War of Maps

In the early 18th century, a “war of maps” existed between the British and French empires. The territorial dispute eventually erupted in the French and Indian War. Examine the French and British maps below. Why do you think the boundaries were so contested?

The French map below attempts to limit British territory on North America. “Made by Delisle for the Company of the West, it had a distinct political purpose: to circumscribe and minimize Britain's western territories. Delisle characterized ‘Caroline’ as discovered, named, settled, and possessed by France. This map also delineated French claims to the Rio Grande as the boundary line between Louisiana and Spanish Mexico.”

^{Source: Louisiana State Museum. http://lsm.crt.state.la.us/4-2b.htm}

Source: Carte de la Louisiane et du Cours du Mississipi Dressée sur un grand nombre de Memoires [Map of Louisiana and the Course of the Mississippi Drawn from a Large Number of Reports] Guillaume Delisle. 1718. John Carter Brown Library, Brown University.

The map below, a later installment in the “war of the maps,” includes “A Short NARRATIVE of the FRENCH ENCROACHMENTS upon the BRITISH TERRITORIES in NORTH AMERICA.” The narrative concludes:

“Thus the French have accomplished their ancient design and surrounded the British Colonies, fortified themselves on the back of our settlements, made a Chain of garrisons and settlements from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico. . . . They have usurped vast Territories belonging to the English, seized their Traders, confiscated their Effects forced them to break up and retire from their Settlements, and horrible as it is in times of Peace they have set their Indians loose on the English, to kill, scalp, and make captives of them, and given rewards for every such act of Cruelty."

Source: A Map of the British and French Settlements in North America . . . containing Part of New York, Pensilvania, New Jersey, Mary Land, Virginia, North & South Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, and all the Countries Westward in the same Parallels so far as Discovered, shewing the Course of the Rivers Ohio, Missisipi &c. exhibiting the just Boundaries & the French Encroachments. T[homas] Bowen, mapmaker. London, 1755. John Carter Brown Library, Brown University.

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Questions:

1. What land seems to be in dispute between the British and the French?

2. Does the narrative on the British map surprise you? Why or why not?