US Coins

America rendered as Indian princess on jeton

By John Kraljevich Jr.

Published: Apr 12, 2016, 8 AM

Many early allegorical renditions of America featured Indian princesses.

Images courtesy of Stack's Bowers Galleries

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This 1751 Franco-American jeton depicts on its reverse America as a topless Indian goddess, an allegory that was commonplace in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Images courtesy of Stack's Bowers Galleries.

Colonial America column from April 25, 2016, issue of Coin World:

Interest in America was evident at France’s Palace of Versailles, the enormous home constructed for King Louis XIV, long before the Franco-American alliance was born and Benjamin Franklin was visiting the court of Louis XVI.

France made its first claims on the American continent more than a century earlier, in 1534, when Jacques Cartier sailed into the Gulf of St. Lawrence and became the “discoverer” of Canada (much to the surprise of the thousands of people who already lived there).

By the heyday of Louis XIV’s reign, the French had claimed or explored much of not only Canada, but the American Gulf Coast and the Mississippi River Valley.

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To celebrate his dominions, Louis XIV had the ceiling of his bedroom, called the Salon of Apollo, painted with imagery that would evoke the full extent of his kingdom. In one corner, a painting called L’Amerique depicted a topless native goddess, armed with arrows and wearing a feathered headdress and feather skirt. Holding a long bow, she appeared unconcerned about a fearsome looking alligator at her feet. It is thought to have been painted before 1673.

It wasn’t the first time America had been allegorically symbolized as a topless Indian goddess with a bow and alligator. Since the mid-1500s, European books had been illustrated with sensationalized images of American natives, including bosomy women with deadly weapons and exotic animals.

Borrowing dress from certain South American tribes and an animal common near the mouth of the Mississippi River, the image of America as a native with an alligator became commonplace by the mid-1600s. By the mid-1700s, it was the typical allegory for the whole continent, familiar to literate people on both sides of the Atlantic.

In the days of Louis XV, in 1751, when New France was on the verge of falling, the allegory of America was placed on a small jeton struck at the Paris Mint.

Part of a series now called the “Franco-American jetons,” the medalet showed the Indian goddess with her crops and the legend SUB OMNI SIDERE CRESCUNT or “they grow under every constellation.”

Meant to advertise the fecundity of the American continent to prospective emigrants and celebrate the richness of New France, the medalets were too little too late: all of New France was controlled by Britain within a decade. The jetons survive, as does the Palace at Versailles, but the jetons are a lot easier to add to your collection.