Atlas of Early American History: The Revolutionary Era 1760–1790 by Lester J. Cappon (review)

348 THE CANADIAN HISTORICAL REVIEW things as they were, and opened up a trade with the western Indians without offendingthe Iroquois.But New York 'imperialists' further southwereanxiousto ousttheFrenchfromCanada andviiifledtheAlbanymerchants asquasi-treasonable collaborators withenemysmugglers. The Dutchkeptthepeace bytheirdeterminationtotradeandthesatisfaction of theIndianswiththeir tradingpractices. After theGreatWar for Empireawholenewsetof conditions cameintoplay.With Canadanow in the handsof the British, New York's shareof the metropolitanfur market fell to 5 per cent.New traders,riff-raft leftoversfrom the Britisharmies, wentoutamongthe Indianswiththeir goods, spreading violence anddrunkenness. Scots immigrants likeSimonMcTavishandPeterPondsetup inNewYork,andtook advantage of thebattoe- somuchmorelakeworthy thanthecanoe - to secure the water route to Detroit. Came the revolution and these traders moved to Montreal. Norton'sbookmakeshiscasefor thewisdomof the Dutchin pursuingtradeover conquest. The workbecomes themiddlevolumein whatisnowa trilogy,beginning with Allen W. Trelease,IndianAffairsin Colonial New York:TheSeventeenth Century, and endingwith BarbaraGrayson,TheIroquois in theAmerican Revolution. Aswith Trelease,thisisa thoroughlyanglophone book,eventhoughit perforcedealsat lengthwithNewFrance.Canadianmanuscripts havetobeprintedin O'Callaghan's NewYork Colonial Documents beforetheycanbeusedassource material.Fortunately, theoldrebelpublished quiteafewof themin hiscollection. L.F.S. UPTON University ofBritish Columbia AtlasofEarlyAmerican History: TheRevolutionary Era ß76o-• 79o. LF.s•rF.R J. CAPPON, editor-in-chief,}•^R}•^• }•.PETCHENIK, cartographiceditor,JOHNH. LONG, assistant editor. Publishedfor The NewberryLibrary and the Instituteof EarlyAmerican History and Culture by PrincetonUniversityPress,1976. Pp. xvi, 157, maps. $•5.oo. Atlases ofhistory arehighlydemanding: demanding ofresearch effort,cartographic andprintingskill,money,time,andco-operation andhumanunderstanding onthe partofallinvolved. Nowonderfewareproduced, andwhenonefinallydoes emerge that eventin itself deserves commemorationto alert peoplethat a new reference source isavailable. The strengths andweaknesses of anatlasareonlyfullyrevealed as it isusedovera longperiod,butit isalways possible to giveaninitialimpression of whathasbeenaccomplished in the samepersonal waythat reviewers venttheir foibleswhenanewsupplement totheo•.Dcomes out. In •96otheideafor anatlas of earlyAmericanhistoryoriginatedattheInstituteof EarlyAmerican HistoryandCultureinWilliamsburg. The intention was toproduce a standardhistoricalreferenceatlasof the period 176oto 179o. To what end does onepreparearelatedseries of maps andbindthemintoalargeformaltableatlas? (i) To providebackground reference inIbrmationfor historians andotherscholars and helpthemthinkmoreacutely about relations inthepast; thisatlas does thisrichlyand precisely. (ii) To presentnewinsights and interpretations throughcartographic REVIEWS 349 analysis and presentation;not a strengthof this atlassincethe referenceaspect rightly takesprecedence,but it would be fascinatingto seewhat wasleft on the editorialroomfloor.(iii) To stimulate otherscholars. JohnK. Wright statedin •932 thattheAtlas oftheHistorical Geography oftheUnited States byC.O.Paullin,andedited byhimself,would,unless hewasmuchmistaken, beadynamicforcein historical and geographical studies;this atlascertainlyalsoachieves that, to the point where it frequentlychallenges userstotryandcarryinvestigations further. The atlascoversthree main periodsof time - the colonialperiod, 176o-76, the American Revolution,1776-83, and the American confederacy,1783-9o. The editorshaveattemptedtobeascomprehensive asthedatapermits,asthefollowing listofbroadtopics andthemes presented in 286mapsindicates: generalbackground, cities, boundaries, population,economic activity, culturalactivity, Britishadministration ,political activity, Warof theAmericanRevolution, Confederation andtheWest, withafewof thethemesrepeatedin differentperiods.To coverallthosetopicsfor an era whensystematic statistics are hard to collectisa formidabletask.A statement madeonpage97isnotadefensive remarkbutafactof lifethattheeditorof anyatlas liveswitheveryday:'A numberofimportant[population] topics wereomitted,either for lackof informationor because dataexistin fragmentaryform - for onlycertain colonies or localities atwidelyseparated dates.' Littleinnovation isdemonstrated intypesof datapresented. Obviously considerable effort had to be expendedjust to get reliable usableinformation on many straightforward matters,allowinglittleresearch timefor analyzing newandpossibly excitingtopics.Time-lag mapsby Pred on page 69 showhow illuminatingsuch investigations can be. However, there is a significantcartographicinnovationin depicting theRevolutionary War. Here thecartographic editorhasmostsuccessfully appliedwhatonemaycallaninformedcartographic imagination tothepresentation of a complexseries of events. Two sequences of twenty-fourandfourteenmilitary arenamapsrevealclearlythepatterns of warfareoverthesoutheastern partof the North AmericancontinentandtheCaribbean.The arenas,displayed onthetwosets of basemaps,arephased in andoutbyusinga scale of colours keyedto theintensity of militaryactivities withineacharenaoverthe eightyearsof conflict.There are succinct descriptive textsrightundereachmap.In places thetextsshould befulleron the strengthsof the military forcesinvolved,but the two seriesof mapsalmost approach anunfoldingcinematic presentation in thedynamic depiction ofchanging military spacerelations.The editorsdeliberatelyde-emphasizemapsof supply routes,militaryengagements, and localphysical conditions, but it wouldhavebeen usefulto havea few mapsof the criticalengagements to showactuallogistics and troopmovements. I for onewouldhavelikedtoseePetchenik tackleYorktown. Population mapsarecrucialinanatlassuch asthis.The ruralpopulation distributionmaps ,based onHermanFriis,areeffective andbeautiful,andspecial mapssuch astheethnicmaps,themapsofblack/white ratios,andmanymorearewelldone.For the purposes of historians and other students a percentage dot mapisoften more useful than the ordinary dot map, so thought might have been given to using percentage dotsfor showing rural population.The 'c. 1775Total Population:Persons perCounty/Parish' maponpage25isnotnearlyasusefulasamapofpopulation 350 THE CANADIAN HISTORICAL REVIEW density showing peoplepersquare mile,evenif bycounty/parish units;thereshould beatabulation ofpopulationbystates; andonthemapof population in •79øonpage 65 the valueof •ooo inhabitants per dot issogrossthat the map cannotbe easily compared totheprevious population maps,nordoesthatdotvaluecatch thefrontier of settlement aswellasit should.More effort shouldhavegoneintorefiningwaysof showing urban populationon the generalpopulationmaps.In thisconnection...