Add it to the Wishlist: A Snapshot of North American History from 1762

I notice, as I build up my virtual wish-list, that many of the maps I'm choosing aren't from places I've been, but where I'm from, specifically Montreal, Quebec or Canada. That's why this 1762 map by Thomas Jefferys titled: "A Map of Canada and the North Part of Louisiana with the Adjacent Countrys [sic]" easily makes the list. The map is being offered for sale by Neatline Rare Maps of San Francisco for more money than I could ever hope to be able to afford to spend on a map!

Here's a picture of it:

I highly recommend visiting the Neatline site to get a much closer zoomable look at this map. Neatline has also provided a well researched background of the map and what it shows.

There are a couple of interesting points Neatline makes that are worth highlighting:

The reference to First Nations groups is interesting, not only in their identification on the map, but also in that part of this map seems to have been made possible by reports from a first nations explorer named Ochagach who himself produced a map useful for western exploration by the French. It's a significant detail that tends to be lost in more general pictures of first nations that we learn about in school.

The other is the map's "mythological" elements. To me, the coolest is the legend of Fou-Sang, shown on the west coast of the map. It's a place supposedly visited by the Chinese as far back as 219 BC. Wikipedia writes a bit more about it. It's a remarkable story, but may have been a popular myth at the time this map was made.

Finally, a few points that Neatline did not mention that are interesting to me, and possibly to most Canadians. For one, there was a New Britain and a New South Wales in Canada. These are not place names that are used today, and are now occupied by other provinces or territories in Canada. I had to do some searching on Wikipedia to learn a bit about their history. Especially interesting was that these place names were in use basically at the same time that Canada was being taken by force by the British from the French. It seems, therefore, that there was some, albeit sparse, English presence north of New France as well as to the south of it.

I also love the annotation to the east of Hudson's Bay that a supposed lake, which connect to the north Atlantic through Labrador and Northern Quebec was "very doubtful". I wonder why they even thought to put that there. What prompted the map-maker to think this possibly existed?

As a final point, this map gives a great sense of a moment in time in western expansion by the European powers. The eastern portions of the map are detailed, show political boundaries, towns and geological features and looks accurate to the modern viewer. As you look west, however, detail fades, gradually, until the vast blank expanse of the prairies and west coast. It goes to show, once more, that maps like this are historic snapshots.

Add it to the Wishlist: 1714 Map of North America

I enjoy looking at websites that showcase antiquarian maps and follow accounts of that type, as well as map vendors on Twitter. As a result, I often come across maps that I think would be so wonderful to have in my collection if only I could find or afford them.

Since maps like that make me mappy, I thought my mappy place would be a great place to keep a running wish-list and explain what it is about certain maps that I love.

Today's wishlist map is this beauty of North America from 1714 that I found on mapmania:

There's so much great stuff going on in this map, but first, here's the little I could learn about it, thanks to this always great source, there's a good deal of information available. This map comes from an atlas meant to show recent and new long voyages of European discovery in different parts of the world. The language on the map is French, but the publisher, Pierre Van der Aa, is Dutch and was working in Leiden. Apparently, many of the other maps in the Atlas are similarly beautiful, featuring elaborate cartouches with titles.

I want to point out a few things about this map that I love and that piques my interest in it.

First, I love that it's incomplete. The map is virtually blank to the west of the Mississippi and north of what would today probably be Texas. The Arctic is unexplored, it appears that Greenland is attached to the North American mainland and California may or may not be an island.

Greenland 

Is California connected to anything?

I also love how political boundaries are drawn on this map. European spheres of influence dominate. There is Canada/New France, which extends to the Southern United States and as far west as the Mississippi. Pre-Seven Years War, New England is hemmed in by the Appalachians, with the French on the other side, and there appear to be a number of polities that I had originally thought were all Spanish. This map identifies them separate: Florida, New Mexico, New Spain and California are all distinct from one another. I admit to being surprised by this and not knowing the history of these regions well enough to understand the distinctions.

Under each of these European polities, however, are the identification of First Nations groups that lived in these areas. For example, there are regions listed as being dominated by the Illinois, the Outaouais and that 'the Apaches are powerful to the west of here'.

Powerful Apaches to the west

 There are a few other things I love about this map. Other than the beauty of the cartouche, and the identification of certain routes of exploration by great navigators, the map has a couple of elements I find somehow whimsical. My favorites are the annotations that in some places there is floating vegetation, though, not as bad as in other places on the same map. This was probably important for navigators to know,

and interesting for Europeans to learn about, but to me, today, it seems somehow comical.

This map definitely makes the wishlist!