Indians and Images: The Massachusetts Bay Colony Seal, James Printer, and the Anxiety of Colonial Identity

Abstract

This article examines differing visual iterations of the Massachusetts Bay Colony seal between about 1629 and 1675 and reads them as reflective of the diffuse nature of colonial identity and that identity's complex relationship with Native Americans. The seals are viewed as representations of the ambivalence, fragmentation, and instability that necessarily accompanied the formation of a colonial New World identity. They also expose the colonists' own uncertainty in their control over the colonized Natives, revealing a crack through which Native Americans, particularly transculturated Native Christians, could critique and ultimately disrupt the conviction—and fantasy—of colonial dominance. Topics include the John Foster and Samuel Green printer's cuts of the seal, Homi Bhabha, James Printer (Nipmuck), Christian Indians, and King Philip's War.