We undertake a study about the beginning of Protestantism in the Northeast of Brazil through the biography of George William Butler, doctor and protestant missionary. From the point of view of a micro-analytical narrative, we aim to understand how he gives meaning to his social relations and to world around him - the Northeast at the dawn of the twentieth century - as well as the society welcomed an individual with a new religiosity. Realizing the limitations of written sources (mission reports) for such research purposes, we seek an iconographic analysis of the photos published by the missionary, and his wife, through their institution Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUS). We think these images as a means of access to social representations concerning the relationship between a Protestant, who comes from southern United States, with the local culture, through the investigation of the production, circulation and reception of these images. The photographs, collated with other written sources, enabled us to rebuild the ideological dimension of images and the effort to maintain powers, amid the ebb and flow of secularizing transition and anglo-saxon capitalism, uniting both Protestant and landowners of Pernambuco's territory.