Carte du Canda qui Comprend la Partie Septentrionale des Etats Unis d´Amerique…

Title

Carte du Canda qui Comprend la Partie Septentrionale des Etats Unis d´Amerique…

Description

Map shows Canada with the great lakes and partly Greenland. Splendid map, historically described as the second decauche printing of the map of De L'Isle and the first state in which the United States is named and the name United States (Etats-Unis) appears earliest on a printed map. It is worth noting that there are two different states of this 1783 "Etats Unis" map. The second has the crown at the top of the cartouche and the royal fleur-de-lis below it, as well as the words "du Roi" removed from the title, suggesting a change to the copper plate by Dezauche after the French Revolution and most likely during the First French Republic (1792-1795), inspired in part by the American Revolution. Curiously, the notation "avec privilege du Roy" at the bottom of the cartouche remains unchanged. Equally noteworthy, the map contains one of the earliest references to the Rocky Mountains, the "Riviere Longue," and other features in the west, based on the reports of Louis Armand de Lom d'Arce, Baron de Lahontan. Lahontan traveled extensively in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and the upper Mississippi Valley. Louis-Armand de Lom d'Arce (1666 - 1716), also known as Baron de Lahontan, was a French officer and traveler in the French colonies of North America. During his time in New France, he visited every nook and cranny, probably visited hitherto little explored areas around the Mississippi River, twice participated in the successful defense of English attacks. On the other hand, he left no major mark on the New World. Except for his last stay at Placentia, he was hardly mentioned in official correspondence. But with his works published in his later years, based on his diary and notes, he brought North America to Europe and became one of the most widely read authors in the first half of the 18th century.

ca. 1792

Artist

L´Isle, de /Covens & Mortier (1675-1726)

Guillaume De L´isle (1675- 1726) Paris, was a French cartographer known for his popular and accurate maps of Europe and the newly explored Americas and Africa. De L´isle was admitted into the French Académie Royale des Sciences, an institution financed by the French state. After that date, he signed his maps with the title of “Géographe de l’Académie”. Five years later, he moved to the Quai de l’Horloge in Paris, a true publishing hub where his business prospered. De L´isle’s ascension through the ranks culminated in 1718 when he received the title of Premier Géographe du Roi. His new office consisted in teaching geography to the Dauphin, King Louis XIV’s son, a task for which he received a salary. De L´sle’s reputation as a man of science probably helped .This supports the claim of the historian Mary Sponberg Pedley, who says “once authority was established, a geographer’s name might retain enough value to support two or three generations of mapmakers”. In De L´isle’s case, it could be said that his accomplishments surpassed his father’s. Up to that point, he had drawn maps not only of European countries, such as Italy, Spain, Germany, Great Britain, Poland, and regions such as the Duchy of Burgundy, but he had also contributed to the empire’s claims to recently explored continents of Africa and the Americas. Like many cartographers of these days, De L´isle did not travel with the explorers and elaborated the maps mostly in his office. The quality of his maps depended on a solid network that would provide him first-hand information. Given the family’s reputation and his own, De L´isle had access to fairly recent accounts of travellers who were coming back from the New World, which gave him an advantage over his competitors. Being a member of the Académie, he was also aware of recent discoveries, especially in astronomy and measurement. When he could not confirm the accuracy of his source, he would indicate it clearly on his maps. For instance, his Carte de la Louisiane shows a river that the baron of Lahontan claimed he discovered, but no one else could validate it, so Delisle warned the viewer that its actual existence was in doubt. De L´isle 's search for exactitude and intellectual honesty entangled him in a legal dispute in 1700 with Jean-Baptiste Nolin, a fellow cartographer. Noticing Nolin had used details that were considered original from his Map of the World, De L´isle dragged Nolin in court to prove his plagiarism. In the end, Delisle managed to convince the jury of scientists that Nolin only knew the old methods of cartography and therefore that he had stolen the information from his manuscript. Nolin's maps were confiscated and he was forced to pay the court costs.The scientificity of the work produced by the De L´isle family contrasted with the workshop of Sanson. While Sanson knowingly published outdated facts and mistakes, De L´isle strived to present up-to-date knowledge.

Historical Description

Various indigenous peoples have inhabited what is now Canada for thousands of years before European colonization. Beginning in the 16th century, British and French expeditions explored and later settled along the Atlantic coast. As a consequence of various armed conflicts, France ceded nearly all of its colonies in North America in 1763. In 1867, with the union of three British North American colonies through Confederation, Canada was formed as a federal dominion of four provinces. In 1583, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, by the royal prerogative of Queen Elizabeth I, founded St. John's, Newfoundland, as the first North American English colony. French explorer Samuel de Champlain arrived in 1603 and established the first permanent European settlements at Port Royal (in 1605) and Quebec City (in 1608). Among the colonists of New France, Canadiensextensively settled the Saint Lawrence River valley and Acadians settled the present-day Maritimes, while fur traders and Catholic missionaries explored the Great Lakes, Hudson Bay, and the Mississippi watershed to Louisiana. The Beaver Wars broke out in the mid-17th century over control of the North American fur trade. The Royal Proclamation of 1763 established First Nation treaty rights, created the Province of Quebec out of New France, and annexed Cape Breton Island to Nova Scotia. After the successful American War of Independence, The 1783 Treaty of Paris recognized the independence of the newly formed United States and set the terms of peace, ceding British North American territories south of the Great Lakes to the new country. the Constitutional Act of 1791 divided the province of Canada into French-speaking Lower Canada (later Quebec) and English-speaking Upper Canada (later Ontario), granting each its own elected legislative assembly.