100 A HISTORY OF AMERICA IN 100 MAPS
After declaring independence, the American patriots
faced the more difficult task of establishing a
government of their own. As a reaction against the
British monarchy, they initially rejected a strong
central power. Instead, the Articles of Confederation
invested sovereignty in the individual states, which
in turn formed a “firm league of friendship” with
one another. Each state sent representatives to
a Congress that had limited jurisdiction beyond
conducting foreign policy, maintaining national
defense, and arbitrating interstate disputes. Yet this
weak government lacked the power to enforce laws
or even collect taxes from a geographically dispersed
population that shared little more than a common
wartime enemy.
This fragile period is captured on the first map of
the country published in the United States. The map
was created by Abel Buell, a Connecticut engraver
who was not above using his skills to counterfeit
currency. The geography on Buell’s map was not
terribly original, for he largely drew on earlier
maps by Lewis Evans and John Mitchell shown in
Chapter 3 (pages 86 and 94). More striking is the
elaborate cartouche designed to commemorate
independence. A radiant sun illuminates a brightly
colored flag; at right a young man holds a small
globe labeled “America,” with a Phrygian cap—
the symbol of liberty—atop his staff and the
date of independence inscribed at his feet. Buell
even embedded his patriotism in the geography
of the map itself by fixing the prime meridian at
Philadelphia rather than relying on the standard of
Greenwich in England.
Only a few copies of Buell’s map were made,
but its influence was amplified when Jedidiah
Morse hired Amos Doolittle to adapt the map for
his bestselling schoolbook Geography Made Easy.
NATIONAL ASPIRATIONS
Abel Buell, “A New and Correct Map of
the United States of North America,”
1784
Morse proudly introduced the map by reminding
students that the “tyranny of Britain” compelled the
colonists to declare “themselves free, sovereign, and
independent States ... after a long, unnatural and
destructive war.” Indeed, Morse’s geography text was
itself an intellectual declaration of independence,
for he insisted that students learn their subjects
through American authors such as himself rather
than Europeans.
Geography Made Easy went through dozens of
editions from 1784 through the early nineteenth
century, which meant that thousands of children
were first exposed to American geography through
Doolittle’s map. The importance of Buell’s map—
and Doolittle’s adaptation—is compounded by its
timing: in the immediate aftermath of the Revolution,
nationhood was not a self-evident concept, but
rather one that had to be articulated and accepted.
The colonists had to learn to define themselves as
Americans, and to identify those in other states as
their countrymen. Symbolic maps such as Buell’s,
and school maps such as Doolittle’s, taught
Americans young and old to see the nation as an
extension of themselves.
A national identity could not exist, however,
without some kind of national authority. By the
time Buell published this map, the Articles of
Confederation faced heavy criticism. In 1786 a
rebellion of indebted former Revolutionary War
soldiers convinced many that a stronger central
government was necessary to maintain order and
to foster growth. Alexander Hamilton and James
Madison advocated a national government that
could levy and collect taxes and regulate interstate
trade. Above all, the “Federalists” argued for a
government of three branches, one with a dominant
legislative branch supplemented by a judiciary and
an independent executive.
The ratification of the Constitution in 1789 settled
some of these debates, and laid down the political
structure that survives down to our own day. Yet
Buell’s map reminds us that at its founding the
nation was an aspiration more than anything else.