England's Title to North America, by Richard Hakluyt, 1584
Richard Hakluyt, Britain's foremost champion of exploration and expansion in the New World, never actually made it there. Yet in his Discourse Concerning Westerne Planting, he forecasts British mercantilist interests that eventaully lead to the British colonies' emergence as a safe haven for religious sects (New England) and as productive repository for debtors and the poor (Georgia).

Cabeza de Vaca describes the Indians of the Gulf Coast, 1542
Cabeza de Vaca became an Indian priest and healer after being enslaved by the Karankawa peoples near the present-day Texas coast. He escaped with a few others and wandered among the coastal tribes, learning their languages and customs.

First Interactions and Mutual Impressions between English Settlers and Indians of North Carolina Coast, 1588
Images of Native Americans by German Illustrator Theodore de Bry, 1588
Depictions of Native American Women and British Tribal Woman by Theodore de Bry, 1588
Thomas Hariot wrote about his experience off the coast of North Carolina at Roanoke, the first English attempt at settlement, which was a failure. John White, another colonist, drew illustrations of the native residents which Theodore de Bry, a German illustrator, interpreted in a later edition of Hariot's work. De Bry, like Hakluyt, never visited America. An index to his volume includes illustrations of ancestral British people, the Picts, whom de Bry wanted to show were no more or less "savage" than the Virginians.