learning and entertainment combined
• establishing a form of self-understanding that is indifferent to the relation and difference to England, cultural production from America, Bradstreet (and Rowlandson) as contributions to an emerging American literature that is distinct from England

• highly self-reflexive, self-conscious, tradition-conscious, criticism-conscious form of poetry!, treats criticism in a strong and self-critical way while making a point for female poetry

E.g. the Prologue to The Tenth Muse):    

• apologetic gestures: form of self-effacement; describing traditional 'typical' poetry as sth. above her abilities, establishes a hierarchy of accepted literature, not trying to minimize the worth of previous (male) poetry
• enhancing ambivalence and ambiguity: implied criticism: e.g. criticism aimed at the unfair 'Muses' who have given Bartas all the skills but left nothing for her, ambivalent praise of Bartas' poetry ("sugar'd lines" without substance) => enters a (critical) dialogue with male poetry and with critics of female poetry
• Irony: conflict of what is being said content-wise (her alleged inability as a poet) and what is being done (her outstanding performance in poetry), the way in which she presents her arguments as the only counter-argument against the critics of women writers
• gender difference: presents herself as a violation of all all the other women and housewives (basically being an obstacle to herself) while at the same time proving that she is capable of good poetic performance, criticism of the people who attribute good women's poetry to theft or to mere chance   
• negotiating a place for female writing / poetry:  attempt to self-position herself in the tradition of poetry, writing in a colonial setting as a woman, finding a place as a female writer in an American colonial context

=> writing whilst being aware of writing (self-reflexion), from self-effacing irony to straight-out criticism of the (wrong) male attitude toward female poetry to self-assertion ("I don't care what you think and do it anyway")

Two expressions of her  poetry:

• stylized (epic) poetry: imagined audience = audience of experts (well-educated readers who would understand her references to classical writers and who would perhaps also be able to write poetry), poetry enters different dialogues (with male poetry and critics of female poetry); highly self-reflexive, self-conscious, tradition-conscious and criticism-conscious form of poetry => not asking for praise, but for acknowledgement and acceptance of female poetry; 'Wit', 'Learning', and 'Delight' as proof of literary talent and accomplishment
• domestic poetry: deliberate departure from her stylized forms, plain style, poems about everyday experiences (e.g. children, household, life as a housewife etc.), family as her imagined audience, autobiographic poems, strong sense of authenticity => attempt to come up with a poetic expression for a certain feeling and experience relating to everyday life (e.g. To My Dear and Loving Husband)

• original framing: Puritanism and Calvinist ideology, story of faith, punishment, and redemption (emphasis on God's sovereignty and providence, cf. original title page); read as a conversion narrative and form of spiritual autobiography --> didactic function (instructing readers); confirming Puritan beliefs (providence!), religious education and affective identification (through the sympathetic connection with Rowlandson and frequent Biblical references); genre rife with contradictions: relate the first-person experience of the captive, but mediated by a Puritan minister (edited for didactic purposes)
• but also: high degree of collective and self-identification: originally a Puritan argument about a successful settlement (besieged settlement as a test of righteousness), Puritans as the chosen people
• later: many captivity narratives reinforce ethnocentric images of natives as primitives; at the same time, portrayal of sophisticated/ effective native practices (e.g. in warfare) --> narrative negotiates the experience of the conflict of cultures, central image = confrontation between white colonists (portrayed as superior, civilized) and the natives
• fear + uncertainty of the captive’s position, representation of unfamiliar lands; wilderness topos: projects an image of a frontier society in the face of external dangers, a culture under attack
• later editions: same story transformed for a larger, less religious and more secular and diverse audience (not just Puritans), different frame: not religious framework anymore because God is not as important to the people anymore, now generally read as a narrative negotiating the fear of cultural otherness (not always NAs)
• story of martyrdom, adventure story: new literary genre, immense commercial success --> central for the American self-understanding as a frontier society

