Theodore de Bry, Grand Voyages to the New World

The examples below in German, printed 1617



Theodore de Bry was born in Liege in modern day Belgium in 1528. Around 1570, when the Spanish invaded the Low Countries he fled to the German city of Strasbourg, where he set up as a goldsmith and engraver. This experience gave him an anti-Spanish outlook. In 1587, de Bry travelled to London to meet with a Frenchman named Jacques le Moyne. Le Moyne was a survivor of the French attempt to settle Florida in 1564. Whilst in Florida he had made a series of paintings depicting life at the French settlement at Fort Caroline. De Bry hoped to use Le Moyne's paintings as guides to base a series of engravings on. Unfortunately for De Bry, Le Moyne (who had been employed by Sir Walter Raleigh) refused to part with his paintings.

In 1588, De Bry tried again. Le Moyne had recently died, and his widow was willing to sell the artwork, along with Le Moyne's explanations of each painting.

But before he produced a book from the Le Moyne material, a friend, Richard Hakluyt, an Englishman with an interest in voyages of discovery and exploration, suggested a book based on the more recent English attempt to settle a colony in Virginia, using a series of paintings done by John White, governor of the English colony at Roanoke. The result was a book published in 1590 called Collectiones Peregrinationum in Indiam Occidentalem et Orientalem.

De Bry now proceeded with his book based on Le Moyne's paintings. This was called Brevis Narratio Eorvm Qvae in Florida Americae Provicia Gallis Acciderunt and was printed in 1591.

His books were a great success and he now planned a series of books, known as Grands et Petits Voyages. He was only able to complete six or seven of them by the time he died in 1598. His sons Jan-Theodore and Jan-Israel worked on them together, publishing eight more parts of the series until Jan-Israel's death in 1611. A single volume compendium was published in 1617. It is pages from this volume that are shown below.

De Bry's books continued to be re-printed for centuries as they gave a valuable first-hand view of the early exploration and exploitation of the "New World".

Theodore de Bry: Grand Voyages - Raleigh, Drake and Pizarro

Grand Voyages Page 257 - Sir Walter Raleigh

This page relates to Raleigh's expedition to Guiana in the northern part of South America, in 1595 in search of the legendary El Dorado, city of gold. In this he was not successful, but he did manage to annoy the Spaniards, who were busy trying to colonise the place.


The engraving on this page shows Raleigh's meeting with one of the tribes on the Orinoco River.
"These Tivitivas are a very goodly people and very valiant, and have the most manly speech and most deliberate that ever I heard of what nation soever. In the summer they have houses on the ground, as in other places; in the winter they dwell upon the trees, where they build very artificial towns and villages, as it is written in the Spanish story of the West Indies that those people do in the low lands near the gulf of Uraba. For between May and September the river of Orenoque riseth thirty foot upright, and then are those islands overflown twenty foot high above the level of the ground, saving some few raised grounds in the middle of them; and for this cause they are enforced to live in this manner…. Of these people those that dwell upon the branches of Orenoque, called Capuri, and Macureo, are for the most part carpenters of canoas; for they make the most and fairest canoas; and sell them into Guiana for gold and into Trinidad for tabacco, in the excessive taking whereof they exceed all nations….. When their commanders die they use great lamentation; and when they think the flesh of their bodies is putrified and fallen from their bones, then they take up the carcase again and hang it in the cacique`s house that died, and deck his skull with feathers of all colours, and hang all his gold plates about the bones of this arms, thighs, and legs. Those nations which are called Arwacas, which dwell on the south of Orenoque, of which place and nation our Indian pilot was, are dispersed in many other places, and do use to beat the bones of their lords into powder, and their wives and friends drink it all in their several sorts of drinks."
Discovery Of Guiana by Sir Walter Raleigh

On the death of Queen Elizabeth, Raleigh was accused of treason against James I and imprisoned for 12 years. In 1616 he set off to try to find a gold mine in Venezuela. He was unsuccessful and on his return in 1618 (one year after this page was printed) he was executed on the old charge.

