Mark Catesby, Carolinae Floridae nec non Insularum Bahamensium cum partibus adjacentibus delinatio ad Exemplar Londinense in lucem edita a …, 1755

Catesby’s map depicts the Southeastern United States as far west as the Mississippi River and is colored to show the British Colonies in red, French possessions in green and the regions controlled by Spain in yellow. Catesby drew on several important maps for the content, including the manuscript of Captain John Barnwell (1722) that incorporates several details not found on earlier printed maps. He also used Popple’s great 20-sheet map as seen by the river configuration in Georgia and the dotted trail connecting Fort Argyle to Combahee River.

Catesby’s map is one of the earliest and largest maps of the region. Catesby meticulously reproduced the Coastal and River System features of the Southeastern portion of Popple’s map along with the Indian settlements and English, French & Spanish settlements and annotations. Catesby’s map was one of the earliest printed maps to locate Georgia, which first appeared on Popple’s map in 1734. The map also shows a detailed treatment of the Bahamas, which had been chartered by the same group of Proprietors as the Carolinas and had come from Bermuda, which is shown by Seligmann immediately to the right of the cartouche.

The English edition of this map was first published in Vol. II of Mark Catesby’s Natural History of South Carolina, and the Bahama Islands, London, 1743 and is one of the most sought after works of Colonial American natural history. The so called “Continental Version”, Seligmann’s Sammlung verschiedener auslaendischer und seltener Vögel, was published in nine parts between 1749 and 1776, and included a German translation of Catesby’s work with re-engraved versions of his images, including the present map. Catesby’s work was the first natural history of American flora and fauna.

The Catesby scholar, G.F. Frick calls Selgimann’s map “a good representation of the better English ideas about the geography of North America” in the period. The English edition of the map appeared in two states. On the first state of 1743, the territory on both sides of the Mississippi was colored green, to indicate that the entire region was in the hands of the French. A second state was included in the third edition of Catesby’s Natural History in 1771, shows the prevailing borders after the Treaty of Paris in 1763. The territory on the east bank of the Mississippi, which had been acquired by Britain, is in green; the territory to the West, which had become part of Spain under the Treaty, is in blue. Seligman’s edition is nearly identical to the first English first state. The map shows Southeastern North America as far west as the Mississippi River, plus the nearby Caribbean islands of the Bahamas, Cuba, Jamaica, and Hispaniola. This map is a fine copy of Seligmann’s edition of Catesby’s Map of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands, in remarkable old color.