A Map of North America, Constructed According to the Latest Information (1822)
Not every map that appears in the General Land Office’s online database is physically housed at the Archives in Austin. The Holcomb Digital Map Collection is a diverse group of items consisting of 114 maps, atlases, books and pamphlets belonging to Frank and Carol Holcomb of Houston and is the result of a 2014 collaboration between the Holcombs and GLO Archives staff to preserve and make these important documents available to the public.
Henry Schenck Tanner (1786–1858), a Philadelphia map engraver turned publisher, helped establish the national identity of the United States through his work. His maps included information that was both geographical and political in nature. A Map of North America, Constructed According to the Latest Information not only shows the physical geography of the expanding United States but also the negotiations of congressmen and diplomats to further its “Manifest Destiny.” With this map Tanner named for the first time the Oregon Territory, land claimed by the UK, Russia, the US, and several indigenous tribes. The map was issued separately and also bound in four sheets into Tanner’s New American Atlas, in 1823.
Texas, now in a semi-recognizable shape, is a part of the San Luis Potosí province of Mexico and labeled as “Texas.” Recognizable to the modern-day viewer are the Red, Brazos, Trinity, Guadalupe, Nueces, Colorado, and Rio Grande Rivers. Tanner also indicated the towns of Laredo, San Antonio (de Bejar), and Nacogdoches, as well as Galveston Bay and Aransas Pass (with their Spanish spellings of Galvezton and Aranguez). Tanner includes numerous indigenous tribes and their tribal areas as well — the Wako, Tarancoways, Tanacanos, and Pawneys.
The striking cartouche indicates both the wildness and the wonders of the North American continent. Native Americans feature in each vignette as well as the beauty and the danger of both the land, represented by the Natural Land Bridge in Virginia and Niagara Falls in New York.
Continuing the theme of beauty and danger, Tanner provides a glimpse of some North American native animals. Peeking out if the bottom left is a bear gazing into a running river. A moose and a beaver flank the large central tree. Perched in the branches of the tree is a bald eagle, below in the rocks is a rattlesnake. The cartouche also shows a broad representation of plants, trees, and flowers from across North America, from cattails to fir trees.
In line with the scientific mapping of the time, Tanner provides a comparative chart of the altitudes of the mountains, towns, and other geographical items — including the elevations of the sources of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, the Popocatepetl and Orizaba volcanos in Central and South America, the US Capitol at Washington, D.C., and three of the Great Lakes.
Tanner also includes scales of American Miles for measuring distances north and south by degrees of longitude based on the Meridian of Washington, which sets the degrees of longitude for this map, and for measuring distances east and west at any latitude.[1]
This work of Tanner’s would serve as a “master map” and inspiration for cartographers and map publishers of the American West for the next several decades. Reproductions of this map are available for purchase in our map store.
[1] For more on latitude and longitude see http://www.worldatlas.com/aatlas/imageg.htm; A meridian is defined as an imaginary north-south line on the Earth’s surface that connects the North and South Poles.
