Floridae Americae Provinciae Recens & exactissima descriptio Auctorè Iacobo le Moÿne cui cognomen de Morgues, Qui Laudõnierum, Altera Gallorum in eam Prouincian Nauigatione comitat . . . in Part II of Theodore de Bry’s Grands Voyages, 1591.
The American province of Florida recently, and exact description of the author James le Moÿne whose nickname of Morgues, who Lothian, it Prouincian voyage the French into the next county. . . In Part 2 of Theodore de Bry's Grand Voyager, 1591.
Jacques Le Moyne’s map and forty-two of his illustrations of Timucua Indian life in Florida appeared in De Bry’s work. The experiences of le Moyne paralleled and then intersected with that of John White. In 1564 Le Moyne sailed as an artist with the French Huguenot’s illfated attempt to plant a colony in Florida. The Spanish attacked Fort Carolina on the River May (the St. John’s), and only fifteen people, including Le Moyne, escaped the massacre. He then settled in London and was hired by Sir Walter Raleigh to document his Florida experience. Le Moyne and White became colleagues, and a surviving, unpublished map by White that covers from Cuba to the Chesapeake was certainly based on this work by Le Moyne. Both White and Le Moyne came into contact with the Dutch publisher, Theodore De Bry, who lived in London from 1585 until 1588. Le Moyne refused to accept De Bry’s offer to purchase his work, but when LeMoyne died in 1587 his wife sold his work to De Bry. Some scholars question the autheticity of LeMoyne’s Florida drawings since they should have been destroyed during the Spanish attack. <br /><br />While this map included accurate information about the coast, the speculative nature of the interior, particularly the placement and size of the lakes, perpetuated misinformation for decades. Some later cartographers combined Le Moyne and White’s maps and produced a map which greatly reduced the Carolina area.
Jacques Le Moyne
1591
Latin
“Ould Virginia, A description of part of the adventures of Capt. Smith in Virginia.” 1624.
Captain John Smith displayed in words and pictures his heroic exploits in Virginia. This account of his capture of Indians and their capture of him along with his rescue by Pocahontas made him the first legendary figure in American history. <br /><br />The map in the bottom center panel was published separately in 1624 and then as shown here as a page in Smith’s Generall Historie. Cumming and De Vorsey commented on this map by noting how little cartographical impact Smith’s work had on later map makers. Burden disagrees and states how useful Smith’s work remains for contemporary archaeologists because Smith accurately located 166 Indian<br />villages.
John Smith
1624
Virginia. Discovered and described by Captain John Smith, Grauen by William Hole.
Leading cartographic scholar Philip Burden labeled Smith’s work, “One of the most important printed maps of America ever produced.” In 1608, the second year of the colony, Smith led an expedition to reconnoiter the interior and to find food. For several months he explored the Chesapeake Bay and its tributary rivers. His map shows how far he ventured up these rivers. The key reads, “To the crosses hath bin discouerd what beyond is by relation.” When Smith returned to Jamestown, he reluctantly became its leader and tried to impose discipline on the colonists for a year. Back in England after 1609, Smith arranged for the publication of his monumental map and book, the source of this map.
John Smith
1624
New England, by Captain John Smith. 1616. From T<em>he Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles</em>, 1624.
The bold and arrogant John Smith, who emblazoned his portrait on his map, had no intention of retiring from his life of adventure after leaving Jamestown. He envisioned creating his own colony to the north of Virginia, a more realistic, better organized settlement with him in charge. <br /><br />In 1614 he explored and surveyed the coast of Maine and Massachusetts Bay and in 1616 published this map, the first to use the name New England. He replaced many of the indigenous names with English ones, but his only surviving place names are Cape Ann, Charles River, and Plymouth. Storms, shipwrecks, pirates, and capture by the French ended his later attempts to settle there, and his map remains as the most positive result of this venture. Thwarted as a colonizer, in part because of his boldness, he settled for writing books about his adventures and the New World.
