Mapping Texas: From Frontier to the Lone Star State — Western Expansion
In the nearly three hundred years that it took for Texas to take its current shape, the space changed from an extensive, unexplored and sparsely settled frontier under the Spanish Crown to its iconic and easily recognizable outline. Mapping Texas: From Frontier to the Lone Star State traces the cartographic history of Texas from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, from contested imperial claims that spanned the continent to individual rights of ownership all with the understanding that in order for a place to be claimed, it needed to be mapped.
Western Expansion: Fulfilling an American Destiny
The mapping of the United States’ western expansion is an important part of Mapping Texas: From Frontier to the Lone Star State. The following maps demonstrate the burgeoning American mindset of Manifest Destiny, the popular belief that the United States was destined — by God perhaps — to extend the full breadth of the North American continent.[1]
After its independence from Britain, the United States looked to expand its influence into the areas under Spanish and French rule. Hoping to suppress the American incursions into the areas that would become Texas, New Mexico and California, Spain sought to fix its contentious border with the United States. The 1819 Transcontinental Treaty (also known as the Adams-Onís Treaty), which established the eastern border of Texas and placed a northern limit on Spanish claims, remained in force until the end of the Mexican-American War in 1848.[2]
To view any of the maps below in greater detail, click on the image to access the map’s database entry.
As tensions between Britain and France escalated, mapmakers set out to work on portraying overlapping claims. Beginning in the 1760s, Louis Delarochette built on Jean Palairet and other mapmakers’ work to depict the American colonists’ claims that their lands extended clear to the Pacific Ocean. In this version, the limits of the southern colonies reach as far west as the Mississippi River and Texas is labeled as part of New Mexico.
Ms. Katherine Staat donated this map to the GLO in memory of Herbert Christian Merillat.
Cornelius Mortier and Johannes Covens’ “Map of the Thirteen States of North America,” published in Amsterdam with a bilingual French/Dutch title, is a beautiful depiction of the United States shortly after its independence from Britain. The map represents the demand for agricultural land and the push westward to the Mississippi River. As with most maps of the period, Texas is identified as the Land of the Cenis (Païs des Cenis) and shows indigenous villages connected via roads and rivers flowing into the Gulf of Mexico.
Antoine Boudet published his “United States of North America…” following the 1783 Treaty of Paris, which recognized the independence of the United States from Britain.[3] He included Thomas Jefferson’s proposed states and their names for the (then) Northwest Territories.[4] Nearly a century after the French incursions into Texas, the land was still recognized as a “great space of land unknown,” though full of rivers, indigenous villages, and the establishment of the French fort by La Salle.
No mapmaker illustrated this idea of America spreading across the continent from east to west more than John Melish (1771 -1822), whose 1816 “Map of the United States” showed the U.S. territory extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. Melish’s map, issued in 24 separate editions between 1816 and 1823, played an integral part in the delineation of the boundaries between Spanish and American territories in the 1819 Transcontinental Treaty (also known as the Adams-Onís Treaty).
Over forty rare maps from the collections of the Texas General Land Office, the Witte Museum, and the private collection of Frank and Carol Holcomb, of Houston, are on display at the Witte Museum in San Antonio through September 18, 2016
As part of the 7th Annual Save Texas History Symposium, you will have the opportunity to see this exhibit by registering for the evening reception, which will be held in the Robert J. and Helen C. Kleberg South Texas Heritage Center at the Witte Museum. Support the Save Texas History program, visit with other Texas history enthusiasts, and check out this acclaimed exhibit before it closes in late September. Shuttles will be provided between the Menger Hotel and Witte Museum. Registration for this reception is $50.
[1] To learn more about Manifest Destiny see: http://www.pbs.org/kera/usmexicanwar/prelude/manifest_destiny_overview.html
[2] For more on the Adams-Onís Treaty see: http://www.tamu.edu/faculty/ccbn/dewitt/adamonis.htm
[3] For more information on the Treaty of Paris, 1783 see: https://history.state.gov/milestones/1776-1783/treaty and https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/paris.html
[4] For more on Jefferson’s proposed states and other ideas for states that never came to fruition, see Michael J. Trinklein, Lost States: True Stories of Texlahoma, Transylvania, and Other States That Never Made It, (Philadelphia: Quirk Books, 2010).