E.g. the poetry of Edward Taylor (c. 1644-1729) , used by him in order to prepare himself for writing his sermons (continuity of thought and ideas):

• Meditation poems = poems about scriptural passages from the Bible dealing with central ideas of religious faith
• part of a Christian tradition of writing poetry (not a Puritan invention):
• --> Poetry as a medium of self-inspection and religious self-assertion: reflection on Biblical passages and central religious ideas; immediate, personal and subjective form of writing
• --> Religious meditation and aesthetic concentration / condensation: way of using poetic language to reflect on a certain religious / spiritual idea
• --> Influence of Metaphysical poets: John Donne (1571-1631) and George Herbert (1593-1633): using their traditions for a specific purpose
• --> Extended imagery and conceit: as a specific strategy to articulate abstract ideas
• --> Poetry as a way of thinking and spiritual meditation: trying to find an expression for abstract thoughts
• The Puritan Meditation Tradition:
• Based on Ignatius Loyola's Spiritual Exercises (1522-24): Training belief by meditation on religious texts and images, form of mental exercise
• Thomas Hooker The Soul's Preparation for Christ (1632): "It is a sekled exercise for two ends: first to make a further inquiry of the truth: and secondly, to make the heart affected therewith."
• Richard Baxter The Saint's Everlasting Rest (1650): "get the liveliest Picture [of heavenly truths] in thy minds [and compare] the unseen delights of Heaven with those smaller which you have seen, and felt in the flesh" => examples of Meditation poets who have influenced Taylor

• cf. Edward Taylor's Preparatory Meditations before my Approach of the Lord's Supper
• Taylor = by his contemporaries known as a minister (not as a poet)
• objective: making his mind ready for writing a sermon for the Sunday service (preparing himself to write a sermon)
• regarding poetry and sermons as two different forms of the same way of thinking: contemplation of religious ideas => continuity of thought and ideas that connected these two types of texts

• an intellectual / logical argument held together by an inventive comparison or a central organizing trope, such as an extended metaphor or an ingenious leitmotif
• usually an extended metaphor stretching over the entire text, specific way of using imagery to extend a certain idea or argument in poetry
• the conceit as a means to formulate an abstract logical argument
• characteristic of metaphysical poetry

Examples:

• the poetry of Edward Taylor (Huswifery): the image of the spinning wheel implies the transformation of a natural resource into an artistic end product, a lasting object --> combines the realm of everyday life with the religious practice of faith --> expresses the idea of transcending the realm of everyday-life and becoming the experience of faith, union between the thinker and the object being thought about
• John Donne's and George Herbert's metaphysical poetry

• reconquista: ‚reconquest‘, recapturing Spain from the Muslims who had occupied most of the Iberian Peninsula in the early 8th century;  completed with the conquest of Granada in 1492 => Spain as a unified Christian empire
• crusading spirit of the Reconquista preserved in the subsequent Spanish emphasis on religious uniformity
• conquista: conquest of the New World, self-appointed mission to disseminate the Christian faith in the name of the Spanish, taking the territory from the ‚heathen‘ (the natives) to establish a Christian empire

• meticulous documentation of time, distances, naming, actions upon arrival, formal rituals and symbols etc. as a way of re-enacting the taking possession of the new land in order to guarantee a legitimate appropriation (conversion of legal discourse)
• his account of his sensual perceptions and the environment of the new world is indicative of his amazement in the face of the wonders and marvels of the NW, focus on the land's fertility and beauty --> depiction of a land of abundance and richness, like reentering paradise
• descrpitions of the natives as part of his perceptions: focus on their supposed inferiority and using a dichotomy of 'us' and 'them' in order to legitimise asymmetrical power relations and to highlight the importance of spreading the Christian faith in the new world (their lack of the 'right' religion); strategically placing the NAs in a struggle between opposing forces implies a supposed need for protection --> serves to legitimise the taking of their land (morally)

