The Town of Secota

About this illustration

Creator

Theodor de Bry

Date created

1585–1586

License

This work is believed to be in the public domain. Users are advised to make their own copyright assessment and to understand their rights to fair use.

Source

Original image housed by Documenting the American South / UNC Libraries

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“The Tovvne of Secota.” Theodor de Bry’s engraving of the American Indian town of Secota, published in Thomas Hariot’s 1588 book A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia. A wide foot path extends from the center foreground of the image to the background. Several people stand and kneel in the middle of the path. To the left and right of the path, and in the background, are buildings and agricultural fields. In the bottom right corner of the image, several Indians are dancing in a circle, similar to the one seen in de Bry’s engraving entitled “Their Dances Which They Use at Their High Feasts.”

The text accompanying the image reads:

Their towns that are not enclosed with poles are commonly fairer than such as are enclosed, as appears in this figure which lively expresses the town of Secotam. For the houses are Scattered here and there, and they have garden expressed by the letter E. wherein grows Tobacco which the inhabitants call Uppowoc. They have also groves wherein they take deer, and fields wherein they sow their corn. In their cornfields they build as it were a scaffold where on they set a cottage like to a round chair, signified by F. wherein they place one to watch, for there are such number of fowl, and beasts, that unless they keep the better watch, they would soon devour all their corn. For which cause the watchman makes continual cries and noise. They sow their corn with a certain distance noted by H. otherwise one stalk would choke the growth of another and the corn would not come unto his ripeness G. For the leaves thereof are large, like unto the leaves of great reeds. They have also a several broad plot C. where they meet with their neighbors, to celebrate their chief solemn feasts as the 18 picture does declare: and a place D. where after they have ended their feast they make merry together. Over against this place they have a round plot B. where they assemble themselves to make their solemn prayers. Not far from which place there is a large building A. wherein are the tombs of their kings and princes, as will appear by the 22 figure likewise they have garden noted by the letter I. wherein they use to sow pumpkins. Also a place marked with K. wherein they make a fire at their solemn feasts, and hard without the town a river L. from whence they fetch their water. This people therefore void of all covetousness live cheerfully and at their heart’s ease. But they solemnize their feasts in the night, and therefore they keep very great fires to avoid darkness, and to testify their Joy .

Theodor de Bry was a Flemish-born engraver and publisher who based his illustrations for Hariot’s book on the New World paintings of colonist John White. These depictions of the landscapes and residents of North Carolina provided Europeans with some of their earliest notions of what the North American continent looked like. This engraving was based on White’s watercolor painting, “Indian Village of Secoton.”