In this work I intend to present the existing connections between the production of images and stories, elaborated for European travellers with relation to the American continent in the period that encloses the end of XVIIIth century and first half of XIXth century. These stories had appeared from the experience of trip of naturalists, artists and traders, among others. In them it is possible to find some images of America, dedicated in its majority to the nature and its inhabitants. Far to constitute a homogeneous corpus, these stories and images had transformed America into a weak "and" depraved "continent", whose nature and population represented the primitive of the life in the land. The reflections that guide this work are to think about the statute of the images and narratives produced for the travellers and of the methodological procedures defendants for its analysis.