John Smith
1624
Americae pars, Nunc Virginia dicta, primum ab Anglis inuenta, sumtibus Dn. Walter Raleigh, Equestris ordinis Viri Anno Dni. MDLXXXV regni Vero Sereniss: nostrae Reginae Elizabethae XXVII
Part of America, now called Virginia, first discovered by the English, have been taken Dn. Walter Raleigh, Knight of the Men, of the Year 1585, most gracious of , our Queen Elizabeth 27
This was the first separate map of Virginia. Drawn by John White, it appeared in Thomas Harriot’s <em>A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia</em> in Vol. 1 of Theodore de Bry’s <em>Great Voyages</em> in 1590. <br /><br />As an explorer, surveyor, cartographer, painter, and colonial administrator, John White played a central role in Sir Walter Raleigh’s attempt to plant a colony along this coast. Apparently from a humble background, White belonged to the London painter-stainers guild and achieved historical significance because of his employment by Raleigh. During White’s first voyage to Virginia in 1585-86, he along with Thomas Harriot, a noted scientist, surveyed the region. White’s detailed paintings of Natives engaged in daily activities rank among the most important images of North American Indians. The sketch White produced in 1585, a copy of which is preserved in the British Museum, became the basis for this published map. <br /><br />In 1587 White returned to Virginia as governor with a small group of colonists. Under orders from Raleigh, White planned to pick up the remaining Englishmen on Roanoke Island and move the entire settlement to a more favorable location on the Chesapeake Bay, but the ship captain refused to comply with White’s orders. At the urging of his settlers, White returned to England to secure needed supplies. The arrival of the Spanish Armada in 1588 delayed his return until 1590, when he found the vacant “Lost Colony.” Among those missing were his daughter and granddaughter, Virginia Dare, the first English colonist born in North America. In the same year, White’s map appeared in Theodore De Bry publication of Harriot’s glowing accounts of Virginia that sought to attract new settlers to Virginia, even though White’s experience there might argue against such a migration.
John White
1585
Latin
Florida, et Regiones Vicinae, ca. 1630. Delineated by Hessel Gerritsz and published by Joannes de Laet in Novus Orbis, 1633 and L’Historie de Nouveau Monde, 1635 and various other works.
The director of the Dutch West Indies Company, Johannes de Laet, and the company’s chief cartographer, Hessel Gerritsz, collaborated in producing and publishing early maps of the New World. This depiction of the southeastern region of North America was one of the first to label Florida the Tegesta Province for the Tequesta Indians who lived on the southeast tip of the peninsula. That title continued to be used by map makers for almost two centuries. Rather than showing the Mississippi as a single river, Gerritsz and Laet have six separate rivers flowing into the Bahía del Spíritu Santo and another illogical delta configuration of three rivers at what is now Apalachicola. They also followed the tradition of other early map makers by including large interior lakes in the Appalachian mountains and along the Atlantic seaboard. Hessel Gerritsz had worked for Willem Blaeu before he joined the Dutch West India Company, and Gerritsz actually travelled to Brazil and the Caribbean in 1628-29 to experience the New World, an unusual act for map makers during that period. His maps became models for those cartographers who followed him during the 17th century.
1630
Noua Terrae-Mariae Tabula, or Lord Baltimore’s Map, 1635. Second edition by John Ogilby, 1671.
Always known as Lord Baltimore’s map, this is the first depiction of Maryland as a separate colony. Two “adventurers” among the first colonizers, Jerome Hawley and John Lewger, probably drew the map. They obviously used John Smith’s map; the delineations are similar, and both share the same north-facing right orientation. While Smith provides a more accurate image of the Chesapeake Bay, Hawley and Lewger did some surveying and added more details. This was the first published map to label the James and Rappahannock Rivers correctly. With the Calvert family’s coat of arms prominently displayed, this map was produced as a compliment to a pamphlet (also written by Hawley and Lewger) designed to attract settlers to this Catholic refuge. Only twenty copies of the pamphlet with the original map are preserved in libraries in the U.S. and the U.K. John Ogilby issued a second edition of this map in his America (1671). Earlier scholars asserted that Ogilby used the 1635 plate for his image, but later ones challenge that assertion because of Ogilby’s additions. He labelled the ten Maryland counties that existed in 1671. His new version had an extra row of trees along the northern border, and he moved that boundary northward to the 40th parallel, a detail missing from the original, but one certainly supported by the Baltimore family. This map is Ogilby’s edition. (Information from Huntingfield Map Collection, The Maryland State Archives.)
