On April9, 1585, three ships sailed from England, bound for the land 
of "Virginia." Aboard them were men and women sent by Sir Walter 
Raleigh to establish and English colony in  the New World. Among the 
colonists was John White. He returned to England two years later-
fortunately, as it turns out, because Raleigh's colony  soon 
disappeared-bringing with him a number of watercolor paintings 
that depict the Native Americans of Virginia as they appeared at the 
time of their first contact with Europeans. These paintings, later 
rendered into engravings by Theodore De Bry, are among the finest 
records of North American Indians in the early colonial period. The 
engraving above shows the colonists arriving in Viginia.