Visions of America: The Stephen White Collection

Together, 3 works bound in one volume, folio (292 x 191 mm). Engraved portrait frontispiece by T. Cross and engraved titles to A Mirrour and A Geographical Description by R. Gaywood. (Large portion of lower corner of Oo3 in Geographical Description torn away affecting ca 34 lines of text, portrait frontispiece with some small losses to gutter corners and with some fraying along top margin, some browning and staining, a few small rust-holes touching letters.) Contemporary blind-tooled calf (some wear). Provenance: John Barrow (1643-1718), early settler of the Virginia Colony, now North Carolina (contemporary signatures on engraved title and title-page and contemporary annotations, see below).

Fourth edition, expanding on the first edition of 1657 by the addition of A True and Faithful Account of the Four Chiefest Plantations of the English in America. The Geography includes information about America (p.169-90) and Virginia (p.172-3); it also includes an extensive section on the Spanish cruelties in the New World, and particularly after Las Casas. A True, and Faithful Account... describes the four main English settlements in North America as of 1670. Topics covered include weather, agriculture, and natural resources, as well as accounts of Pocahontas (Rebecca Rolfe) and of the 1622 Virginia Massacre in which over 300 English colonists were killed by Indigenous peoples outside of Jamestown.

John Barrow was reportedly born in Norfolk County in 1643, married Sarah Sutton in 1668, with whom he had 9 children, and died in 1718 in Perquimans, North Carolina. Barrow and Sutton were Quakers, and an early Quaker meeting house was built on Sutton’s Creek in North Carolina, so-named because it bordered the lands of Sarah Sutton’s father George. John Barrow was a member of the council of the Albemarle colony, ex officio justice of the courts held by the council in 1689-1691, justice of the Albemarle county court in 1692-1694, just of Perquimans Precinct in 1689-1690 and 1697-1703, and a member of the lower house of the assembly in 1708.

THIS COPY WITH EXTENSIVE 17th AND EARLY 18th-CENTURY ANNOTATIONS IN BARROW’S HAND on the paste-down, verso of the engraved portrait, verso of the last text leaf, and the rear pastedown, most of which are religious in nature and discuss religious law and sin. A 38-line note on the verso of the last text leaf (religious in nature) is signed “Sept 22 1700 J.B.” Annotations on the rear pastedown describe 17th/18th century terminology for interracial couples (“white & negro – mulatos / Indian & white missicos[?] / negro & Indian alcatracos[?]”). ALSO INCLUDED ARE THE NAMES OF FOUR 17th-CENTURY PRIVATEERS: Sir Henry Morgan, François l'Olonnais, Bartolomeu Português, and Para Silliano[?].

Sabin 13448 (Mirrour and Account); Sabin 13444 (Geographical); Wing C4552 (Mirrour); Wing C4517 (Geographical); Wing C4558 (Account).