From the intentions, perspectives, and applications of maps in general, we have narrowed in on mapmaking in America — or at least the colonies. Chapter 1 of Martin Brückner’s book The Social Life of Maps in America, 1750-1860, “The Artisanal Map, 1750-1815: Workshops and Shopkeepers from Lewis Evans to Samuel Lewis” , dives into the first official map made solely in America, versus the British maps that dominated cartography in the English-speaking world. Considered one of the three most important maps in early American history, A General Map of the Middle British Colonies by Lewis Evans exemplified the progress and difficulties of early American mapmaking.
Just as we discussed from previous readings, “Guild politics, government tariffs, and, above all, the vicissitudes of a patronage system that stretched from royalty to interested individuals defined the formative years in the material biography of European com-mercial maps” (Bruckner 28). One cannot expect a situation any different just because the location of production is different. In the colonies, cartographers may have “adapted to and departed from the imperial model of map manufacture” (Bruckner 29), but political and economic interference were unavoidable and inevitable. After the struggling Evans secured the funds and legitimacy to actualize his ambitious project, “official sponsorship and partisan patronage quickly moved Evans and his yet-unfinished map into the dual arena of imperial politics and the marketplace” (Bruckner 32). I can easily understand how a map of such scale, dealing with so many areas and borders in an ever-changing new world, was too important to not touch.
In short, I found this chapter extremely interesting, albeit unsurprising, as we followed Evans’s navigation towards the creation of the first American-made map. I was able to apply information from previous readings to this one and draw connections. Official cartography will always be inseparable from its political aspect.