• relates to the English settlement method and their understanding of taking possession: cultivation of the new land as appropriation
• notion of the plantation connects the idea of colonisation to agriculture (familiar experience for the English)--> planting as a metaphor for settlement and survival; the idea of growing signifies the expansion of the colonies
• goal: form settlements that would stand, survive and grow/expand
• references to familiar experiences and knowledge about farming used to talk about the project of colonisation
• serves as a way of justifying the colonisation: settlement = justified if it is profitable

• early maps changed European‘s understanding of the world (4th part of the world)
• printing press: explorers produced a body of literature that communicated their experiences and perceptions to a wide readership, dissemination of texts rich with imagery, narratives of discovery, conquest, colonisation,expansion described/defended/recorded encounters between NAs and Europeans (thus constructing a certain image of America, record the first reactions to the NW)
• texts as a conversion of legal discourse:  specific language and style in order to meet legal requirements, texts re-enacting the taking possession, illustrating a legitimate appropriation (legal foundation for appropriation and transformation of the new land into European property) —> legal and economic framework weighs heavily on the linguistic acquisition of the land (not just a physical but also a legal act of taking into possession; so that reports wouldn’t endanger the royal support of the enterprise, strict rules, detailed references to people present, rituals, symbols, formal testimonies)
• conversion of religious discourse:  NAs lack of the 'right' religion, taking into possession by naming (act of baptism: takes inhabitants, things and objects of NW into the Catholic Church)
• language as a means to legitimise asymmetrical power relations and to introduce hierarchy: description of the natives—> rhetoric of otherness, references to their supposed inferiority, emphasis on difference, dichotomy ‚us‘ + ‚them‘ 
• Antonio de Nebrija‘s grammar of the Castilian language: language as an instrument of empire (idea of intellectual property, formal linguistic structures to secure legitimate appropriation, testifying documentation + records), language important in the development of societies (exercising + legitimising power), Spanish as the official language of its colonies during the creation of a new cultural and territorial identity, Spanish=language of the dissemination of Christian faith

- even before the arrival of Europeans: varied and diverse population of various native peoples with vibrant traditions and cultures of their own (Aztecs, Inca, Maya...) —> cultural and linguistic diversity of indigenous groups instead of wilderness

- Columbus believed that he had found a western route to India

- early human migration to America as early as 1.600.000-10.000 BC (landbridge from Asia to Alaska)

- end of the Byzantine Empire 

- Europe‘s dependence on Constantinople as a commercial link between Europe and the Silk Road (network of important trade routes), economy relied heavily on silk trade

- 1453: Turkish empire closed Silk Road and cut its ties with the West —> need for alternative trade routes to Asia

- Spain‘s competition with Portugal + no access to Silk Road: Ferdinand and Isabella had an economic and religious interest in supporting Columbus‘ plan to find a western route to India

-description of the act of taking possession and the first rituals: subdued, matter-of-fact, almost bureaucratic tone, in order to convey an atmosphere of solemn and well-ordered appropriation and transformation of the land, meticulous documentation of time, distance, naming, manoeuvres, actions upon arrival, formal rituals and symbolic practices —> way of re-enacting the taking possession, guarantee legitimate appropriation 

- transition from the ritual of taking into possession: different kind of writing, focus on sensual perceptions and the environment

- descriptions of a marvellous, happy place, full of promises and fulfillment, indicative of his amazement in the face of the wonders and marvels of the NW (emphasis on the land‘s fertility, evocations of familiar images blended out by the beauty of the new land), more direct and personal tone --> idea of a land of abundance and richness, like reentering paradise

- descriptions of the NAs: focus on their supposed inferiority, dichotomy of ‚us‘ and ‚them‘ to introduce hierarchy + legitimise asymmetrical power relations, frequent references to their lack of Christian religion (makes them — according to him — promising subjects for conversion, territorial expansion linked to Catholic orthodoxy, highlights the importance of his mission to spread the Christian faith to the NW; he mentions violence towards them from other tribes to illustrate that expansion was taking place in a complex network of power relations and to underline the NAs supposed need for protection (strategically placing them in a struggle between opposing forces) —> legitimise the taking of their land and making them Spanish property

