John White’s Early Modern Depictions of Native Americans in the ‘Lost’ Colony.
This site is an introduction to the art of John White, depicting images of the 'Lost Colony' of Roanoke Island. Containing a gallery of some of his works, with content provided, hopefully this site will expand and showcase more of White's pictures, and other colonial depictions of Native American life in the 16th and 17th Centuries. This site shall also host blogs inviting discussion upon White's art, early colonial artistic depictions, and how such images informed and perhaps continued to inform concepts of Native American culture in the period and beyond, and indeed their legacy in the 21st Century.
'Gentleman' John White.
´A now infamous chapter in Early English settlement in North America, the settlement of the Roanoke Colony actually refers to two episodes whereby English colonists under Sir Walter Raleigh attempted the ill-starred settling the island of Roanoke Island in Chesapeake Bay in 1585 and 1587 respectably.
´The first attempted colony on the sandy, isolated island was led by Ralph Lane, but was however abandoned due to a series of misfortunes, most notably a lack of supplies and incurring the hostility of the native Algonquin tribes.
´The second, and probably most famous attempt in 1587 was led by a John White with c. 120 new colonists.
John White was most likely born in London in around 1540.
Described as a ‘Gentleman Artist’, known to Sir Walter Raleigh, who dispatched him under the command of Sir Richard Grenville, to Roanoke in order to sketch the landscape to ‘drawe to life’ and provide a detailed depiction of the surrounding countryside and inhabitants.
´ After Lane’s departure, White was selected to be the Governor of the Colony, despite his lack of experience as an administrator nor any particular instances of prior leadership capabilities.
