The Map Division includes no less than 75 maps and atlases created by prolific mapmaker Herman Moll (1654?-1732), whose exact origins are obscure, though it is assumed he was born in Germany or the Netherlands. We do know he produced a series of world atlases from his shop in London, the first of which was published in 1701 under the title A System of Geography.

Our copy of Moll's "The Isle of California, New Mexico, Louisiane, the river Misisipi, and the lakes of Canada," which may possibly come from one of his earlier atlases, is uncolored and has the number 36 handwritten in the upper right corner. As the title indicates, this map contains one of the most famous geographical errors in the history of cartography—the depiction of California as an island separate from the North American continent. This mistake was quite common in maps produced in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. (One Japanese map included the error as late as 1840.)  

Moll’s map is relatively small, 16 x 18 cm  (6 ⅓ x 7 inches), but it includes a great deal of information and shows the New Mexico and Louisiana colonies that occupied the western two-thirds of the continent. While the shape of North America appears wildly inaccurate, the general geography—the mountainous west, the Mississippi River feeding the "Bay of Mexico", and the location of the Great Lakes—for the most part, is correct. Moll also includes brief descriptions such as "Niagra Fort here is a great waterfall" and inscribed below the Rio Bravo del Norte (aka Rio Grande), "The people above this riv. are continually in wars with Spanyards",  most likely in reference to the Pueblo Revolt in the late 1600s in the upper Rio Grande region of New Mexico. Also, note the phrase "Mission de Recolects, this is ye farthermost in ye whole country" in reference to the Recollects a French Reformed branch Order of the Friar Minor.

British bookseller and publisher John Hinton (-1781) created "A new and accurate map of the present war in North America", a color, 27 x 36 cm (10 ½ x 14 inches) map, two years after the Battle of Lake George; thus, it includes a depiction of Lake George near the center with adjacent labels "Gen. Johnson’s Camp" and "French Camp." 

His map helps us understand what the North America battles of the Seven Years’ War were really about—control of people, resources, and land. In the mid-18th century, boundaries between colonies and tribal lands were in flux, usually based on the ability of a group to control an area through force or, more often than not, by direct occupation. Maps were a manifestation of this desire to claim and control the natural resources (beaver pelts, fresh water, arable land) and helped to codify territorial domination. Like most maps of colonial North America, Hinton’s work exemplifies this idea through the use of color, depiction of physical features, and toponyms, but without the use of solid boundary lines. We see the names of forts, Indian territories, and colonies—intertwined and overlapping—with each fighting to control the imagined space on his map plate.

Like Hinton, Thomas Kitchin (1718-1784) was another 18th century cartographer based in London, whose works can be found throughout the Library’s collection of maps of early America. His engraving "A new map of the Cherokee Nation" shows the territory controlled by the Cherokees in what is now eastern Tennessee, northern Georgia, and the western edge of Virginia and the Carolinas. It appeared as an illustration in the February 1760 edition of the curiously titled journal London Magazine, or, the Gentleman’s monthly intelligencer.

Although the Cherokee’s ancestral land was located a few hundred miles south of the ongoing skirmishes within the Appalachian region of the Northeast, the strategic importance of their land (and the reason it was of concern to 18th century English gentlemen) can be seen in the note at the lower left of Kitchin’s map, describing an observation made by a British Army colonel concerning the possibility of French troops using rivers within the territory to supply materials from the west to their allies in the towns closer to the battles. At first glance, the map may seem confusing due to his description of what is now known as the Tennessee River as the "Mifsifsipi River"; however the Tennessee does, in fact, feed into the Mississippi after connecting with the Ohio River 652 miles (1,049 km) to the west. This river and the state that bears its name are derived from the former territorial capital Tanasi or "Tunnasee", as it is labeled at the upper-left corner of the map.  

The Cherokees’ ancestral land, like all other Native lands along the Atlantic coast of North America at this time, was increasingly coveted by the British crown and her colonial settlers, who moved steadily westward from the coastal plain over the Appalachians, into the woodlands and savannas east of the Mississippi. This was especially true at the conclusion of the French & Indian War and is exemplified in "Distribution of his Majesty's forces in N. America…", a pen-and-ink watercolor manuscript map by cartographer and Assistant Second Major General Daniel Paterson (1738-1825). It shows movement of British detachments from larger regiments and companies in Spring 1766, three years after the Treaty of Paris (1763), which ceded French Canada to Britain and control over East Louisiana (New France east of the Mississippi). France's territory west of the Mississippi was ceded to Spain in return for its loss of West Florida and East Florida to Britain.

Note the depiction of large regiments of British soldiers stationed throughout newly acquired forts of Mobile, Pensacola, Detroit, and Quebec City, as well as movements of companies from Quebec to forts throughout South Carolina. Equally important is the large label "Lands reserved for the Indians", which covers most of the land west of the Appalachian Mountains and east of the Mississippi, from the Florida Panhandle up north into modern day Quebec.

Paterson’s map depicts the territorial expansion of the Atlantic coast colonies into the continent onto the eastern shores of the Mississippi, however the inclusion of this note over the newly acquired lands reinforced King George III's Royal Proclamation of 1763 forbiding all settlement west of a line drawn along the Appalachians.

