Aanval op Québec, 1690 1693 - 1696

This engraving, "Aanval op Québec, 1690," visualizes the clash of empires in North America. Made in 1690 by an anonymous artist, the print depicts the English attack on Quebec, then a French colony. Consider this image not just as a record of military strategy, but as a representation of power, identity, and the violence of colonization. The English, seeking to expand their dominion, aimed to seize Québec, a crucial center of French power in the Americas. What is obscured is the experience and the displacement of the Indigenous populations. Their lands became battlegrounds in a conflict between European powers. Cartography itself was a tool of empire, mapping territory to claim it. It’s not just about lines on a page. The image invokes profound questions about belonging, dispossession, and the legacies of colonial conflict that continue to resonate today.