CCD > HIS 201 > Novus Orbis

CCD History 201

 

Novus Orbis: Images of the New World

Overview

This section traces the evolution of geographic views of North America from the first maps to represent the New World as continents to  exploration in the Mississippi Valley.

When Europeans learned of the immense new continents that blocked their way to Asia, they did not abandon hope of finding a direct passage to the Orient. Explorers and geographers confronted the possibility that the new landmasses could be bypassed altogether, passed through via straits, or traversed on short overland routes.

 

 

In 1524 Giovanni da Verrazano, a Florentine employed by the king of France to find a passage to the Pacific Ocean, mistook the large body of water to the west of the Outer Banks of North Carolina for the Pacific Ocean.

 

 

 

 

  The 1540 map by Sebastian Münster shows this false “Sea of Verrazano.”
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Nearly a century later, John Farrer’s 1652 map of Virginia, which located the Pacific Ocean just over the Blue Ridge, confirmed the persistence of this yearning to find an easy route to Asia. University of Virginia Exhibit

 

 

By the 1600s, the hope for a Panama-like isthmus crossing in North America faded. Moreover, once the Spanish gained control of the southern sea routes, French and English efforts to reach Asia shifted northward in the quest to find a “Northwest Passage.” Several generations of seamen searched for this route across the continent. Although these explorers made several discoveries of “passages” that were later proven false or nonviable, their efforts added significant new information to the maps of North America. Most of the maps in this section show some form of Northwest Passage. Captain James Cook finally disproved the existence of the Northwest Passage in 1778.

Despite growing European knowledge about the New World, a considerable number of aberrations on the maps of the late sixteenth century reveal the limitations of geographic knowledge in this period. Nicolas Sanson’s map depicts California as an island and shows the “Rio Del Norte” (Rio Grande) emptying into the Gulf of California. These and other erroneous representations long influenced explorers and mapmakers.    MIX

NICOLAS SANSON. “Amerique Septentrionale.”— 1669.

Nicolas Sanson’s (1600-1667) involvement in cartography began with the maps and illustrations he drew for publication in his own historical books. His career coincided with a period of bold French exploration and expansion. As the French were building up their store of geographic knowledge and skills, Sanson’s work came to the attention of Louis XIII. Much impressed, the King became Sanson’s patron and appointed him géographe ordinaire de roi around 1630. Nicolas Sanson was the outstanding French cartographer of the mid to late seventeenth century and is considered the founder of the French school of cartography. Due largely to the Sanson family map-publishing business, the patronage of Louis XIV, and the work of the newly-formed Académie royale des sciences, the seat of cartography shifted from the Low Countries to France in the latter part of the seventeenth century.

“Amerique Septentrionale”— was first published in 1650 and revised in 1656 and 1669. It was published in atlases in 1658 and 1667. The French used this map and Sanson’s “Le Canada ou Nouvelle France, etc.”— (1656) in their explorations of the interior of North America. Sanson’s map is the first to show all five Great Lakes. A ring of mountains surrounding the southeastern portion of North America limits the length of the Mississippi River. Sanson’s map suggests the possibility of a Northwest Passage, is the first to label Santa Fe (“S. Fe”—), and locates “Quivira”— to the east of New Mexico for the first time. It also depicts the “R. del Norte,”— or Rio Grande, originating in a lake and emptying into the Gulf of California.

The most notable feature of this map is its representation of California as an island. Sixteenth-century maps had typically, if not accurately, shown lower California as a peninsula. In 1620, however, the Dutch found a chart, drawn about 1602 by Father Antoine Ascension, that showed California as an island. This chart, along with written reports from Ascension and the Spanish explorer Juan de Oñate, led Henry Briggs and many other cartographers to represent California as an island. California continued to appear as an island on New World maps even after the explorations of Father Eusebio Francisco Kino proved otherwise around 1700 (for example, see Item 11). Finally, in 1747, King Ferdinand of Spain issued a royal decree that California was not an island!

Lewis and Clark Map The map that Jefferson used when he sent Lewis and Clark to explore the West shows how little information was shared between countries. From the perspective of the Americans in the early 1800's much of the interior was still a mystery.

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AARON ARROWSMITH.
“A Map Exhibiting all the New Discoveries in the Interior Parts of North America.” 1795, with additions to 1811.

Arrowsmith produced his first map of North America in 1795 after the Hudson’s Bay Company had given him access to the many journals and surveys of western Canada contained in its archives in London. Arrowsmith’s 1795 map (not shown) incorporates details from the surveys of Peter Fidler in the Northwest through 1792, from Samuel Hearne’s explorations west of the Hudson Bay, from Alexander Mackenzie’s journey to the Arctic Ocean in 1789, and from George Vancouver’s chart of the Northwest coast and the “River Oregan” (lower Columbia River). The 1795 map shows a vestige of the “Great River of the West” and the Missouri River appears as a river fragment unconnected to either the “Stony Mountains” or the Mississippi River. Arrowsmith also includes a note stating that the “Stony Mountains” are “3520 Feet High above the Level of their Base and according to the Indian account is five Ridges in some parts.”

The 1802 revision of the map of North America, on display, delineates the complete length of the Missouri River as well as Mackenzie’s journey to the Pacific in 1793. The depiction of the Missouri headwaters, which Arrowsmith studied from Peter Fidler’s drawing of a map by the Blackfoot Indian Ac Ko Mo Ki, shows several streams joining into two branches of the Missouri which flow almost due east. The southern branch of the Missouri appears to be the main branch of the river and connects to the Knife River; the northern branch is a good representation of the actual course of the Missouri.

Although the revised map still shows a single ridge of mountains in the west, a note near the southern sources of the Missouri states: “Hereabout the Mountains divide into several low Ridges.” This note, which was based on the reports of Fidler, Mackenzie, and Thompson, was more encouraging to Jefferson and Lewis than the note about the Stony Mountains on the 1795 map, which, unfortunately, turned out to be more accurate. Arrowsmith’s map situates the Great Lake River on the western slopes of the mountain range and connects this river to the Columbia River with a dotted line. Since another note claims that this river can be descended to the sea in eight days, the Arrowsmith map supported the erroneous belief in a convenient route to the Pacific Ocean.

Both the 1795 and 1802 versions of Arrowsmith’s map served as resources that Nicholas King consulted as he prepared his map for the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Lewis and Clark, in fact, carried the 1802 Arrowsmith map along on the expedition. Thomas Jefferson owned the 1802 map as well as an 1802 edition of Arrowsmith’s map of the United States. Arrowsmith’s 1802 map of North America was the most comprehensive map of the West available to Jefferson and Lewis and it was probably the most important map used in the planning of the expedition.

The map on display is the lower half of “A Map Exhibiting all the New Discoveries” from an edition labeled “1795, with additions to 1811.” The lower half of the map is identical to the 1802 edition. Numerous revisions of this map were published until 1850.