We are all familiar with the phrase "history is written by the victors"; in the world of antiquarian maps, its truth is certainly questionable. Case in point: The Library’s collection of American Revolutionary War battle maps, which where almost all created in London (with a few exceptions like the 1777 map made by Gabriel Nicolaus Raspe in Nuremberg and this 1781 map made by Charles Picquet in Paris.) Although there were several American cartographers who produced maps depicting the various military engagements of the War for Independence (see American Maps and Map Makers of the Revolution) few of their original maps may be found in the Library’s holdings (Bernard Roman's 1775 Map of the seat of Civil War in America is a notable exception.)

Fortunately, we can still gain an appreciation for the events of the war using the works created by the "losing side" such as this 1775 engraving titled "Boston and the adjacent country with the stations of the British and provincial armies" for Benjamin Martin’s General Magazine of Arts and Sciences. Although measuring a mere 18 x 23 cm (7 x 9 inches), the map provides ample information on the fortifications and troop location in the vicinity of Boston, during the Battle of Bunker Hill, June 17, 1775.  

One of the best-known British cartographers who depicted America’s battle for independence was royal geographer William Faden (1749-1836). Born the son of a London printer, Faden would complete an engraver apprenticeship in 1771 and would go on to publish, engrave, and create scores of maps and atlases of Europe and North America, including Bernard Ratzer’s "Plan of the City of New York" (1776) and one of the most authoritative books to document the war, The North American Atlas (in 1776, 1777, and 1778).

The atlas includes 23 hand-colored maps of the various military skirmishes between the "rebels", the French, and the British armies that occurred throughout the conflict. He would go on to produce multiple versions showing the Battle of Sullivan’s Island, the Battle of Brooklyn, and the Siege of York Town.
 

The war would officially end on September 3, 1783 at the signing of the Treaty of Paris. Six months later, a little-known goldsmith (and convicted counterfeiter) from Connecticut named Abel Buell would publish his now famous "A New and Correct Map of the United States of North America Layd Down from the Latest Observations and Best Authorities Agreeable to the Peace of 1783", the first map to be copyrighted in the newly formed United States of America.

For many years, historians believed William McMurray’s "The united States according to the definitive treaty of peace signed at Paris Septr. 3d, 1783" to be the first, but his map was published in December of 1784, a full eight months after Buell’s. McMurray, a captain of the 10th Pennsylvania Regiment who served as U.S. Assistant Geographer, was much better-connected to the young country’s centers of power and, as a result, his map not only depicts the state boundaries as they existed but also includes the proposed boundaries of the forthcoming states between the Ohio and Mississippi River, planned by Congress in April 1784,  in what was then referred to as the Northwest Territory.

Before the state lines within this vast area that included several of the Great Lakes could be finalized, this territory would first need to be mapped and surveyed. The work of Philadelphia geographer, draftsman, and publisher Samuel Lewis (1753 or 1754 -1822) certainly played a role in the public’s understanding of this region, and the states that formed the original 13 colonies. Lewis would also publish maps of the Louisiana territory with information gathered by the two-year journey of William Clark and Meriwether Lewis (no relation). His "map of part of the N.W. Territory of the United States" was created in 1796, four years before Ohio, the first state formed from part of the territory, was admitted to the Union. As the subtitle states, it is compiled from "actual surveys and the best information", showing the location of natural features, military forts, and the area land grants that would soon become part of the state.

Lewis’ map also depicts a line labeled "Indian boundary line agreeably to Treaty at Greenville 1795…", a reference to the treaty signed between representatives from several local Native American tribes and the U.S. government, establishing a boundary between land open to settlers and land reserved for use by Native peoples.

Needless to say, this line didn’t hold for very long as U.S. migrants from the east slowly pushed westward into what is now the Midwest. The call to push indigenous peoples from western lands would continue for the duration of the 19th century; however, the desire to exploit Native lands would also include peoples who had historicaly occupied areas in the American South under the Indian Removal Act of 1830. The forced relocation of the southeastern tribes (including the Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Seminoles, and Creeks) and the nations aboriginal to the Midwest (including Sac and Fox, Shawnees, and Kickapoos) into areas that would eventually be officially known as Indian Territory (lands that were traditionaly inhabited by the Osages, Kiowa, and Kansa peoples) was created under the Indian Intercourse Act of 1834.

All of this is captured in cartographer Washington Hood’s "Map illustrating the plan of the defences of the western & north-western frontier" (1837), which he created to accompany a Senate report by Charles Gratiot in October 31, 1837. Like Lewis, Hood (1808-1840) was a Philadelphian; unlike the elder mapmaker, Lewis created maps largely based on survey work he himself had participated in as a member of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Corps of Topographical Engineers. Hood would die a year after falling ill from an 1839 expedition in the northeastern region of what would later become Oklahoma.

 

It's not surprising that maps created by the Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) and Corps of Topographical Engineers comprise a significant portion of the NYPL U.S. map collection. The former organization was created in March 1802 by Thomas Jefferson; the latter was formed in July 1838 under President Martin Van Buren.

Although initially acting as two distinct organizations (merging together as the USACE in March of 1863), both played crucial roles in surveying and mapping the various French, British, Mexican, and Native American territories bought, annexed, and ceded to the U.S. government between the Mississippi River and the Pacific Coast, throughout the 19th century.

A good example of the Corps' work can be seen in "Map of the United States and their territories between the Mississippi and the Pacific Ocean and part of Mexico" (1850), a large, 110 x 97 cm (43 x 38 inches) map engraved by Sherman & Smith, most likely at their NYC office that was located at 135 Broadway.

Read part two of our pre-1900 map series, North vs South and Moving West.