Explore our growing digital collection of primary sources, which include author background, image analysis and suggested classroom inquiries. Our collection of digital sources include portraits on display at the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown, 17th-century engravings of West Central Africa and 16th-century engravings of mid-Atlantic Indigenous peoples.

Woman Hoeing, engraving by Fortunato da Alemandini after a watercolor by Giovani Antonio Cavazzi da Montecuccolo in Istorica Descrittione De’ Tre Regni Congo, Matamba, et Angola, 1687. Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, JYF2002.20.

Portraits at the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown

Examine the people of colonial America and the American Revolution by exploring portraits on display at the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown. What does the art tell us about 18th-century societies and the people portrayed? Compare the portraits to other primary sources to better understand what they can tell us about the past.

• Portrait of Ayuba Suleiman Diallo
• State Portrait of George III in Coronation Robes

Fortunato da Alemandini’s Engravings of West Central Africans

Learn about West Central African culture through 17th-century engravings by Capuchin friar Fortunato da Alemandini. Based on watercolors painted by fellow friar Giovani Antonio Cavazzi during time spent as a missionary in Angola, these engravings are rare windows into West Central African life.

• Blacksmithing
• Portuguese Priests Baptizing Africans
• Queen Njinga of Ndongo
• Woman Hoeing

Pory’s Proceedings Transcript

Learn about early representative government at Jamestown by examining the 1619 General Assembly of Virginia proceedings as recorded by John Pory, Speaker for North America’s first legislative assembly. Learn who was present at this event, the debated petitions and the laws enacted.

• John Pory’s Proceedings from the 1619 General Assembly

Theodor de Bry’s Engravings of Mid-Atlantic Coastal Indians

Investigate the world of mid-Atlantic coastal Indigenous peoples by taking a closer look at 16th-century engravings by Theodor de Bry. These engravings are based on drawings of Indigenous people created by John White in the 1580s as he explored the coast of modern-day North Carolina. They are used by historians and scholars to draw inferences about Powhatan culture.

• A weroan or great Lorde of Virginia
• The browyllinge of their fishe over the flame
• Their manner of fishynge in Virginia
• The manner of making their boates
• Their sitting at meate