1671
“Nova Belgica et Anglia Nova.” Willem Janszoom Blaeu. Based on Adrian
Block’s 1614 map and published in Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1635.
The primary source for this work was a map produced by Adrian Block in 1614. Working for fellow fur traders within the Dutch West India Company, Block explored and mapped the coast between Cape Cod and Manhattan. His was the first map to show Manhattan as an island and to label “Manhates” and Niev Nederlandt.” By naming Adrian Block Island, off the coast of Rhode Island, he insured continuing fame. Block used de Laet’s 1630 work and Samuel de Champlain’s 1612 map. Block placed north to the right as was the case with John White and John Smith’s maps. <br /><br />Willem Janzsoon Blaeu, a Dutch cartographer, took Block’s work, expanded it, and produced one of the most beautiful maps of the period. Animals such as beavers, polecats, and otters appear here for the first time on a European publication. A Mohawk village based on John White’s drawings published by de Bry views for attention with sailing ships and Indian canoes. <br /><br />Blaeu, who was educated by the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe, began a cartographic tradition that established his family for generations as the leading map, globe, and atlas publisher during the golden are of Dutch map making.
1635
Carolina by Herman Moll, geographer. 1729.
Herman Moll’s 1729 map of Carolina, which is known as the Azilia Map, contains only a little more information about this region than what appeared on his 1720 “A New Map of the North Parts of America claimed by France . . . .” Both identified the future Georgia as Azilia. Sir Robert Montgomery requested that he be granted the land between the Savannah and Altamaha Rivers as a military buffer south of Carolina. His descriptions presented the land’s natural beauty as being a “Paradise” and labeled the Golden Islands along the coast. His proposal to create the Margravate of Azilia never rose about the level of a plan. On his 1720 map, Moll identified the area as the Margravate of Azilia in 1720 but only as Azilia in 1729, perhaps realizing the failure of Montgomery’s scheme.
In both his 1720 and 1729 maps, Moll trumpeted the military triumphs of the Charlestonians against the Spanish and the Indians. Both maps note the location of St. Maria de Palxy, a Spanish Apalachee Indian mission, destroyed by the English in 1705. Moll noted the contributions of Captain Thomas Nairn to his 1720 map; he had served as a commander in the raid against the Apalachees before being killed by the Yamassee in 1715. In 1720 Moll notes the victories of the English against the Indians in 1712 and 1716.
Moll’s information about Captain Nairn and warfare on the frontier might well have come from the contacts Moll developed at Jonathan’s coffee house in London that was frequented by well-known literati and adventurers, including pirates.
1729
New Map of Georgia, Amsterdam, for I. F. Bernard, 1737.
The first printed map of colonial Georgia, it appeared in two states or versions. The map shown above is a contemporary reproduction and enlargement of the second state. Benjamin Martyn as secretary to the Trustees of Georgia published two pamphlets that included these maps. The first imprint appeared in the 1732 Some Account of the Designs of the Trustees for Establishing the Colony of Georgia in America and the second in the 1733 Reasons for Establishing the Colony of Georgia . . . Historical geographer Louis De Vorsey noted several changes in the two versions and believes that James Oglethorpe possibly altered the map to make the region appear less warlike to potential settlers. In the second version, Spanish St. Augustine is located about 70 miles too far to the south and outside of the territory claimed by England. Also omitted from the second state are two prominent inscriptions dealing with Indians and war. Along a trail that follows the Chattahoochee River from central Georgia down into central Florida is written, “the Road of Ochese going to war” and in large letters across the southern portion of the Florida peninsula appears, “Here the Carolina India[ns] leave their Canoes when they war with the Floridians.” Oglethorpe and the trustees, who were seeking colonists from the continent, did not want such descriptions on the Georgia maps being reprinted in European cities, such as this version from Amsterdam.
