Europeans’ representations of Native American women tell us about European
perceptions of their conquest of the Americas. However, depending on the artist,
and with careful critical tools, we can also learn about the women depicted.
ses allegory, a device common in Western European art — employing the female form to symbolize a country or abstract qualities such as virtue or liberty. Images of America represented by an idealized Native American woman were highly popular in Europe. The illustration here, titled America, is an engraving created around 1580 by Flemish engraver Theodor Galle, based on a drawing from around 1574 by Jan van der Straet. The striking image represents Amerigo Vespucci, the Italian explorer whose name was eventually given to the land mass he first explored in 1499,° as he “awakens” America. The animal at bottom right is a sloth, and in the background naked people are roasting a human leg on a spit, indicating the widespread belief that American Natives were uncivilized, barbaric, and cannibalistic. The engraving projects America as a bountiful land, but with savage peoples. The phrase in Latin may be translated in two ways: “Amerigo rediscovers America; he called her once and thenceforth she was always awake” or “Amerigo laid bare America; once he called her and thenceforth she was always aroused.”
How might these different translations elicit different interpretations of the engraving? What is the significance of Vespucci’s being clothed and standing while the woman representing America is largely naked and reclining? Why would Europeans choose to depict America as a woman? What does the engraving reveal about European society and values?
