Native hut at Nassau 1885

Winslow Homer made this watercolor painting titled "Native Hut at Nassau" during one of his trips to the Bahamas. The image shows us what appears to be a modest Bahamian home made from white painted boards with a thatched roof and a sandy yard. Homer made many paintings of the Bahamas in the 1880s, and "Native Hut at Nassau" is characteristic of his fascination with the island’s culture, architecture, and climate. But we must consider the history of this country, and remember that the Bahamas had only recently abolished slavery in 1834. The people were poor and formerly colonized. The presence of a tourist like Homer making paintings to be sold back in the United States, calls to mind the power dynamics between the colonizer and the colonized. What does it mean for an artist to represent the everyday life of a people so different from himself? Is he celebrating them, or is he exploiting their image for his own gain? These are the questions that social art historians ask, and in order to answer them, we turn to historical documents such as letters, diaries, and account books.