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.

A 1688 globe gore focused on the Straight of Sanger now known as the Tsugaru Straight separating Honshu and Hokkaido Japan.

             A rare 1690 map by Vincenzo Coronelli noting the discovery of Jan Mayen Island in 1614.

A 1713 map of west Africa by Pieter van der Aa after Olfert Dapper.

A  1760 chart of the Bay of Bengal by Jacques Nicolas Bellin