Herisson's 1806 Map of South America

I recently blogged about my 1806 map by Herisson titled L'Amerique Septentrionale from the "Atlas du dictionnaire de géographie universelle" purchaced from V & J Duncan (as always, no affiliation). That map came with Herisson's 1806 L'Amerique Meridionale or South America. It had so many fascinating historical elements I felt it deserved it's own post. Here it is:

For the purposes of understanding just how historic this map is, here's a map of South America today:

 The differences are easy to see. Argentina is instead a mix of the Kingdom of La Plata and The lands of Magellan, Paraguay is part of that region. Chile is wider and shorter than it is today. Brazil is but a shadow of its current size, and there is a vast "Land of the Amazons". Peru is just a sliver, and the lands that today include Venezuela and Colombia are a region known as the Kingdom of New Granada.

I do not know very much about the history of South America, and I hope that a reader can provide more information for me, but I did learn quite a bit when researching this blog post.

Among the things that I find interesting is that this map refers to the "Kingdom of New Granada". This is an entity that, according to wikepedia, existed from 1550-1717 before being replaced by the Viceroyalty of New Granada which existed until 1810, four years after this map was published. I'm not certain what accounts for the difference in the names on this map.

Brazil, at the time this map was published, was on the cusp of important historical developments. One year after this map was published, the Portuguese Court would flee Portugal to escape Napoleon and set up in Rio de Janerio. This would effectively make Rio the capital of the Portuguese Empire for the next 15 years.

Another aspect of South American history that has me coming up empty handed is the history of the lands marked as "the lands of Magellan" in what is today Argentina. My cursory searching has not found anything on such a place, and I wonder if I'm translating incorrectly from the French.

I was also only able to find some basic history of the area listed as "pays des Amazones" or the country of the Amazons. Most of this region eventually became part of Brazil, and at the time this map was published, was on the cusp of an influx of non-native people who were after rubber and other natural resources of the area. In the meantime, however, the map suggests a region left largely to the indigenous peoples of the region. The limited resources I've been able to find suggest that the few Europeans in this region were missionaries and perhaps explorers, but not permanent settlers.

It should be clear by now that my knowledge of South American history is sparse, but the map is so interesting because it shows a region that is politically unrecognizable. It would be fascinating to hear more details about these divisions that, though they may persist in some form today, are quite different than what they were in 1806.