Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
This has been widely labelled as 'the Catawba map' because the more numerous smaller
circles seem to represent Catawba areas, although the Cherokees and the Chickasaws get a
relatively large circle each. Pictographs or stylised drawings show a man hunting a deer, and
a larger upright figure with arms akimbo, perhaps dancing? These and the drawing of the ship
in harbour at Charleston all face different directions; it is the copyist's legends added to the
map which require the viewer to look at it with south at the top. Here, the east coast is shown
on the left and not, as we would expect, on the right. The original deerskin map is not known
to survive, so we cannot now tell how the words inside the circles were conveyed on the ori-
ginal, or how much the copyist has added.
The original map was presented to Francis Nicholson as Governor of Carolina, which dates
it between the years 1721 and 1725, when he held that post. The map may have been made to
show the new English colonial administrator the strategically important links between Indian
groups and with the British colonies, or simply as a gift to help cement trading links.
Nicholson considered the map important enough that he arranged to have it copied. One
version made on Nicholson's behalf and dedicated to the Prince of Wales is now in the British
Library. That map differs slightly in the detail of lines drawn between circles from our ver-
sion, which he sent to the Secretary of State for the Colonies. Through this map we glimpse
the map behind it, and an older tradition of spatial representation, where the map was as much
a record of social knowledge as a geographical construct.
