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Indian Maps of the Colonial Southeast
- University of Nebraska Press
- Chapter
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Indian Maps of the Colonial Southeast gregory a. waselkov Drawing maps was within the competence of every adult southeastern Indian of the colonial period. Early colonizers, such as Captain John Smith, John Lawson, Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville, and René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, found native North Americans to be proficient cartographers whose geographical knowledge greatly expedited the first European explorations of the region. For a century and a half, information imparted by means of ephemeral maps scratched in the sand or in the cold ashes of an abandoned campfire, sketched with charcoal on bark, or painted on deerskin was incorporated directly into French and English maps, usually enhancing their accuracy. Once this fact is appreciated, one can no longer share the astonishment of Governor James Glen of South Carolina, who in 1754 wrote, “I have not rested satisfied with a verbal Discription of the Country from the Indians but have often made them trace the Rivers on the Floor with Chalk, and also on Paper, and it is surprizing how near they approach to our best Maps.”1 Although the governor might not have conceded or even realized the fact, the information contained in Glen’s best maps of the interior Southeast was originally derived in large part from Indians. Christopher Columbus first discovered the existence of an indigenous mapmaking tradition among the American Indians when, on his fourth voyage in 1502, he waylaid a Mayan trading canoe carrying an old man who drew charts of the Honduran coast.2 From the English colony at Jamestown , established in 1607, came the earliest records of southeastern Indian maps. The Powhatan Algonquians spontaneously produced maps on at least three occasions, ranging in scope from a simple one showing the course of the James River to an ambitious map depicting their place at the center of a flat world, with England represented by a pile of sticks near the edge.3 Only rarely, however, did European explorers express any interest in Indian cosmography; their curiosity generally was limited to the locations of rivers, paths, and settlements. When traveling through totally unfamiliar terrain, this sort of geographical information proved invaluable to numer- indian maps of the colonial southeast ous Englishmen and Frenchmen seeking new lands to exploit. As a consequence , Indians sometimes withheld such information. According to John Lawson, “I have put a Pen and Ink into a Savage’s Hand, and he has drawn me the Rivers, Bays, and other Parts of a Country, which afterwards I have found to agree with a great deal of Nicety: But you must be very much in their Favour, otherwise they will never make these Discoveries to you; especially , if it be in their own Quarters.”4 Lawson evidently lost their favor because of his encroachments on Indian lands while serving as surveyor-general of the North Carolina colony, for he was the first Englishman killed in the Tuscarora War of 1711. But on the whole, geographically uninformed Europeans seldom were disappointed in their hundreds of requests for Indian maps.5 Unfortunately, few of these maps now are extant, even as transcripts. G. Malcolm Lewis has suggested that Europeans were primarily interested in the information content, which could be incorporated directly into their own manuscript and printed maps, and had little regard for the ethnographic value of original Indian maps as artifacts.6 Of the six southeastern maps discussed in this essay, five survive in the form of contemporary transcripts and the sixth is an English manuscript map with a considerable Indian contribution. Powhatan ’s Mantle, a large decorated deerskin artifact, while not a geographical map in the strict sense, does share several important features with Indian maps and so is included here. The discussion that follows is limited to a comparison of these few remaining examples of southeastern Indian cartography, followed by a brief historical commentary and detailed placename analysis of each map. Given the present rarity of colonial-period Indian maps, the very existence of these six suggests that they may be in some way atypical or at least not necessarily representative of the entire range of maps produced by Indians of the Southeast. Such an inference seems justified when one considers the origins of the maps and the intentions of the mapmakers, insofar as they are known or can be deduced. Francis Nicholson, who served as governor in Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina, seems to have been responsible—directly or indirectly— for collecting and preserving four of the surviving maps...