A charte of the island of Cap Verd

Title

A charte of the island of Cap Verd

Map shows the Island of Cap Verde

ca. 1650

Artist

Goos (1590-1643)

Abraham Goos (1590–1643), was a cartographer and map seller. He has published numerous globes, land and sea maps together with Jodocus Hondius and Johannes Janssonius in Antwerp. From 1666, Pieter Goos, his son, also published a number of well produced atlases. He was the first to map Christmas Island, which he labelled ""Mony"" in his map of the East Indies, published in his 1666 Zee-Atlas (Sea Atlas). His Atlas ofte Water-Weereld (Atlas or Water World) has been cited as one of the best maritime atlases of its time. Another of his fine works was the Oost Indien (East Indies) map published in 1680. Pilot books, which contained a large number of navigation charts, were published by many authors, including Goos. He had a notarized agreement with two others, Jacob Lootsman and Hendrick Doncker, to publish pilot books for navigation along the Mediterranean coast, also covering easterly and westerly navigational routes. These were called the Dutch pilot books and remained valid for the period from 1643 to 1680. Goos was also instrumental in publishing the first pilot book for coastlines outside Europe. A further improvement over the pilot books in Dutch cartography was the publication of sea atlases covering the whole world. Initiated in 1659 by Doncker, the approach was also adopted by Goos from 1666. One of his larger works is named le grand & nouveau miroir ou flambeau de la mer (1662).In the same year, Goos published -The Lighting Colomne or Sea-Mirrour-, which not only contained nautical charts, but also -a brief instruction of the art of navigation-. The maps of Goos and Gerard van Kuelen were used exclusively during the eighteenth century until 1740. They were, however, found to have deficiencies such as the location of sandbars, grand banks and islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, with inaccuracies of as much as 44 leagues on the reduced Goos maps. Goos' famous world map titled Atlas ofte Water-Weereld was in two parts, one for each hemisphere. The colourful presentation included the two poles. His maritime maps encompassed not only Europe, Great Britain and Ireland but also the two poles.

Historical Description

For a long time in human history, the Atlantic was the great body of water that separated the "Old World" from the "New World." Covering an area of about 106 million square kilometers, the Atlantic Ocean makes up roughly one-fifth of the Earth's surface. Due to its vast size, the Atlantic is commonly divided into the North Atlantic and the South Atlantic. In the 17th century, the Atlantic Ocean was a central stage for global trade, colonialism, and naval power politics among the European powers. European countries such as Spain, Portugal, England, France, and the Netherlands used the Atlantic for their colonial ventures. The Americas, West Africa, and the Caribbean were interconnected through the Atlantic—economically, politically, and militarily. The transatlantic triangular trade flourished: European goods were brought to Africa, exchanged for enslaved people, who were then shipped to the Americas. From there, raw materials such as sugar, tobacco, or cotton were transported back to Europe. Thus, the Atlantic was also a major zone of intensive slave trade. The Atlantic routes were dangerous: in addition to natural hazards, there were also pirates and conflicts between rival colonial powers. By around 1680, the Atlantic had become the backbone of the emerging global economic system—shaped by colonialism, the slave trade, and naval power. It connected continents, but also spread violence, exploitation, and power struggles. After Christopher Columbus's first crossing in 1492, regular ocean crossings did not begin until the 19th century. People in Europe wanted to leave behind the poor living conditions of the time and start a new life in the rapidly developing Americas. This led to large waves of emigration.The first transatlantic steamship set sail from Bremerhaven on July 2, 1847.