Imagining Texas: An Historical Journey With Maps

Posted 01/25/2017 |  Updated 10/21/2022

Introduction

IMAGINING TEXAS: AN HISTORICAL JOURNEY WITH MAPS, opened onsite at The History Center in February. The exhibit features more than 30 maps from The History Center as well as from the collections of the Library of Congress, the British Library, Yale University, David Rumsey, and the University of Texas at Arlington, graphically interpreting the history of East Texas from the sixteenth century to the present. This online version of the exhibit is a sample of these maps. For the large format maps, a detailed image follows the full image.

Imagining Texas: An Historical Journey With Maps
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Abraham Ortelius (1527-1598)

Americae Sive Novie Orbis Nova Descriptio

Engraving, hand-colored, 14 x 19.5 in. (Antwerp: Abraham Ortelius, 1570).

The translated title of this landmark 1570 map is “America or the New World, Newly Described.” Produced in Antwerp by map collector-businessman Abraham Ortelius, it is one of fifty-three maps he published that year in a single book entitled, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (“Theater of the World”), which is considered the first modern atlas. The book used copper engravings, which greatly increased the detail and delicacy of lettering over the earlier woodcut process.

Ortelius’ 1570 map of America is derived from maps made by the great Dutch scientific cartographer Gerhard Mercator. Many of the place names throughout North America reflected the recent Spanish explorations by Coronado, De Soto, Moscoso and others, but they could not be located with any precision. Yet many other characteristics, such as the delineation of the Gulf of Mexico, appeared exceptionally accurate for the time.

Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division Digital ID: g3200m gct00003

Imagining Texas: An Historical Journey With Maps
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Vincenzo Maria Coronelli (1650-1718)
America Settentrionale Colle Nuove Scoperte sin all Anno 1688
Engraving, 24 x 34.25 in. (Venice: Vincenzo Maria Coronelli, 1688).

Vincenzo Maria Coronelli was one of Italy’s most famous and greatest cartographers and served as French King Louis XIV’s royal map and globe-maker. Shown here is Coronelli’s cornerstone map of North America, published in 1688. Typical of Coronelli’s style, the map is richly embellished. The title cartouche depicts gods blessing European expansion, and vignettes of America’s first peoples and other creatures are featured throughout. Cartographically, Coronelli’s map draws from information obtained by noted French explorers Louis Jolliet, Jacques Marquette, and René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle. Perhaps most infamously, this map depicts La Salle’s misplacement of the mouth of the Mississippi River, some 600 miles west of its true location.

Courtesy of the University of Texas at Arlington Library, Special Collections, #0568 142/7; Disc 81.

Imagining Texas: An Historical Journey With Maps
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Nicolas De Fer
Les Costes Aux Environs De La Riviere De Misisipi Decouvertes par Mr. De la Salle en 1683, et reconnues par Mr. Le Chevallier d’Iberville en 1698 et 1699 . . . 1705
(Paris: 1705)

De Fer's 1705 map is notable for several reasons. He uses the information gained by the Frenchman d'Iberville, the founder of Louisiana, and LaSalle, who was convinced the Mississippe River was farther west and much closer to the Spanish posessions that it actually is. The map's cartouche also contains perhaps the earliest graphic depiction of a murder in Texas, showing LaSalle's men murdering him and other officers somewhere in East Texas as they searched for signs of civilization or the Mississippi River.

Courtesy of Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps Inc.

Imagining Texas: An Historical Journey With Maps
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Guillaume Delisle (1675-1726)
Carte de la Louisiane et du Cours du Mississipi…
Engraving, 18.5 x 25 in. (Paris: Guillaume Delisle, 1718).

This landmark map was produced by the famous French cartographer Guillaume Delisle, who was King Louis XIV’s geographer. Produced in 1718, the map incorporated the most current information and modern scientific methods and was the most accurate depiction of much of North America in general and Texas in particular for about a century. For identifying “Mission de los Teijas” in East Texas, it is credited with being the first printed map to establish Texas as a place name. Notice the notation along the Texas coast, “Indiens errans et Antropophages,” which translates as “nomadic and man-eating Indians” or “wandering Indians and cannibals,” probably referring to the Karankawa and Attakapa bands in that area.

Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division. Digital ID: g3701s ct003028

Imagining Texas: An Historical Journey With Maps
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Francisco Álvarez Barreiro (1685?-17?)
Plano Corografico é Hydrographico de las Provincias de el Nuevo Mexico…Provincia de los Tejas…de la Nuebla España
Engraving, 10.5 x 18 in. (Mexico: Don Luis de Surville, July 4, 1770, copied from Barreiro’s 1728 map).

Francisco Álvarez Barreiro created the first maps of Texas rendered by a trained cartographer from his own observations. He was the chief engineer of Texas from the late 1710’s through the 1720’s and assisted in the construction of the famous chapel for San Antonio de Valero Mission (the Alamo). He accompanied Brigadier General Pedro de Rivera y Villalón during his inspection tour of New Spain in 1724-1728, drawing several maps that accompanied the report. Barreiro’s 1728 map of Texas resides in the library of the Hispanic Society of America in New York. This is a 1770 copy of that map, courtesy of the British Library.

Courtesy of the British Library, Cartographic Items, MS. 17,650.b.

Imagining Texas: An Historical Journey With Maps
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Joseph Ramón de Urrutia y de las Casa (1739-1803)
Plano del Presidio de Nuestra Señora del Pilar de los Adaes, capital de la provincia de los Tejas…(1767)
Pen-and-ink and watercolor manuscript, 16.5 x 21 in.

The first capital of Spanish Texas was Los Adaes, located 33 miles east of the Sabine River, near Robeline, Louisiana. Joseph de Urrutia (1739-1803), a first lieutenant and cartographer in the Spanish army, drew this 1767 topographical rendering of Los Adaes as one of twenty-two plans of various presidios and towns he visited during the Marqués de Rubí’s inspection tour across New Spain’s northern frontier in 1766-1768. The plan shows two adjacent hills or ridges, separated by an intermittent stream. On the northern ridge is the presidio, or fort, and on the southern ridge is the mission. Los Adaes was the capital of Texas from 1729 to 1772.

Courtesy of the British Library, Cartographic Items, MS. 17,662.s.

Imagining Texas: An Historical Journey With Maps
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José Antonio Alzate y Ramírez (1737-1799)
Nuevo Mapa Geographico de la America Septentrional…
Engraving, 21.3 x 25.1 in. (Paris, 1768).

This is the only Spanish map published during the 18th century that shows Texas and the Southwest, and is the first map to spell Texas with an “x.” Formerly, Texas was identified as Provincia de los Tejas. Although drawn by José Antonio Alzate y Ramírez, one of the most enlightened scholars of New Spain (the Alzate Scientific Society was named for him), the map’s inaccuracies concerning Texas illustrate just how little Spanish authorities knew of their province even at this late date. Alzate’s map was printed in 1768 in both Madrid and Paris. This version of the map is the French edition.

Courtesy of the Texas Collection, Baylor University, Waco.

Imagining Texas: An Historical Journey With Maps
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Nicolás de Lafora (ca. 1730-?) and José de Urrutia (ca. 1678-1741)
Mapa de toda la Frontera de los Dominios del Rey en la America Septentrional… (ca. 1770)
Pen-and-ink and watercolor manuscript, 26 x 50 in. Library of Congress. Believed to be an 1816 copy of a 1771 edition map.

Nicolás Lafora’s and Joseph de Urrutia’s Mapa de toda la Frontera geographically reveals Spain’s imagination of Texas during the eighteenth century, with drawn lines enclosing “Provencia De Los Tejas,” or land of the Tejas, stretching from western Louisiana through the heart of East Texas to the San Antonio area. The Spanish geographic use of the word Tejas was broad and indefinite, but initially it applied to the Neches-Angelina river valleys, where the southwestern Caddoan tribes of the Hasinai Confederacy lived. The area gradually expanded westward to include San Antonio and eventually all the territory now included within the State of Texas.

Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division. Digital ID: g4410 ct000553

Imagining Texas: An Historical Journey With Maps
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Juan Pedro Walker (1781-ca. 1828)
Texas, Route de Nacogdoches au Rio Trinidad, J. P. W.
A circa 1828 copy of a circa 1806 route map attributed to Walker, contained in “Voyage au Mexique: Itineraires, ports cotes, baies, etc. de la Republique Mexicaine, par Jn. Louis Berlandier…, p. 7” within the Jean Louis Berlandier Papers, 1813-1847 (WA MSS S-302).

