Mode of Collecting Gold in Streams Running From the Apalatcy Mountains (1591)
Artist: Theodor de Bry (after Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues)
From: State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory
The engravings published by Theodor de Bry in Grand Voyages (1591), after watercolors made by Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues, are the earliest known European depictions of Native Americans in what is now known as the United States. Le Moyne, a member of the short-lived French colony known as Fort Caroline (in coastal north Florida near present-day Jacksonville) founded by Huguenot explorer Rene Goulaine de Laudonniere (ca. 1529-1574), based the watercolors on his experiences in Florida in the 1560s. De Bry later published Le Moyne's work, along with other illustrations of the New World, as part of an effort to encourage European colonization in the Americas.
All but one of Le Moyne's original drawings were reportedly destroyed in the Spanish attack on Fort Caroline in Florida; most the images attributed to him are actually engravings created by the Belgian printer and publisher Theodor de Bry, which are based on recreations Le Moyne produced from memory. These reproductions, distributed by Le Moyne in printed volumes, are some of the earliest images of European colonization in the New World to be circulated. Le Moyne died in London in 1588, and his detailed account of the voyage, Brevis narratio eorum quae in Florida Americai provincia Gallis acciderunt, was published in 1591. The images of the Timucua and related maps, said to be based on Le Moyne's drawings by de Bry, have fallen under intense scrutiny and their legitimacy as works related to Le Moyne are considered very questionable. Jerald Milanich, author of books on the Timucua and an archaeologist at the Florida Museum of Natural History has published an article in which he questions whether Le Moyne produced drawings of the Timucua at all, based on the unexplainable lack of any definite documentation or evidence.
