Vast

Last week my really big (20 x 30 in / 50 x 76 cm) pieces of shina plywood arrived, so I've set aside my carving of the Eliot Bible for later and am starting on the "first" print for this group, called Vast Unpeopled Lands.

One of the most irreconcilable differences between the English and the Native Americans was their views about land. The English were very aware that there were native peoples on the continent -- early explorers had brought home artifacts and amazing tales about the wonders and peoples of the new world. But although they knew the land was inhabited, they also viewed it as "empty" and "uncivilized." John Winthrop, the first governor of Massachusetts, described his reasoning this way:

This savage people ruleth over many lands without title or property; for they enclose no ground, neither have they cattle to maintain it, but remove their dwellings as they have occasion, or as they can prevail against their neighbors.

In other words, because the native peoples did not claim private ownership of land, or fence it or live in permanent villages, the English saw the land as unclaimed and ripe for the taking.

This print will be a landscape print.