Drawing on First Impressions

In an excerpt from BackStory, a radio program produced by Virginia Humanities, Joyce Chaplin, the James Duncan Phillips Professor of Early American History at Harvard University, discusses the watercolor depictions of Virginia Indians created by English artist John White. In 1585, White accompanied a failed colonizing expedition to Roanoke Island in present-day North Carolina.

The interview was conducted by Peter Onuf, the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation Professor of History, Emeritus, and a co-host of BackStory.