TITLE
Africa according to the best authorities.
1796 (undated) 16.25 x 17 in (41.275 x 43.18 cm) 1 : 20275000
DESCRIPTION
This is a 1796 map of Africa from Carey's General Atlas, the first atlas published in the new American Republic. It was made at the height of the Transatlantic Slave Trade and the transformation of the institution of slavery in the early Republic.
A Closer Look
The map is quite detailed, particularly along the coast of West Africa, where Europeans had the longest presence and greatest knowledge. Even the interior of Africa is mapped in some detail, although the geography of some regions, such as the Great Lakes, was not well understood (it would be nearly a century before it was). A point in 'Upper Ethiopia' is correctly labelled as 'head of the Nile,' referring to James Bruce's visit to Lake Tana in 1770. The sources and full course of the White Nile, here identified as the 'White River', remain ambiguous. The Islands north of Madagascar belonging to the Outer Seychelles are exaggerated in size, likely due to their importance for navigation. No mention or indication of European colonialism is made, aside from naming forts, while indigenous empires like Angola and Kongo (Congo) are noted. Sporadic notes appear throughout, like 'gold mines,' 'gum forest,' 'a savage people,' and 'men eaters' (a reference to lions). One interesting feature is the use of Philadelphia, where it was engraved and published, as the prime meridian.
The Early Republic and the Transatlantic Slave Trade
This map was produced at the height of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, when tens of thousands of people were forcibly transferred every year across the Atlantic to various points in the New World, including directly to the newly-independent United States. The issue of slavery was one of the great vexing questions in the early American Republic. Although most of the founding fathers regarded it as morally indefensible and bound to disappear, they also were personally and as a class reliant on the institution. The Constitution had arranged for the direct importation of slaves to cease in 1808, but human trafficking from the Caribbean and the domestic slave trade continued after this date. Although northern states gradually abolished slavery and its abolition was feasible in the Upper South, the economy of the Deep South became more and more dependent on slavery as the 19th century progressed, while the Haitian Revolution and fears of rebellion led slaveowners to employ ever greater violence and brutality to maintain control. As time went on, not only did the 'peculiar institution' not die, but became more entrenched and expanded westwards, increasing the tensions that ultimately led to the U.S. Civil War.
Publication History and Census
This map is likely from the 1796 edition of Carey's General Atlas (sometimes subtitled American Edition of Guthrie's Geography improved), multiple editions of which were printed between 1795 and 1818. The prevalence of the map is difficult to determine since the map is not always cataloged with the year recorded, but aside from the edition in the Rumsey Collection, the 1796 edition of the entire atlas is held by a handful of universities and research institutions in the United States and elsewhere.
Description credit: Geographicus
