Illustrated Cartography — Pictorial Maps at the GLO: Hoffman and Walker’s Historical, Pictorial Map of Texas
Pictorial — or illustrated — maps typically use artistic elements to add extra information and context to improve aesthetics, and to make an impact that a map has on its viewers.
Pictorial maps have an extensive history as part of the art of cartography, and map makers have long leaned on artistry to augment the purpose of a particular map. With modern cartography dominated by CAD and digital street maps, working pictorial maps are not nearly as prevalent as they once were, but they remain popular among collectors. The extensive map archive of the Texas General Land Office contains several pictorial maps.
Intricately decorated pictorial maps were popular from the early days of cartography of the Western Hemisphere, but despite the prevalence of technology in modern mapmaking, the art form has not disappeared.
An excellent example of a modern pictorial map is Hoffman and Walker’s Pictorial, Historical Map of Texas. Researched, compiled, and drawn by Bill Hoffman and Bill Walker, this impressive map focuses on roads and trails of nineteenth-century Texas. The map is augmented by nearly three dozen artistic vignettes accompanied by textual descriptions of historically significant events ranging from early discovery in Texas to conflicts with American Indians, and other interesting historical stories.
In 1685, in his quest to find the mouth of the Mississippi River, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle (1643–1687) landed in the Gulf of Mexico and established Fort St. Louis. Although the French settlement did not last long, it had far-reaching consequences as it focused the attention of the Spanish government in Mexico on east Texas, leading to the establishment of missions and presidios in the area. LaSalle’s landing on the Texas coast is the earliest scene depicted on the map.[1]
Hoffman & Walker’s map contains illustrations and descriptions of various conflicts with indigenous peoples within Texas. Depicted throughout West Texas and the Panhandle are several battles, including the Battle of Blanco Canyon, the Adobe Walls Fight, and the Buffalo Wallow fight. To the west of Washington-on-the-Brazos, the map includes the story of the scalping of Josiah Wilbarger at the hands of a group of Comanche Indians. Wilbarger was a member of a surveying expedition that came under attack, during which he suffered multiple wounds, was left for dead, and was scalped. Incredibly, he survived the ordeal and was returned safely to his family.
Isaac Burton’s “Horse Marines” are featured near Corpus Christi Bay gazing out toward Copano Bay. This was the site of one of the more bizarre tactics ever used to commandeer an enemy ship. In the months following the Battle of San Jacinto, Texan forces were dispatched to secure the coastline against potential Mexican incursions. Upon encountering a Mexican ship in Copano Bay, Burton and his horse-mounted rangers employed cunning and deception to bloodlessly take control of not just that ship, but two additional ships that came later.
The northeastern portion of the map includes a vignette of a man sitting at the edge of a body of water, aiming a rifle out toward the horizon. The text describes this location as Potter’s Point, the homestead of Robert Potter, the former Secretary of the Navy of the Republic of Texas. Potter attempted to escape an armed dispute with a neighbor by diving into a lake but was shot and killed by a marksman posted on the shore.[2]
Finally, just below the image of Potter’s demise, and relevant to the General Land Office, a block of text is dedicated to describing the particular, somewhat peculiar (by modern convention) process by which landowners were granted possession of their land under Spanish rule. It notes that the new landowner was taken by the hand and “walked about…pulling weeds, made holes in the ground, planted posts, cut down bushes, took up clods of earth and threw them on the ground” as well as engaging in other tokens of possession. Similar rituals are frequently described in the Spanish Collection of the GLO Archives.
Hoffman and Walker’s Pictorial, Historical Map of Texas contains an enormous amount of information packed into a neatly illustrated map of the state of Texas. The map was presented in 1966 to Col. George I. Taylor, Chief of Staff of the 1st Armored Division at Ft. Hood, Texas. It was donated to the GLO in his honor by his children. Due to copyright, this map is unavailable for reproduction; however to view the map in greater detail for research purposes, click here.
[1] For more information on the La Salle expedition, see: https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/uel07
[2] For a biography of Robert Potter, see: https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fpo31
