Maps of Exploration and Settlement

A coat of arms is a symbol in the form of a shield which represents a family, a city, or other organization. This map features the English royal coat of arms of the reigning monarch, Queen Elizabeth I.

Scale bars graphically depict distance on a map. This elaborate example is decorated with illustrations of a mermaid and a divider, an instrument used to measure distances on a map.

Mapmakers used ornamental frames called cartouches to enclose titles and other information. Other forms of art, such as architecture, also utilized these decorative elements.

A map’s compass rose shows the cardinal directions of north, south, east, and west. The term rose refers to the compass points that resembled the petals of a rose flower. Compass roses likely originated in China or in the Mediterranean region, and first appeared on European maps and charts in the 1300s.

Theodor de Bry
Americae Pars, Nunc Virginia
Frankfurt: 1590

This map depicts the coast of Virginia (now North Carolina) in 1585, when the British first attempted settlement there. Flemish-German engraver Theodor de Bry featured it in Thomas Harriot’s A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia. De Bry never visited North America and based America Pars, Nunc Virginia (Part of America, Now Virginia) on a manuscript map and drawings by John White, an English artist who, along with Harriot, accompanied expeditions to Virginia. White's illustrations of Indigenous people, plants, and animals were copied by other mapmakers and shaped European views of North America. The vibrant hand coloring was added after the book’s publication.  

North Carolina Collection

Most maps depicting Indigenous people in North America reflect European perceptions and attitudes. Early maps often depict Native Americans wearing little clothing. Many Europeans believed that the human body should be well-covered, and that public nudity suggested a lack of sophistication. Consequently, they portrayed Native Americans, whom they considered inferior, with few clothes.

Willem Blaeu and Joan Blaeu
Virginiae partis australis et Floridae partis orientalis interjacentiumq[ue] regionum nova description
Amsterdam: [J. and C. Blaeu], 1640

This hand-colored map of the southeastern U.S. from southern Virginia to Florida exemplifies how early cartographers appropriated content from other maps for use in their own. The Blaeus based this map on a 1606 map by Jocodus Hondius. Hondius’s work borrows from 1580s surveys and drawings done by artists John White and Jacques Le Moyne as published in Theodor de Bry’s Grand Voyages. The figures in the cartouche are derived from Le Moyne’s/De Bry’s illustrations of Indigenous people in Florida. Other items of note include the royal arms of England and France, although France was no longer in Florida at this time. Ornamental lettering is used to fill in empty spaces in the land and the sea. The map appeared in Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, or Theatre of the Lands of the World, the first modern atlas.

North Carolina Collection

The inclusion of an Asian figure holding an incense burner may seem out of keeping for a map of North America, but during the Age of Exploration, European mapmakers frequently incorporated allegorical figures representing the then-accepted four continents: Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. The figures were adorned with items that Europeans considered characteristic of each continent.

Johannes Baptist Homann
Virginia, Marylandia, and Carolina: America septentrionali Brittannorum industria excultae
Norimberg?: Johann Baptist Homann, ca. 1730

German mapmaker Johannes Baptist Homann created this map to promote the British colonies to prospective settlers from his homeland. The subtitle translates to “North America Developed the British Industry,” which is consistent with the political and commercial messages in the map. The elaborate title cartouche reflects a European perception of North America as a continent rich with natural resources and Native people with whom to trade. The order of figures suggests a racial hierarchy with an armed European settler at the top followed by people from Asia and the Americas.

North Carolina Collection