• legal texts / documents issued regularly by the Pope
• one of them: the globe separated into two separate spheres of influence – the Spanish and the Portugese → created a well-ordered pattern of colonization  (avoiding conflict btwn. the two Catholic powers of Europe) and great competition
• the Pope's attempt to secure acts of appropriation in combination with the expansion of Christianity in the NW, justify and legitimise expansion and colonisation in comb. with the spread of the Christian faith (powers had the permission to appropriate if they promised to convert the indigenous population into Christians in return)
• basis of certain justifications for the appropriation of the new world by European powers
• major points of reference for the passing of official laws

- self-appointed mission to disseminate the Christian faith in the world 

• Bartolomé de las Casas: Destruction of the Indies (1552); History of the Indies (1527-66) → participant of the colonisation and conquest who later turned into a critic (detailed descriptions of the atrocities, injustices and violence towards NAs, pessimistic and critical account)
• Bernal Diáz del Castillo: The True History of the Conquest of New Spain (1632) → participant in the conquest of Mexico, minor rank soldier interested in material gain, detailed description of the violence of conquest, but justifying it as an effort leading to positive results (necessary, pragmatic), nationalist narrative in Spanish (lang. = instrument of empire), but realistic/unsparing tone, style and perspective; therapeutic function of the text (to rid himself from the experience), strange + intriguing picture of the ambivalent experience of conquest, unability to revise his testimonial, presentation of both the beauties + horrors of the event

-many parts of the New World were already taken by the Spanish: only possibility for the English was to move north

- there were preexisting structures in which the English appropriation of America took place (body of texts other than English that deal with the phenomenon of the new world and taking into possession)

- preexisting knowledge: patent of 1498: British king was expecting America to be populated by people and to possess towns and structures of administration, his aim was to subdue other rulers

- Spanish conquest + colonisation had an impact on the British colonisation (e.g. papal bulls: ignored other European powers than Spain + Portugal)

- promotional literature to encourage English investors to invest in the colonisation + settlement of the new world, profit for England as a nation (actual + textual appropriation go together in the case of England)

- Spanish: interested in spread of administration & spread of the power of the church, ambivalence: "black legend", critical voices; English: interested in getting people to invest in the colonisation of America (but also ambivalence)   --> English colonisation: settlement method instead of the Spanish method of conquest and material exploitation of the land

• author of A Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia (1588, 1590)
• scientist and mathematician (tried to bring knowledge and his experiences into his promotional writings)   
• sailed with Sir Richard Grenville (1 year after Sir Walter Raleigh)
• compiled and collected information, recorded his observations about the New World: e.g. the topography,  flora and fauna, the customs + language of the local people →  focus on the land's agricultural potential, the potential profit from the land and the settlements, emphasis on colonization as a family-oriented enterprise of farming (different adressees, not just rich investors, but also labourers, families...)
• 'true report': tries to stay as objective as possible, signals that he is an expert, emphasis on his first-hand experiences (concerning the descriptions of the NWs merchantable commodities, its commodities of victuals + sustenance, and other things such as the outine of available building materials, the customs + manners of the NAs etc.) ⇒religious, political and economic discourses typical of promotional literature
• objectives: show readers that it was worthwile to settle there, counter scepticism + rumours about the NW, attract potential settlers + investors, provide practical information for readers
• discovery as the identification of new commodities and their uses

• description of the usefulness of the land
• interest in fertility, familiar and edible plants
• appeal for settlement and immigration
• appeared in many different forms: sermons, pamphlets, books...
• adressed a diverse readership, diverse group of pot. settlers + investors → therefore different forms, strategies + arguments
• typically contained religious, political and economic discourses

►Prom. texts described America in a way that made it interesting for investors + potential settlers to go there + cultivate and to convince investors to invest in the NW (b/c this meant profit for England as a nation as well) 

Examples:

