Primary Source

Image Citation

“Their manner of fishynge in Virginia,” engraving by Theodor de Bry after a watercolor of John White, 1577-1590. From A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia, 1590. Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, JS84.11.03 A.

Standards and Skills

Virginia Standards of Learning: VS.2d, VS.2e, VS.2f, US1.3c, US1.5a

Meets National Standards of Learning for Social Studies

Summary and Significance

This image depicts how mid-Atlantic coastal Indians might have fished, using spears, nets, weirs and canoes. It also depicts the rich bounty of available resources available in the Americas, such as fish, birds, plant life and trees. These riches would doubtless have been enticing to potential colonists and investors.

Historical Background and Image Analysis

Image/Author Background

John White was an English gentleman and artist. While exploring what would become Roanoke in 1585-1586, John White created portraits of the Indigenous people he encountered and their towns. Meanwhile, fellow colonist Thomas Harriot wrote about the native inhabitants he encountered in an account titled A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia. In 1587, White was made the governor of what became the famous Lost Colony of Roanoke, along the coast of today’s North Carolina.

The people and places John White painted resided in and near the Outer Banks of modern-day North Carolina. While the Roanoke colony was in modern-day North Carolina, the colony was part of the land Queen Elizabeth I granted to Sir Walter Raleigh, land she called “Virginia.” As mid-Atlantic coastal Indians, the Indigenous people John White painted shared many aspects of culture and language with the Powhatan paramount chiefdom to their north. Therefore, historians use these watercolors to learn about Powhatan culture, even though the paintings do not specifically depict members of the Powhatan paramount chiefdom.

John White returned to England before the members of the Roanoke colony infamously disappeared. By the time he went back to Roanoke in 1590, he found a deserted colony and was forced to return to England once more.

Theodor de Bry was a goldsmith, engraver and printer. He was born in Belgium, but throughout his life he also lived in France and England until settling in Frankfurt, Germany. In Frankfurt, he set up a publishing house. While in England, de Bry had acquired the text of Thomas Harriot’s A Brief and True Report and John White’s paintings. In Frankfurt, he created engravings of White’s paintings. These engravings did not copy White’s watercolors exactly. While de Bry had never been to America, he inserted his own preconceived notion about the people and places of the Americas, including making the features of Indigenous people look more European. In 1590, de Bry published Thomas Harriot’s account alongside his engravings of John White’s paintings in a volume together. The images and text were primarily anthropological in nature: they included portraits of Indigenous people, depictions of their culture and way of life and imagery of their towns. Europeans and their interactions with Indigenous people were absent from the volume.

A Brief and True Report was wildly successful and gave Europeans hungry for information about the Americas a glimpse into a place they would likely never see. However, they were not gaining an objective or fully truthful view of mid-Atlantic coastal Indian life. Rather, their view of the Americas was filtered first through John White’s and then through de Bry’s motives and biases.

Image Analysis

As historians, there’s a lot we can learn about mid-Atlantic coastal culture and society, which included the Powhatan paramount chiefdom. This image portrays several methods of fishing in mid-Atlantic coastal Indian culture.

Weirs: Mid-Atlantic coastal Indians used weirs to catch or trap fish. Weirs were constructed by weaving reeds together, creating a fence-like structure. A hole in the “fence” would allow fish to swim through, where they were then funneled into smaller and smaller corrals made of the woven reed. This method of fishing allowed fishers to capture many fish at once. Weirs were used by Indigenous people all along the East Coast, and archaeologists have found evidence of weirs to supplement the historical record.

Nets: This image shows a net, which is another method of capturing fish, and one that is still used for the same purpose today.

Canoes: Canoes were an important tool not only for fishing, but for transportation in mid-Atlantic coastal society. Boats allowed for fishing in deeper waters farther from shore.

Spears: In this image, Indigenous people wade into the water and use spears to fish.

Fire: Historians believe mid-Atlantic coastal Indians occasionally fished at night. They would use the light from a fire set in the boat to attract fish.

This image depicts several methods of fishing. The original description for the image read:

They haue likewise a notable way to catche fishe in their Riuers for whear as they lacke both yron, and steele, they faste vnto their Reedes or longe Rodds, the hollowe tayle of a certaine fishe like to sea crabb in steede of a poynte, wehr with by nighte or day they stricke fishes, and take them op into their boates. They also know how to vse the prickles, and pricks of other fishes. They also make weares, with settinge opp reedes or twigges in the water, which they soe plant one within a nother, that they growe still narrower, and narrower, as appeareth by this figure. Ther was neuer seene amonge vs soe cunninge a way to take fish withall, wherof sondrie sortes as they fownde in their Riuers vnlike vnto ours. which are alfo of a verye good taste. Dowbtless yt is a pleasant sighte to see the people, somtymes wadinge, and goinge somtymes sailinge in those Riuers, which are shallowe and not deepe, free from all care of heapinge opp Riches for their posterite, content with their state, and liuinge frendlye together of those thinges which god of his bountye hath giuen vnto them....

There is a lot to learn from the image about what its creator thought was important, and how he saw the world. Beyond showing how Indigenous people fished, this image includes elements that were meant to entice potential colonists or colonial investors.

Classroom Inquiry

1. Using the image, ask students what they notice? What do they think the person who created this image wanted the viewer to think and feel?
2. Using the image, ask students if they can identify the following methods of fishing: weirs (traps), nets, and spears.
3. Using the image, ask students what potential colonists might think about the Americas if they saw this image. What about it would encourage them to come to the Americas? What might discourage them?

Related Classroom Resources

• Directory: Teaching with Primary Sources Digital Library
• Essay: Who Were the Powhatan Indians and How Did They Live?
• Primary Source: “The manner of making their boates”
• Primary Source: “Their sitting at meate”
• Primary Source: “The browyllinge of their fishe over the flame”
• Primary Source: “A weroan or great Lorde of Virginia”

Additional Reading

• Thomas Hariot, A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia, DocSouth, https://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/hariot/hariot.html.
• Kim Sloan, ed., A New World: England’s First View of America (UK: The British Museum Press, 2007).
• Helen Rountree, The Powhatan Indians of Virginia (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989).