8 A HISTORY OF AMERICA IN 100 MAPS
In November 1864 General William Sherman began the most
audacious campaign of the Civil War. After subduing the
Army of the Tennessee in Atlanta, his men cut loose from
supply lines to inflict as much damage as possible on the
Confederacy. Sherman commissioned several maps to prepare
for the operation, one of which was particularly innovative.
This map of Georgia made at the general’s request by the
Census Office identified not only rivers and roads but also
resources: each county was annotated with data regarding
the white and slave population, agriculture, and livestock
(as shown at right).
Sherman himself later testified to the importance of this
map. It showed him where to look for food to feed his men
and starve the enemy. It detailed the presence of slaves, the
strongest of whom proved an asset to the Union Army as it
moved through Georgia. But even more essential was the
way the map helped Sherman envision this ambitious
operation in the first place, a campaign that struck some
of his fellow generals as downright absurd. The census map
of Georgia was a groundbreaking attempt to harness data
for strategy. Yet it also shaped that strategy by enabling the
general to think differently about warfare. Simply put, the
map mattered.
Sherman’s testimony points to the rich yet often
overlooked role of maps in history. Whether made for military
strategy or urban reform, to encourage settlement or to
investigate disease, maps both reflect and mediate change.
They record efforts to make sense of the world in physical
terms. They capture what people knew, what they thought they
knew, what they hoped for, and what they feared. They invest
information with meaning by translating it into visual form,
and in so doing reveal decisions about how the world ought
to be seen. Above all, they demonstrate that the past was not
just a chronological story but a spatial one as well.
What follows is a visual tour of American history through
maps, one that searches the main roads as well as the back-
alleys of the past. It is not a comprehensive survey of American
history or mapmaking, nor does it replicate the many excellent
histories of exploration. Instead, it is an eclectic and selective
discussion of the many ways in which maps have been used
in the past: to master and claim territory, defeat an enemy,
advance a cause, investigate a problem, learn geography,
advertise a destination, entertain an audience, or navigate
terrain. It features both official and ephemeral material,
including maps of reconnaissance, political conflict, and
territorial control as well as of education, science, and tourism.A word on nomenclature: this “American” history focuses
on the region that became the United States, from the voyages
of discovery down to our own day. But it also includes maps
that highlight the permeability of borders and the place of
the nation in the wider world. Many of the maps also restore
a degree of contingency that is often obscured by our modern
vantage point. In the early 1500s, mapmakers in Europe tried
to reconcile new geographical discoveries with Christopher
Columbus’ claim to have reached the East Indies. Maps of
this era illustrate that confusion, showing that the western
hemisphere came into view only slowly. More generally, the
first three chapters do less to document the inevitable rise
of Anglo-America than to remind us of the ongoing contest
between Spanish, French, Dutch, and English powers in North
America, and the indigenous presence that preceded them all.
Many of the maps reproduced in this volume have been
deemed important for their role in statecraft and diplomacy.
But readers will also find lesser-known artifacts made by
soldiers on the front, Native American tribal leaders, and
the first generation of girls to be publicly educated. For
instance, John Mitchell’s 1755 map of the colonies has long
been regarded as a crucial document, and the copy featured
on page 94 was used to negotiate the boundaries of the new
United States at the Treaty of Paris in 1783. As such, Mitchell’s
map changed the course of history by establishing the nation’s
borders. Equally captivating is a map drawn by a Cherokee
leader in the 1720s to negotiate the increasingly competitive
deerskin trade in the Carolinas (page 72). The map is initially
disorienting, for it represents space in terms of relationships
rather than physical distance. But, once deciphered, it
reveals as much about colonial America as the celebrated
Mitchell map.
By exploring iconic as well as unfamiliar treasures we
can also gain fresh perspective on the past. For instance, July
1776 is primarily remembered by Americans for the signing of
the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia. Yet, at that
very moment, a group of Spanish missionaries set off from
Santa Fe to assert control over the region that would become
Arizona, Utah, and Colorado. The Dominguez and Escalante
expedition sought an overland route to California, but with
limited geographical knowledge it soon became lost. Were it
not for Ute guides, the expedition would not have survived the
trek, much less produced one of the most influential maps of
the Southern Rockies (page 88). Bernardo de Miera y Pacheco
drew the map to claim the Southwest for the Spanish Crown,
just one of the many instances where territory was takenINTRODUCTION: SEEING THE PAST THROUGH MAPS