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Regni Mexicani seu Novae Hispania Floridae Novae Angliae
This first state 1716 map of North and Central America is by Johann Baptiste Homann, and was part of his renowned Grosser Atlas ueber die ganze Welt. He was born March of 1664, in the electorate of Bavaria. In 1715, as a leading German Cartographer, he was appointed imperial geographer by Emperor Charles VI and gained privilegia impressoria status, significant to cartographers at that time. He died in 1724 in Nuremberg and was succeeded by his son Johann Christoph with the resulting company called Homann Heirs, managed by Johann Franz and Johann Ebersberger as well as others in after which closed in 1852.
What makes this map a first edition is the absence of " cum privilegio Sac. Caes. Maj." in the bottom line of the cartouche as well as "FLORIDA" horizontally across the mid west as opposed to other editions that have replaced FLORIDA with "LUDOVICIANAE", which is Latin's version of the word Louisiana.
When Christopher Columbus met the shores of North America in 1492, he thought he had traversed
the globe and had made it to the eastern shores of the West Indies. Amerigo Vespucci during a Portuguese expedition to Brazil in 1501 put forward the idea that the Americas were a separate continent. Cartographers Martin Waldseemuller and Matthias Ringmann were the first to
use the word America on their 1507 wall map. The only known copy of the map was deemed lost until
it was found in Germany by Joseph Fischer in 1901. The map was purchased by the United States Library of Congress for 10 Million USD. The Americas are named after Amerigo Vespucci.
Nova Designatio Insulae Jamaicae
This beautiful 1730 folio map of Jamaica is by Matthaus Seutter. The map is divided into 17 parishes. The original 7 parishes were established after the 1665 British military conquest led by Admiral William Penn over Spain's prior occupation. In 1670 Spain formally ceded Jamaica and the Cayman Islands to Britian under the Treaty of Madrid. Admiral Penn passed at the age of 49 in 1670 and in 1681 the British Crown paid their debt to him by endowing his son William Penn, the Pennsylvania Charter.
What initially struck me most when I first saw this map was of course the extremely detailed and decorative artwork. The beautiful title cartouche scene depicts the ancient aboriginal Taino People who lived off the local land and sea before European settlement. Jamaica derives from the Taino word
"Xaymaca" meaning land of wood and water and yet in 1730 Jamaica had a brutal sugar plantation system with 80,000 enslaved people. It was the height of the first Maroon war in which over a century's worth of runaways living in the mountains and forests of Jamaica were waging war against the British establishment. Dichotomy aside, I think we all can appreciate Matthew Seutter's attempt to preserve the ancient history at that particular time
Christopher Columbus is recorded to have been the first European to garner the shores of Jamaica
on May 3, 1494 during his second voyage. He made 4 voyages altogether between 1492 and 1504.
It was the Spanish crown that commissioned Columbus's voyages. The first was with 3 ships and all its cargo and staff with an additional 17 ships afterwards for the other voyages. Queen Isabella of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon financed these expeditions. They sponsored Columbus for purposes including finding a water route from Europe to Asia, discover and secure spices, gold and other riches,
discovering new lands and converting indigenous people to Christianity. Columbus did not set sail alone and was to some extent, just the messenger.
Matthaus Seutter was a German publisher and mapmaker. He was born and passed in Augsburg, Germany September 20, 1678 - March of 1757. He started his adult life working for a brewery. He left that job to study under J.B. Homann as an apprentice engraver. There are a number of maps on this site by Homann. After leaving Homann he started his own firm. In 1732 he was awarded "Imperial Geographer" by Emperor Charles VI. After his death his son Albrecht took the business over until his death in1762. After Albrecht's death the firm was broken up and sold to Probst Publishers and to Tobias Conrad Lotter. Both of which were famous publishing companies.
Carte de l'Isle de la Guadeloupe
A 1758 map of Guadeloupe and Marie Galante by Jacques Bellin. These Volcanic islands lay south of Antigua and Barbados and north of Monserrat and Dominica in the Lesser Antilles. The butterfly shape of mainland Guadeloupe consists of two islands. Grande-Terra and Basse-Terra and are separated by rivers Cul de sac Marin, Riviere Salee and Petite cul de sac Marin. Marie Galante is the third largest island followed by La Desirade ... sounds French. Guadeluope is an overseas Department of France.
It is suggested that Amerindian people (people of the Americas) through archeological discoveries first inhabited this island some 3,000 years ago. It is documented that the Arawaks from the Orinoco River basin in South America replaced the really unnamed people called the Amerindians. The warlike Caribs replaced the Arawaks who were exterminated by the Caribs who supposedly cannibalized the men and placed trophy the women and children for "reuse". It was Christopher Columbus that was the first European to moor and set foot on these islands on November 4, 1493. I is Documented he described the Caribs as friendly and naive and left. Columbus was a discoverer and entrepreneur and not a colonizer. He was paid and scheduled for discovery and would not have been involved in attacks on natives unless provoked... period. One could stake claim his exploration was the seed that created cleansing and slavery but no , these things were happening since the beginning of time for humans. Cherry picking of documented history drops the seeds for revisionist's ideologies.
Jacques Nicholas Bellin (1703-1772) was a French cartographer compiling six atlases from1753 to 1771. Bellin was appointed Chief Cartographer to the French Navy at the age of 18 and twenty years later became engineer to the French Hydrographical office as well as Official Hydrographer to the French King Louis XV. This map was part of Antoine Francois Prevost's monumental "L'Histoire Generale des Voyages" atlas. This massive 20 volume compilation was Published by Pierre de Hondt in The Haige between 1747 and 1780.
Informational sources: History.com; Wikipedia; Britannica
Carte De L'isle De La Barbade
This 1764 full color map of Barbados is by Jacques Nicolas Bellin and was part of his
"Petite Atlas Maritime" which was his most renowned. The atlas was a compilation of some 500 maps
which detailed coastlines and associated ports. He was chief hydrographer to King Louis XV of France by age 18 and also became a member of the Academie de Marine and Royal Society of London.
Bellin was born in Paris 1703 and passed in Versailles 1772.
Upon European exploration, Barbados was inhabited by the Arawaks. These indigenous people are thought to be descendants of the Saladoid who were believed to have migrated from South America around 500 CE. The Portuguese lay claim to being the first Europeans to discover the island and naming it "Os Barbados" meaning bearded one's in reference to the native male population.
Sugar Cane. It was first cultivated in the early 1600's for rum. By mid century sugar cane stood alone
in Barbados as one of the world's biggest sugar industries monetized early on by Sephardic Jews who had been forced out of the Iberian Peninsula via the Alhambra Decree which wanted to rid the country of "heretics" administered by Ferdinand, Isabella and the Spanish Clergy under the Spanish Inquisition. Barbados was a British colony from 1625 to 1966. The government remained a model of the Westminster system until November 30, 2021 when it became a Republic, like the United States. The eventuality of the cane business on the island resulted in massive plantations overwhelming the smaller farmers who moved onto the English Colonies and most notably South Carolina. The main labor to run this machine were West African Slaves as well as some recorded persecuted Catholics. There were many uprisings during this period and all were quelled. The most interesting to me would be Bussa's Rebellion. Out of the some 12 million taken from West Africa to be put to slavery, 500,00 went to what is now the United States and some 600,000 came to this small country.