1733
“A Map of the County of Savannah.” Attributed to James Edward Oglethorpe. In Samuel Urlsperger, Der Ausführlicche Nachrichten . . . Halle, 1735.
The precise history of this map, drawn a year after the settlement of Savannah, is shrouded in mystery, but most scholars see the hand of James Edward Oglethorpe, “Georgia’s cartographically astute founder,” as being involved in drawing and distributing it. Strong evidence suggests it was based on a sketch that Oglethorpe carried back to England in 1734. Whether the plate was engraved in England or Germany is unclear, but it subsequently appeared during the 1730s and 1740s in Samuel Urlsperger’s “Salzberger Tracts,” publications designed to attract new settlers to Georgia. Another theory proposes that because of its title the map dates from the creation of the County of Savannah in 1740-41.
(Quote from Cumming & De Vorsey, 250-51.)
1735
“Georgia.” R. W. Seale. In Benjamin Martyn, An Account Showing the Progress of the Colony of Georgia . . . from its First Establishment, London, 1741.
Benjamin Martyn, the secretary for the Georgia Trustees, published a history of the first nine years of their experiment in social engineering. This volume contained a chronology, reports of the Trustees, letters from James Oglethorpe, and a copy of this map by R. W. Seale. The strength of this map is its delineation of the early settlements. An insert gives a detailed view of St. Simon’s where Oglethorpe established Frederica as an outpost against the Spanish. The information for this area might well have come from Oglethorpe while he was in England trying to recruit troops for the Georgia frontier. This insert map shows the trail between that fort and the barracks to south, where Oglethorpe defeated the Spanish in the Battle of Bloody Marsh in 1742.
The cartographer for this image, hopefully not Oglethorpe, failed to accurately interpret the waterways. The Ogeechee River is shown as parallel and co-equal with the Savannah. A “R Undiscovered” flows from a swamp southwest of Augusta and ends without reaching any other body of water. The Alatamaha splits into two main rivers and the southern branch flows to the ocean at the location of what should be the mouth of the St. Mary’s. Both Talbot and Amelia Islands are shown inside Georgia rather than in Florida, a reality Oglethorpe would have endorsed.
1741
“A New Map of Georgia, with Part of Carolina, Florida and Louisiana. Drawn from Original Draughts, assisted by the most approved Maps and Charts. Collected by Eman. Bowen, Geographer to His Majesty.” In John Harris, Navigantium atque Itinerantium Bibliotheca. Or, A Complete Collection of Voyages and Travels. London, 1744-48.
Emanuel Bowen’s map shows the full width of the Georgia colony from the Atlantic to the Mississippi River or French territory in 1748. Harris first published his atlas in 1705 and for the 1744-48 and 1764 editions added a chapter on the history of Georgia illustrated by this map. According to Cummings, this work is similar to Bowen’s other maps of this period but is on a larger scale.
Bowen is rather generous with the boundaries of Georgia; he places the G in Georgia on the west side of the Mississippi in land claimed by France, England’s chief rival at that point. Bowen also notes trails used for the Indian trade and the location of various Indian groups. More importantly he indicates whether they are in amity with the French or the English. A note between the Oconee and Ocmulgee Rivers states, “The Cherokees, Creeks, and Chikasaws assisted General Oglethorpe in the Wars against the Spaniards.” Bowen inaccurately depicts the Chattahoochee as a short river while the Flint extends into the mountains.
“Plan von Neu Ebenezer. From Samuel Urlsperger, Ausfürhliche Nachrichten von den saltzburgischen emigranten.” Published by Matthaeus Seutter, 1747.