The original manuscript of this map is found among the papers of the Swiss naturalist Jean Louis Berlandier at Yale University. Berlandier was part of the expedition of Mexican General Manuel Terán during his inspection tour of East Texas in 1828. The map is believed to be a copy of another map drawn by Louisiana native John Peter (Juan Pedro) Walker, perhaps as early as 1806. The map indicates the location of the “Ancienne Mission de S. Pedro”—Mission San Francisco De Los Tejas (established 1690)—and the “Monuments Indigenes”—the Caddoan Mounds still in existence today. Note the northern road to Nacogdoches, today’s Highway 21, was identified as “Ancienne route,” or “old road.” Presumably the southern route was the main road at the time, which is now in part a varied connection of farm roads 1911 and 225.

Courtesy of the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University. Object ID: 2020047; Image ID: 1080629

Imagining Texas: An Historical Journey With Maps
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John Melish (1771-1822)
Map of the United States with the Contiguous British & Spanish Possessions…
Engraving, 35 x 57 in. (Philadelphia: John Melish, 1816).

John Melish’s remarkable 1816 Map of the United States influenced boundary disputes and treaties through most of the 19th century, and is regarded as one of the most significant maps in American history. It is the first map made in the United States that showed the country extending across the continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific. A visual embodiment of Manifest Destiny, the map boldly proclaimed American ambitions before actual events made such aspirations possible.

John Melish (1771-1822) was a Scottish merchant who moved to Philadelphia in 1811 and became a professional mapmaker. More than any other contemporary, Melish became attuned to the aspirational sentiments of his adopted country and he graphically depicted and interpreted the young nation’s geographical indentity to the world. This 1816 map remains one of America’s most important works of visual culture.

Courtesy of the David Rumsey Historical Map Collection and Cartography Associates (www.davidrumsey.com). Image No. 5168.

Imagining Texas: An Historical Journey With Maps
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Stephen F. Austin (1793-1836) and Henry S. Tanner (1786-1858)
Map of Texas with Parts of the Adjoining States
Engraving and etching with hand-colored shading on paper, 30 x 24 in. Engraved by John & William Warr (Philadelphia: Henry S. Tanner, 1837 edition, first published in 1830).

Empressario Stephen F. Austin’s famed map of Texas, printed and published in various issues between 1830 and 1845, served as emigrant guide and advertisement for Texas. Austin made an earlier sketch map in 1822 and made many improvements to it, until having Philadelphia engraver and publisher Henry S. Tanner produce a print version in 1830. It was the most accurate map of Texas to date. This is an issue from 1837, but notice a few errors remain, such as the placements of Teran and Zavala on the Neches River, below Nacogdoches. Teran is properly shown on the south bank of the Neches, but its true location is about 25 miles east of the map location. Zavala should be located on the east bank of the Angelina River, about 10 miles north of the map location. A later town of Zavalla (with two l’s) would be established in what is now Angelina County.

Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division. ID:g4030 ct000530

Imagining Texas: An Historical Journey With Maps
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William H. Emory (1811-1887)
Map of Texas and the Countries Adjacent
Lithograph, 20.9 x 32.7 in. (Washington, D.C.: U.S. State Department, 1844).

William H. Emory’s 1844 Texas is a good example of a map that both reflected events of history as well as helped shape them. The map was part of the annexation treaty between the United States and Texas and was the first map produced by the U.S. government recognizing Texas’ boundary claims as Texas defined them in December 1836. Emory had not yet visited Texas when he created the map, but he lists his many sources at the bottom left corner, documenting the cartographic history of Texas at the time. The map includes many interesting notes, including the highest navigable points for steamboats along many Texas rivers.

Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division. Digital ID: g4030 ct001066

Imagining Texas: An Historical Journey With Maps
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John Arrowsmith (1790-1873)
Map of Texas, compiled from Surveys recorded in the Land Office of Texas, and other Official Surveys
Engraving: 24 x 19.7 in. (London: John Arrowsmith, 1844).

