“Notorious Abuse,” “Traditious Ignorance,” and “Ambitious Incroachment” in Seventeenth-Century Dutch, English, and French Maps of North America

Abstract

In consideration of Richard Daniel’s alarmed discourse found in the text accompanying his map of the English empire in America (1679), one must investigate the supposedly offending French, English, and Dutch maps of the second half of the seventeenth century for North America and, in particular, the region of the Atlantic coastline and the rhetorical devices of possession found on or in these geographical works. In addition to looking at territorial boundaries, one should also make note of armorial bearings, ships with naval ensigns, toponyms and their placement on the territory, dedicatory cartouches, legends with geographical or historical information, native scenes, and symbols for settlement. In addition to attention to possible constraints on or from the map trade, one must consider the correspondence between colonial officials and their respective governments regarding boundaries, encroachment, sovereignty, or the need for maps with a particular focus on the North American coastline. This correspondence reflects the state’s point of view, which in turn was often manifested on maps and in geographical works. Interestingly intertwined with this outspoken sense of rightful possession were the contemporary claims from some quarters that the cartographic enterprise of the late seventeenth century now embraced an empirical approach, as well as the seemingly opposing thread of the economic realities of the print trade, which often used old copper plates with little to no cartographic revision, so that long after political, economic, or military actions resulted in an “adjustment” in possession, printed maps, atlases, and other geographical works still reflected earlier circumstances.