Plantations on the Mississippi River from Natchez to New Orleans 1858 [1967]

1960s reprint of an iconic pre-war Mississippi River map.

This is a vibrant re-rendering of the iconic 1858 map originally titled ‘Norman’s Chart of the Lower Mississippi River’, alternatively known as the Persac Map for the landscape painter that co-sponsored its production. It provides a marvelous cadastral snapshot of the landowners on either side of the river from Natchez to New Orleans. According to Encyclopedia Virginia;

“This 1858 hand-colored map gives a detailed rendering of all the plantations along the lower Mississippi River from Natchez, Mississippi, to New Orleans, Louisiana. As indicated by the color-coding shown at upper left, the plantations between New Orleans and Baton Rouge primarily cultivated sugarcane, while those between Baton Rouge and Natchez cultivated cotton.

Engraved vignettes at the top and the bottom of the map show scenes along the river at Baton Rouge and New Orleans, as well as images of a cotton plantation and a grand, columned sugar-plantation house. In the first thirty years of the nineteenth century, nearly 350,000 enslaved people suffered forced migration from the Upper South, where tobacco farming was stagnating, to work in the booming cotton and sugar plantations of the Lower South.”

The map was drawn by Joseph Aiena of the Chamber’s Agency Art Department. Copywritten 1967 by Pelican Publishing Company. Printed in Colorado Springs by the Pikes Peak Lithographing Company.

Sources: Encyclopedia of Virginia; David Rumsey Map Collection