Grand Voyages Page 214 - Sir Francis Drake

In 1577, Drake was sent by Queen Elizabeth to start an expedition against the Spanish along the Pacific coast of the Americas. After crossing the Atlantic with four ships including his own, the Pelican, he headed south and crossed from the Atlantic into the Pacific through the Magellan Strait. When his companion ships dropped out, Drake continued in his own ship, re-named the Golden Hind, and proceeded to attack Spanish ships off the Pacific coast of South America, gaining much treasure.

He landed somewhere on the coast California and claimed the land for the Crown as Novo Albion.

Drake now sailed westward across the Pacific, and after a few months reached the Moluccas, a group of islands in eastern modern-day Indonesia. While there, the Golden Hind became caught on a reef and was almost lost. After three days the ship was miraculously freed. Drake and his men made friends with a sultan of the Moluccas, taking care not to antagonize the Portuguese, who considered the islands to be their territory.

Drake rounded Africa with several stops along the way and returned to Plymouth, and thus becoming the first Englishman (with 59 remaining crew) to circumnavigate the globe. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth aboard the Golden Hind on April 4, 1581. He died in 1596.

The picture on this page probably shows Drake's visit to the Moluccas.
"The king himself was not far behind, but he also with 6 grave and ancient fathers in his canoe approaching, did at once, together with them, yield us a reverend kind of obeisance …
Whose coming, as it was to our general, no small cause of good liking, so was he received in the best manner we could, answerable unto his state; our ordnance thundered, which we mixed with great store of small shot, among which sounding our trumpets and other instruments of music, both of still and loud noise; wherewith he was so much delighted, that requesting our music to come into the boat, he joined his canoe to the same, and was towed at least a whole hour together, with the boat at the stern of our ship."
Visit of Drake to Sultan Baber of Ternate in the Spice Islands (Moluccas) 1579 Sir Francis Drake. op. cit., p. 190

Grand Voyages Page 5? - Meeting of Pizarro's lieutenant, de Soto and Atahualpa

Francisco Pizarro (c. 1475-June 26, 1541) was a Spanish conquistador, conqueror of the Inca Empire and founder of Lima, La Ciudad de los Reyes, capital of Peru.

In 1532, Pizarro made a third expedition to South America, landing in Ecuador, where he was joined by Hernando de Soto, another conquistador. Together they sailed to Tumbes, but on arrival found the place deserted and destroyed, their comrades missing or dead. As Tumbes was no longer safe Pizarro and de Soto marched inland and established the first Spanish settlement in Peru, calling it San Miguel de Piura, in July 1532.

Following the defeat of his brother, Huascar, the Inca king, Atahualpa, had been resting in the Sierra of northern Peru, near Cajamarca. After marching for almost two months towards Cajamarca, Pizarro and his force of 106 foot-soldiers and 62 horsemen arrived and made preparations for a meeting with Atahualpa. Pizarro sent Hernando de Soto, friar Vicente de Valverde and native interpreter Felipillo to meet Atahualpa at Cajamarca. Atahualpa, however, rebuffed the Spanish, saying he would "be no man's tributary." This was probably because he had 80,000 soldiers!

Atahualpa's refusal led Pizarro and his force to attack the Incan army at the Battle of Cajamarca on November 16, 1532. The Spanish won and Pizarro took Atahualpa captive. In spite of Atahualpa's promises to supply one room full of gold and two of silver, Pizarro had him executed on August 29, 1533.

A year later, Pizarro completed his conquest of Peru.

Hernando de Soto later became the first European to explore the Mississipi valley

This picture on this page illustrates the meeting between Hernando de Soto and Atahualpa.


Early Printed Books - Introduction
1493 Nuremberg Chronicle (Schedel's World History)
1572 The Wittenberg Bible
1588 Michael Eytzinger: Of Leone Belgico, eiusque topographica atque historica…
1617 Theodore de Bry: Grand Voyages to the New World -Introduction and pages on Raleigh, Drake and Pizarro [THIS PAGE]
1617 Theodore de Bry: Grand Voyages to the New World -Florida and the French: le Moyne's pictures
1617 Theodore de Bry: Grand Voyages to the New World -Mexico