English 4371: Cultural Encounters

Householder, fall 2005

9/15/05: Of Ice and Cannibals

 

 

 

  1. Historical backgrounds and contexts.  Great site at Canadian Museum of Civilization.  http://www.civilization.ca/hist/frobisher/frint01e.html

 

 

    1. The evolution of English colonial policy: conquest, conversion, or commerce.

 

 

 

 

    1. The search for a Northwest Passage.  [map1][map2][map3][map4]

 

 

 

 

 

  1. Martin Frobisher

 

    1. Early life. 

 

 

 

 

    1. His involvement in these voyages

 

Figure 1.  Portrait of Frobisher by Cornelis Ketel (1577)

 

 

 

 

  1. Overview of the three voyages 

 

    1. The first voyage (1576) 

 

 

 

 

    1. The second voyage (1577)

 

 

 

    1. The third voyage (1578)

 

 

 

 

    1. The textual records

 

 

 

 

 

  1. George Best’s A True Discourse of the Three Voyages…of Martin Frobisher. 

 

 

    1. Discussion: In what ways do you see the Frobisher enterprise—either in design or in execution—emulating Spanish colonial practices?  In what ways do you see it attempting to distinguish itself?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    1. The narrative of the first voyage.

 

 

                                                              i.      First contact

 

 

 

 

                                                            ii.      Tokens of possession

 

 

 

 

                                                          iii.      Gold

 

 

 

 

 

    1. The narrative of the second voyage.

 

                                                              i.      The internal empire

 

 

 

 

                                                            ii.      Second contact

 

 

 

 

                                                          iii.      “the best cheare the countrey could yeeld them” 

 

 

 

 

                                                          iv.      Representing savages

 

 

 

 

                                                            v.      The Battle of Bloody Point [painting by John White]

 

 

 

 

                                                          vi.      “more worth the beholding than can be well expressed in writing”  [discussion of the three Inuit hostages and their time in England, including portraits by John White (later governor of Roanoke)]

 

 

 

 

 

                                                        vii.      Native treachery

 

 

 

 

 

                                                      viii.      Failure and fantasy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Conclusion: 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next time: Please read “The Third Voyage of Captaine Frobisher” (41-71) and the brief autopsy report by Edward Dodding available at http://faculty.smu.edu/mhouseho/Teaching/ENGL4371Encounter/FrobisherAutopsy.pdf.   We’ll also be talking about the prefatory material to Best’s narrative: Hakluyt’s notes to the expedition and Best’s discourse on climate differences.

 

Next Thursday we’ll be reading three secondary articles, all available on JSTOR (see syllabus for details).