English 4371: Cultural Encounters

Householder, fall 2005

10/4/05: Recording Encounters

 

 

 

  1. Archival research at SMU’s DeGolyer Library.

 

 

    1. Why do archival research when so much is available on line?

 

 

    1. Some examples

 

 

                                                              i.      1589 edition of Hakluyt’s Principal Navigations

 

 

 

                                                            ii.      Theodor de Bry’s 1590 edition of Thomas Harriot’s A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia.

 

 

 

                                                          iii.      Theodor de Bry’s 1598 edition (in Latin) of Bartolomé de las Casas’s Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies.

 

 

 

 

  1. Harriot’s Briefe and True Report—a corporate text. 

 

 

    1. Thomas Harriot (b. ca. 1560, d. 1621). 

 

 

 

 

 

    1. John White.  (b. ca. 1540, d. 1606?) 

 

 

 

 

    1. Theodor de Bry (b. 1528, d. 1598).  

 

 

 

 

    1. Richard Hakluyt

 

 

 

 

 

  1. Reading the Report

 

    1. Prefatory letter “To the adventurers, etc.”

 

 

 

 

    1. What you don’t see in the Mancall edition: “Marchantable” commodities and sustaining commodities.

 

 

 

 

    1. “Of the nature and maners of the people”: Harriot’s invention of ethnography

 

 

 

 

                                                              i.      “but that they shall have cause both to feare and to love us, that shall inhabite with them”

 

 

 

 

                                                            ii.      The problem of colonial control

 

 

 

 

 

                                                          iii.      “invisible bullets”

 

 

 

 

 

                                                          iv.      “there is good hope they may be brought through discreet dealing and government to the imbracing of the trueth, and consequently to honour, obey, feare and love us”

 

 

 

 

Conclusion: 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next time: Final drafts of essays due Thursday.  Please submit in a pocket folder, final draft on the left (titled, proofed, page numbered, stapled), all other supporting materials (charts, outlines, drafts, comments, revisions, etc.) on the right, most recent material on top.

 

I recommend that you read Kupperman chs. 1-3 in preparation of our discussion of de Bry’s engravings of White’s illustrations in Harriot’s Report.