Charting New Netherland, 1597-1682
7) Novi Belgii Novaeque Angliae, c. 1673, Amsterdam.
Mapmaker: Justin Dankerts
This third-generation example of the Jansson-Visscher series is most lavishly decorated. It adds additional animals and place names and reflects with greater accuracy surveys conducted by the colonists. Every Indian tribe encountered by the colonists is represented and every town and village. Both Visscher and Danckerts preserve the claim of rights to Cape Cod (“Nieuw Hollant”). Equally preserved, Lake Champlain is depicted too far to the east. This offered tinters defining borders the opportunity to move New Netherland’s eastern border eastward beyond the Versche Rivier (the Connecticut).
A review of these maps’ titles and contents reveals an evolution from Latin to the vernacular, i.e., Nova Belgia and Nieuw Nederlandt appear together on the Danckerts map. This reflects a shift in mapmakers’ sources of information: from the abstractions of scholars to the practical, on-the-ground knowledge of seamen, merchants, and colonists.
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