Carte du Golphe de St. Laurent et Pays voisins

Title

Carte du Golphe de St. Laurent et Pays voisins

Description

Map shows the Golf of St. Laurence and New Fundland, Canada.

ca. 1760

Artist

Bellin (1703-1772)

Jacques-Nicolas Bellin (1703 Paris -1772 Versailles) was a French cartographer, engineer-geographer, marine hydrographer. As a contributor to the Encyclopédie, he wrote more than a thousand articles on maritime topics. As a cartographer, Bellin distinguished himself primarily in the field of sea cartography. From 1721 he worked for the Dépot des Cartes et Plans de la Marine, from 1741 until his death as an engineer-hydrograph of the Navy. In 1753 his atlas Neptune français, which covered all the coasts of France, was published, and in 1756 the hydrography françoise covering all seas of the earth. In 1764 the five-volume Petit Atlas maritime was published, which Bellin prepared on the orders of the Minister of the Navy, Choiseul. In addition, he wrote a number of geographical works and with Nouvelle méthode pour apprendre la geographie (1769) a geographic textbook for teaching. His maps illustrated, among other things, Bougainville's work Voyage autour du monde, published in 1771. As a co-author of the Encyclopédie edited by Diderot and d'Alembert, Bellin wrote more than a thousand articles in the field of shipping and navy.

Historical Description

Newfoundland is the site of the only authenticated Norse settlement in North America. The first European visitors to Newfoundland were Portuguese, Spanish, French, Dutch and English migratory fishermen and whalers. The island was visited by the Genoese navigator John Cabot (Giovanni Caboto), working under contract to King Henry VII of England on his expedition from Bristol in 1497. In 1501, Portuguese explorers Gaspar Corte-Real and his brother Miguel Corte-Real charted part of the coast of Newfoundland in a failed attempt to find the Northwest Passage. After European settlement, colonists first called the island Terra Nova, from "New Land" in Portuguese and Latin. The name Newfoundland in popular discourse came from people discussing the "New founde land" in the new world. On August 5, 1583, Sir Humphrey Gilbert claimed Newfoundland as England's first overseas colony under Royal Charter of Queen Elizabeth I of England. The indigenous people on the island at the time of European settlement were the Beothuk, who spoke an Amerindian language of the same name. Later immigrants developed a variety of dialects associated with settlement on the island: Newfoundland English, Newfoundland French.