• Hakluyt's The Principal Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries of the English Nation (1589) including a translated text by a Portugese writer
• Harriot's A Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia (1588, 1590)
• Robert Johnson's Nova Britannia: Offering most excellent fruites by planting in Virginia (1609)
• promotional pamphlet by Anonymous, A True Declaration of the Estate of the Colonie in Virginia, with a Confutation of Such Scandalous Reports as Have Tended to the Disgrace of So Worthy an Enterprise (1610)

-  artists/illustrators who provided the images and pictures 

- J. White accompanied the voyage to of Sir Walter Raleigh to Virginia where he made watercolours of the indigenous people, plants, and animals there, invited to accompany J. Smith, too → to provide an accurate idea of the inhabitants and environment in the NW, mode of stereotyping the NAs (to convey similarity btwn. NAs and Europeans)

- T. de Bry used White's images as a template, made engravings from White's drawings to be printed in Thomas Hariot's account of the journey (played an important role in promotional literature) and also in other texts→ images circulated widely throughout Europe, come with a legend of America (readers were given useful information and explanations about potential settlements), esp. standard visualizations of indigenous life + customs had an impact on the cultural perception of the NAs

→ travel of images and visual information, used in different contexts and for different purposes

'America' as a contested space:

• Am. as an object of power struggle between European nations => mercantile, economic and political interests (power + wealth; also played out in texts)
• religious framework (rel. interest) => justification for conquest and appropriation:

1. supremacy of Christian belief
2. dominance of Catholic Church
3. but also: the ambivalence of conquest => moral criticism (e.g. de las Casas)

The New World as a utopian space:

• religious narrative of salvation ("Heilsgeschichte" - the course of empire; connects with the narrative of empire / truly Christian empire)
• 'paradise' regained (idea of redemption)
• spiritual renewal and material profit 
• new forms of social justice and political freedom => Thomas More Utopia (1516) and other utopian designs, new lit. genre
• ►rethinking + revising Europ. political + social organizations → utopian thinking ►Am. as a space for projections (hopes, wishes, ideas, plans, 'starting from scratch')

⇒both elements (contested + utopian space) inscribed in English texts from that time, struggle btwn. opposition and promotion until well into the 17th century (early phases of Engl. colonisation + expansion)

-author of The Principal Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries of the English Nation (1589)

-active supporter of the founding of settlements and plantation --> text must be seen in the context of the promotional efforts to get people to invest in the colonisation of America

-his work:

• one of the foundational texts of English discovery
• three part volume, describing the discoveries + explorations of the English around the globe; last part deals with the exploration of America by the English since 1170, appeared before the establishments of English colonies (attempt to write a full history of the English discoveries, make a claim about the greatness of his nation and people)
• compilation of travel reports, letters, documents concerned with the discovery and appropriation of America; written in the name of the English nation
• establishing the English nation as seafaring and global nation - after the defeat of the Spanish Armada (1588) during the reign of Elizabeth I (establishes an image of the English people as discoverers: "The English discovered everything"), helping England to become a world power
• claim: English have a continuous history of (first) discoveries, discovered basically everything (based purely on obscure textual evidence, made-up/exaggerated reports not clearly identified, examples of assumed discoveries)
• both the younger and the elder Hakluyt were important promoters of the founding of settlements ('colonies') in Virginia and the northern part of America ('New England')
• ►actual and textual/symbolic appropriation go together!
• their work was completed and expanded by Samuel Purchas (1577-1626) esp. Hakluytus Posthumus or Purchas, His Pilgrimes (1625)

•  Soldier, pirate, slave, adventurer, colonial president, self-promoter
•  'Concillor' for Virginia Company 1606
•  President of Virginia Colony 1608-09, saved Jamestown through reorganization
•  A True Relation of ... Virginia (1608)
•  Traveling and exploring in 'New England' 1614
•  A First Description of New England (1616)                                                                                                                                      •  A Map of Virginia ... and the Proceedings of the English Colonie (1612)
•  A Generall Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles (1624)
•  The True Travels and Adventures of Captaine John Smith (1630)
•  Advertisements for the Unexperienced Planters of New England, or Anywhere (1631)

