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Amerique Septentrionale avec les Routes, Distances en Miles, Villages et Etablissements François et Anglois Par le Docteur Mitchel.
Paris: Par le Rouge Ingr. Geographe du Roy rue des Grands Augustins 1777[.] Corigée en 1776 par M. Hawkins Brigadier des armées du Roi, [ca. 1783]. Engraving on eight sheets joined to form four separate sections, two sections measuring 26” x 38” and two measuring 26.75” x 38”; total dimensions of engraved area 52.75” x 76”. Original outline coloring in pink and green. CONDITION: Very good, some faint dampstains and spotting, mainly in the margins. A beautiful, un-trimmed example of a French edition of the “most comprehensive map of North America produced during the Colonial Era” (Edney), widely considered the most important map in American history. This circa 1783 edition is especially notable for showing the boundaries of the newly independent United States First published in London 1755 and renowned as the map consulted by the ministers of Great Britain and the United States during the Treaty of Paris negotiations (1782–83) to establish the boundaries of the fledgling nation at the conclusion of the Revolutionary War, Mitchell’s map has also been used numerous times since then to resolve boundary disputes, even as recently as the twentieth century. It was consulted for the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842 (the northeast boundary controversy), the Quebec boundary definition of 187I, the Canada-Labrador boundary case of 1926, the Wisconsin-Michigan boundary case of 1926, and the Delaware-New Jersey controversy of 1932. This large and remarkably accomplished map is all the more extraordinary as the only map that Mitchell ever published. Following the Treaty of Utrecht (1713–14), which brought Queen Anne’s War to a conclusion and defined British and French territorial boundaries, hostilities between the two powers abated somewhat for more than three decades, although the struggle for control of North America continued. By 1746 French encroachments on territory claimed by the British led to increased alarm both in the colonies and in England. It was in response to these circumstances that Mitchell created his map. “An extraordinary Renaissance-style man” (Schwartz), John Mitchell (1711–1768) was born in Virginia and studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh. He returned to Virginia around 1735 to serve as physician to the poor at Christ Church Parish, receiving much of his compensation in tobacco. In 1738 he became justice of the peace in Middlesex County. Mitchell practiced medicine, while studying Virginia flora and fauna in his spare time. Possessed of considerable scientific ability, “he described the symptoms and treatment of what was thought to be yellow fever, and presented a fascinating dissertation on the causes of black skin, relating it to environmental and developmental factors. As a biologist he studied the embryology of the opossum; as a chemist he researched methods for producing potash; as a botanist he corresponded with the eminent Swedish botanist and taxonomist Carolus Linnaeus. Mitchell established a new method for classifying plants and even has a species of the madder family (Mitchella repens, or partridgeberry) named for him” (Schwartz). In 1745, due to poor health, Mitchell removed to London where he advised aristocratic gardeners on exotic plants. Among his gardener acquaintances was George Dunk, Earl of Halifax, president of the Board of Trade and Plantations, who was aware of Mitchell’s expertise not only in the flora and fauna of the America, but also in the geography of the colonies. By 1749 the Board had enlisted Mitchell to produce a large-format map of the British and French colonies to bring the extent of French encroachment to the attention of the Crown and the British public, providing him with important access to relevant official data which allowed him to improve greatly on an earlier crude draft he had created on his own initiative. Published in February of 1755, Mitchell’s Map of the British and French Dominions in North America subsequently went through “twenty-one editions and impressions…in four languages between 1755 and 1781” (Schwartz). Two years after the appearance of his map, Mitchell published The Contest in America Between Great Britain and France, With Its Consequences and Importance (London, 1757). In drafting his map, Mitchell relied not only on his own considerable knowledge of the geography of North America, but also on contemporary maps (including the Fry and Jefferson map of Virginia and maps by George Washington and frontier explorer Christopher Gist) and other information supplied by colonial governors, as well as cartographic data in London’s Public Record Office. Mitchell’s map “was devised as a conscious cartographic rebuttal to French boundary claims proposed on maps prior to the French and Indian War and it distinguishes British and French possessions in eastern North America and the administrative subdivisions of the British colonies” (Schwartz). The most obvious example of Mitchell’s pro-British stance is his representation of the boundaries of the southern colonies, which extend well across the Mississippi River, giving the map an air of “Manifest Destiny” well before the notion became current in the nineteenth century. A key difference between the English editions of Mitchell’s map and the Le Rouge version is the depiction of these boundaries. Whereas the English editions show these extending across the entire map, Le Rouge shows them terminating at the Mississippi, effectively using the Mitchell map to make a counter-claim. Other French cartographers who copied Mitchell did the same, including Jean Nicolas Bellin, Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville, and Robert de Vaugondy. The copy of the Le Rouge/Mitchell map offered here is Stephenson’s third edition, sixth impression, with the date 1777 in the cartouche, the boundary between the newly independent United States and Canada represented by a dashed line, and a note east of New Hampshire reading “En Mars 1783 on a tracé sur cette Carte Les Limites des Etats unis et des autres puissances selon le dernier Traité de paix”—the latter a reference to the boundaries as fixed by the Treaty of Paris and updated here. A lovely example of a monumental map. REFERENCES: Schwartz, The Mapping of America, p. 160; Stephenson, Richard W. “Table for identifying variant editions and impressions of John Mitchell’s map” in Ristow, W. A la Carte, p. 113; Martin, L. “Mitchell, John” in Dictionary of American Biography, vol. 13, pp. 50–51.
Item #7892
Price: $12,000.00
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