Georgia attracted a large group of Lutherans who were expelled by the Catholic bishop of Salzburg in the 1730s. The English “Society for Promoting Christain Knowledge” financed the voyage of the first group. Their first settlement in Georgia on the Ebenezer River proved to be an inhospitable area, and they relocated to the banks of the Savannah River. This map shows their new, rationally laid-out settlement and was designed to attract more religious immigrants. This appeared in Samuel Urlsperger’s “Saltzburger Tracts.”
1747
“A Map of South Carolina and a Part of Georgia . . . the Author William De Brahm, Surveyor General to the Province of South Carolina, one of the Surveyors of Georgia . . . 1757.”
De Brahm, an engineer/surveyor who arrived in Georgia with the Salzburgers, executed the first large-scale southern map that possessed topographical accuracy. He used the scientific surveys of others and conducted his own for several years. This large map, which primarily focuses on the coast, consists of four panels, each measuring 24 x 26½ inches. De Brahm’s work is significant in that most of the surveys he used have not survived, and his work became the basis for later maps.
1757
Unidentified survey of the Georgia coast from the mouth of the St. Johns River in Florida to the Stono River in S.C., post-1763.
“A New and Accurate Map of the Province of Georgia in North America.” From Universal Magazine. London: J. Hinton, 1779.
Perhaps the last map printed of Georgia as a colony, this appeared in J. Hinton’s Universal Magazine, one of several gentlemen’s magazines circulating in London. During the American Revolution, Hinton’s journal included maps of all of the American provinces, a term resented by American rebels after 1776.
This attractive map presents accurate details along the coast, including the names of many creeks flowing into major rivers, but its maker did not consult the latest and best authorities in preparing this work. Specific information about the interior is lacking or inaccurate, and only a few Indian towns are noted.
Since none of Georgia’s boundaries had been surveyed by 1777, the vagueness of its borders is understandable. To the north, North Carolina is not shown as a neighboring province. To the south, the line between Florida and Georgia inaccurately follows the 31st parallel all the way to the headwaters of the St. Mary’s River, which is located too far to the west. This boundary, as defined by the British crown in 1763, ran in a straight line from the St. Mary’s headwater (marked in 1800 by Ellicott’s Mound) to the intersection of the Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers, which this map places north rather than south of the 31st parallel. The Chattahoochee River, a name that appeared on other maps at least 40 years earlier, is here called the Gr, presumably Great Flint River, and its course is generally north to south for its entire length, an error shared by most maps of this period.
1779
“Georgia from the Latest Authorities.” W. Barker, sculp. Engraved for Mathew Carey’s American edition of Guthrie’s Geography, 1795.
Mathew Carey, an Irish immigrant, became the nation’s first large-scale cartographic publisher of American maps and atlases. He sought to make money and to celebrate the new republic. This particular atlas and Joseph Scott’s Gazetteer of 1795 share honors as the first American atlas. Carey included 21 maps on American subjects. Unlike Scott, Carey identified Georgia’s counties including a Tallassee County on the southern border that never existed as an official entity, only as an Indian name.
1795
A map of Georgia, also the Two Floridas from the best Authorities. Doolittle, sculp. Engraved for Morse’s Universal Geography. Published by Thomas & Andrews, Boston. [1796].
Amos Doolittle, a New Hampshire cartographer and engraver, produced this map. The level of detail in the Georgia portion of his work is very similar to W. Barker’s map in Carey’s 1795 atlas. The major distinction is that Doolittle includes West Florida and East Florida as far south at the Matanzas Inlet below St. Augustine.
1796
“Georgia from the Latest Authorities.” Engraved by John Scoles. New York: I. Low, 1799. From John Payne’s Universal Geography.
This image is a copy of Carey’s 1795 map in Guthrie’s Geography with the engraver’s name and date changed. This map continued to be issued unchanged by other printer for at least another ten years. The J. K. Spencer map collection contains two additional black and white versions of this image, both dated 1810, added by hand.
1799