→ large quantity of diverse texts (adventure stories, captive stories...), not always clear whether sth. is true or made-up, form of fictional autobiography (one of the central genres for the next decades)

• promotional literature, but different from Hakluyt or Harrison: Smith promotes the self, diff. intention (depicting himself as a hero instead of distancing himself)
• emphasis on self-empowerment (America as a place to become successful + powerful, own biography as an example --> self-made man
• emphasis on the English nation and the importance of the colonies for it (colonization as the continuity of royal sovereignty)
• his writings and attitude = primary source for one of the most lasting myths of America (Pocahontas)

1. establishment of a rigid system of labour in which everyone had to work, irrespective of class differences (those who didn't work didn't get food)
2. tapping into the native knowledge and getting closer to their language and knowledge in order to learn from them to secure the survival + success of the colony

• referring back to Hakluyt: Hakluyt as a compiler of sources as opposed to Smith as an active participant of the project of colonization, emphasis on individual action and his heroism
• idea that the colony's success was dependent on Smith's individual actions
• self-depictions all about taking captive, subjugating and ruling the NAs + legend of Pocahontas: convey the impression that the project of colonization can only be successful either by force or by seduction
• for the first time: active engagement in the project of colonization becomes central in the writing about America

• mediated that a native was overcome by love
• added the element of empathy to his accounts (Jamestown's survival explained in a narrative of her act of grace+love)
• added the element of desire on the side of the colonized:  implies that there was a desire in Pocahontas to save him and the project of colonization (idea that colonization could be successful either by force or by seduction)
• "We were saved by the grace of Pocahontas" --> powerful myth
• myth of Pocahontas and her saving and loving J. Smith, topos of her grace, empathy and love recurrent in popular culture up until today, reproduced and retold in many forms and genres

⇒ America as an emergent constellation; narrative (words+images) presented a particular reaction of the NAs (depicting them as friendly instead of hostile to counter existing fears, element of desire on the side of the colonized: writes about successfully conquering native tribes, but also the idea that the 'savages' welcome colonization)

1. promote a certain idea of America: place of possibilities and opportunities to start anew, become powerful + wealthy, e.g. Virgina as a probable site of gold (focus on money + material gain)
2. counter existing scepticism, fears and doubts of potential investors and settlers (therefore: emphasis on truth, factual descriptions, evidence)
3. legal justification for colonization
4. idea of abundance turns into the idea of potential (what might be possible in the NW, what will come into existence, 'good news', utopian perspective)
5. references to familiar experiences + knowledge (esp. about farming)
6. describing the NAs as a civilized society, focus on their similarity to Eurpeans, signalled that it was safe to go there 
7. focus on religion: notion of promoting + expanding Christianity, conversion of the natives
8. presenting the colonisation as ethically correct / morally right
9. idea of plantation (connecting the idea of colonisation to agriculuture): planting=settlement, survival; idea of growing=expansion → cultivation as appropriation, settlement method, cultivation as a way of justifying settlement (profitable=justified), development + residence (goal: forming settlements that would stand, survive + grow/expand)

1. description of the merchantable commodities: things that could be traded that were already there and things that could be produced by planting, profit for indiv. settlers and for England as a nation (economic + political independence through the founding of colonies) → focus on trade, exchange, traffic, potential profit
2. focus on the commodities for victuals + sustenance: secure survival of the settlers, edible commodities, in order to counter the idea of uninhabitable wilderness
3. focus on the NAs manners + customs and on available building materials (buildings + houses used by the natives) in order to tell pot. settlers what is already there, emphasis on similarity btwn. the culture/ways of life of the NAs and Europeans

throughout the text: emphasis on truthfulness, expert opinion, first-hand experiences, religious, political and economic discourses, discovery as the identification of new commodities and their uses