Map of the British Empire in America with the French and Spanish Settlements adjacent Thereto
Cartographer:
Popple, Henry
Date of Creation:
1733
The first large-scale printed map of Colonial North America, the first printed map to show the thirteen colonies, and a monument of North American cartography.
Henry Popple's Map of the British Empire in America marks the beginning of a new epoch in the mapping of America, and was the first in a series of maps published up to the 1760s that would catapult England to the forefront in the study of the geography of the continent.
Commissioned by the Lord Commissioner of Trade and Plantation, it was intended as a tool for mediating disputes arising from the competing claims of English, French and Spanish colonists. In the years when this map was made, territorial disputes demanded current and precise geographical knowledge, and copies of Popple's map were sent to the governors of each English colony for official use. The map illustrates the growth of knowledge about the interior of the American Northeast, and there is much information regarding settlements and natives in the areas of the Great Lakes. Popple's map is a compilation of French and English sources, primarily Guillaume Delisle's "Carte du Canada" 1703 and "Carte de la Louisiana et Cours du Mississippi" 1718; , as well as the maps of Herman Moll. The most valuable contribution is in the area of the American Southeast, where the map incorporates information from the highly important survey by Colonel John Barnwell, circa 1722, which was the first detailed English map of the southern frontier. Information for the printed map was compiled at least as early as 1727, a date that appears on a signed manuscript draft by Popple now in the British Museum, although the actual draftsman of the final map was Clement Lempriere, an English military cartographer who worked in the Corps of Engineers.