Jamestown Settlement exhibited the 16th-century watercolor drawings of John White from the British Museum’s “A New World: England’s First View of America” from July 15 to October 15, 2008.

History and legacy of John White’s work

The drawings are the earliest visual record by an Englishman of the flora, fauna and people of the land the English called the “New World.” White accompanied a number of expeditions sponsored by Sir Walter Raleigh to Virginia in the 1580s and was governor of the short-lived colony at Roanoke Island, part of modern North Carolina. He departed for England in 1587 to obtain more supplies, but war with Spain delayed his return until 1590. By then the colonists had vanished, and Roanoke became known as the “Lost Colony.”

Jamestown, America’s first permanent English colony, was established 17 years later, about 100 miles away. White’s depictions of the Algonquian-speaking people of the region have been an important resource in the development of Jamestown Settlement’s gallery exhibits and outdoor re-created Pasapegh Town.

Scenes from other parts of the Americas and depictions of peoples of the world are also among the more than 70 White drawings in the exhibition. White’s work is widely known through adaptations by other artists, especially Theodor de Bry, whose engravings after White’s watercolors illustrate a 1590 edition of Thomas Harriot’s “A briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia.”

The exhibition at Jamestown Settlement was funded in part by donations and grants, including an appropriation from James City County.