John Arrowsmith’s Map of Texas, first produced in 1841 for Arrowsmith’s famous London atlas, was quickly recognized for its general accuracy and understated elegance and clarity. The map was made at a time when the British sought a source of cotton from independent Texas, and a notation below the Republic and General Land Office seals states Great Britain recognized Texas’ independence in 1840. Arrowsmith’s map stands as an endorsement of the most extensive territorial claims made by the Republic of Texas, including the upper Rio Grande. This is an 1844 version of the map.

Courtesy of the David Rumsey Historical Map Collection and Cartography Associates
(www.davidrumsey.com). Image No. 4613061

Imagining Texas: An Historical Journey With Maps
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John Disturnell (1801-1877)
Mapa de los Estados Unidos de Méjico
Engraving (hand colored), 29 x 41 in. (New York: J. Disturnell, 1847).

Perhaps the most infamous map in our exhibit is John Disturnell’s Mapa de los Estados Unidos de Mejico (New York, 1847), which is a plagiarized map of another plagiarized map from two decades earlier. Although inaccurate, it was immensely popular during the U.S.-Mexican War and was used by the United States in negotiating the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, which ended the war and extended the western boundary of the United States to the Pacific Ocean. Disturnell’s map of Mexico compares to earlier versions produced in 1822 and 1825 by Henry S. Tanner of Philadelphia. In 1828, the New York firm of White, Gallaher, and White issued a copyrighted, but plagiarized, Spanish translation of Tanner’s 1825 map, and in 1846, Disturnell used the same plates to make his own Spanish copy, simply substituting his name as the publisher. Disturnell issued 23 editions of the map between 1846 and 1858.

Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division. Digital ID: g4410 ct000127

Imagining Texas: An Historical Journey With Maps
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Helmuth Holtz (1833-1915)
Map of the state of Texas…
Engraving on 12 sheets mounted on linen, 237 x 86 in. (Washington, D.C.: War Department, 1867).

The German sailor and artist Helmuth Holtz came to Texas in 1860 and joined the Union Navy in 1862, participating in the Union blockade of Galveston. In 1863 Holtz served in Louisiana, and two of his drawings there were reproduced as engravings in the May 30, 1863 issue of Harper’s Weekly, reproduced here. He also worked as a draftsman in the Engineer Office, Military Division of the Gulf, where he helped produce maps for General Sheridan. Holtz produced this large map of Texas in 1865-1867, using several source maps, including “Rebel Surveys.” The map shows a vast system of transportation routes, ferry crossings, towns, and named streams, one of the earliest statewide maps to provide such extensive details.

Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division. Digital ID: g4030 ct000527

Imagining Texas: An Historical Journey With Maps
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Rand McNally & Company
How the Public Domain Has Been Squandered by Republican Congresses, 1884

This map illustrates one of the planks of the Democratic Party’s platform in 1884. The Democrats claimed that Republicans in Congress were too generous to railroad companies, giving them too much land in exchange for building railroads. They used this map to make that point. While it is true that the U.S. government granted 151 million acres (or 7% of the total U.S. land area) to railroad companies, this map grossly exaggerates the amount by as much as 4 times, including showing 80% of Iowa as a railroad grant. It served its purpose, and Grover Cleveland was elected as the first Democratic President of the United States. The Democrats also gained control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division Digital ID: g3701p ct001467.

Imagining Texas: An Historical Journey With Maps
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Rand McNally and Company
Commercial Atlas of America / Auto Trails Map, Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas
Engraving, 20 x 25.5 in. (Chicago: Rand McNally and Company, 1924)

Rand McNally produced this 1924 atlas automobile “trails” map just eight years after passage of the Federal Aid Road Act of 1916, which provided federal monetary assistance for roads to states with centralized control of highways. Texas created its highway department in 1917 and within a few years the department controlled the entire state road system, now known as Texas Department of Transportation. Many early highways simply followed the rights-of-ways of railroad and telegraph lines. In Angelina County, state highway 40 followed the Beaumont-Dallas line of the Texas and New Orleans Railroad through Zavalla and Huntington; state highway 35 followed the Houston, East & West Texas Railway through Diboll-Burke-Lufkin; and state highway 37 followed the Cotton Belt railroad from Tyler through Lufkin.

Courtesy of the David Rumsey Historical Map Collection and Cartography Associates (www.davidrumsey.com). Image No. 5028121

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