Amerique Septentrionale…

The upper half of D’Anville’s two-sheet wall map of North America from 1746.

This detailed map presents the available geographic information for much of the modern-day United States almost exactly 100 years prior to the first use of the phrase, “Manifest Destiny.” The image represents a fundamental shift in European mapmaking of the 18th century when speculation and cartographic assumptions were replaced by fact-based information backed by scientific evaluation.

Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d’Anville, Royal Geographer to Louis XV, was one of the dominant figures in spearheading this change. According to the University of Virginia Library,

“d’Anville engraved his first map at age fifteen. He carried on the French school of cartography developed by the Sanson and the Delisle families and enjoyed a reputation as the finest mapmaker of his time. Although he apparently never left the city of Paris, he had access to the reports and maps of French explorers, traders, and missionaries. D’Anville’s American maps draw on material gathered from several French expeditions made during the first half of the eighteenth century. At this time, the French were intent on preempting Spanish expansion into the Mississippi River valley and finding trade routes to the western Indians and Santa Fe. D’Anvilles’ maps significantly improved the geographic knowledge of the Mississippi and Missouri river regions.”

Such improvements are evident when comparing this image to earlier publications. The Great Lakes are distinctly outlined and the course of the Mississippi is shown with relative accuracy between what is presumed to Lake Itasca and the Gulf of Mexico. Lands west of the river (some of which are labeled as ‘large country area’) are considerably more speculative, but still show a wealth of detail about ongoing Spanish explorations and settlements.

An inset map of Baffin and Hudson’s Bays also reflects D’Anville’s attention to detail, with most of the conjectural Northwest Passages shown firmly closed. However, an open ‘Nameless Strait’ discovered by the British explorer Christopher Middleton in 1741 hints at one of the few remaining possibilities.

The map was published in Paris in 1746 by Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d’Anville.

Source.