Mapmakers populated their oceans with illustrations of ships and sea monsters. They drew the creatures based on sailors’ descriptions of whales, sharks, and other sea animals. The drawings added special flourishes to maps and helped fill large blank spaces. They also contributed to a sense of the high adventure surrounding voyages of discovery and made the maps more attractive to potential buyers. As the Age of Exploration gave way to the Age of Enlightenment in the 1700s, mapmakers turned away from fanciful embellishments and toward more accurate depictions of lands and oceans. Sea creatures disappeared from maps.
John White
La Virginea Pars
1585
Drawn by John White, an English artist and governor of the 1587 Roanoke Colony, this map is a detailed rendering of the east coast of North America from the Chesapeake Bay to the present-day Florida Keys. White accompanied all three of Sir Walter Raleigh’s expeditions to Roanoke Island, labeled here as “Roanoac.” He combined his careful surveys with information provided by the Indigenous people and earlier Spanish and French sources, making this map the most detailed piece of cartography for any part of North America to be made in the sixteenth century.
This map acts as a visual record of the 1585 voyage to Virginia led by Sir Richard Grenville. White added various decorative elements such as the arms of Sir Walter Raleigh, sea monsters, and sailing vessels. Grenville’s flagship Tyger is seen at the bottom.
North Carolina Collection
Copyright 1964 by Trustees of the British Museum; Page-Holgate Watercolor Facsimiles of the John White Drawings
John Ogilby and J. Moxon
A New Description of Carolina by the Order of the Lords Proprietors
London: John Ogilby, ca. 1671
A New Description of Carolina became a benchmark in the history of mapping the Carolinas. Created as a promotional tool by the Lord Proprietors, the eight Englishmen to whom Charles II granted joint ownership of the colony, it was meant to lure colonists to the area.
The map is oriented to the west, with north to the right, a common practice for maps of this era as it was deemed most logical to present the land as it would appear when sailing from England. The map extends from south of St. Augustine to James Town along the north bank of the St. James River on the southern border of the colony of Virginia. The map provides coastal details, but also an impressive amount of information on the interior. The mapmaker included depictions of aquatic and land animals and Indigenous people to fascinate and entice.
North Carolina Collection