Theodore de bry indians torturing spaniards inn

These are four examples of the engravings of Theodoros de Bry. De Bry never actually visited the Americas himself, but based on the accounts that he heard back from the New World, he did a series of engravings – very powerful engravings – that are illustrated here.

He depicts in several of these violence between Indian and Indian, violence between Indian and invading Spaniards, the navigation up a small bay of explorers, and, in still another, a particularly violent episode between the slave masters of the day, the conquering Spanish, and the Indians, who were enslaved and made to work in horrible conditions.

The larger story frequently told by de Bry, and certainly told by three of the four of these prints, is man’s inhumanity to man.

One of the pictures which is particularly interesting shows the Spanish invaders attempting to embattle the Indians who are defending themselves in a variety of manners.

At the very center of the picture there is a group of Indians shown up in a styliz