America
Cartographer:
Speed, John
Date of Creation:
1662
“The first map in an atlas to depict California as an island, and an accurate east coast of North America” (Burden) when it was first published by John Speed in his ‘A Prospect of the Most Famous Parts of the World’ in 1627.
For this map Goos drew “on his engraving of North America in 1624, and the Briggs of 1625, to depict California as an island once more. He was the only Dutch cartographer to do so for some considerable time. There are five fewer placenames in California than the Briggs. However, like his earlier one he includes a similar faint northwest coastline and Strait of Anian. ‘Brasil’ and ‘Frisland’, remnants from the sixteenth century, make a stubborn appearance in the North Atlantic. The fledgling colonies of Plymouth in New England, and ‘Iames Citti’ in Virginia, are both recognized. Decorating the whole are three attractive borders. The two sides illustrated the natives of the continent, the left bears those of the north, and the right those of the south. Despite the map’s obvious attention to the English presence in North America, none of the eight towns represented in the third are from that part. This is owing to the lack of any contemporary views to draw on” (Burden).
In addition, Rea has added Boston in New England, Connecticut, Maryland and Long Island to the map, and a dotted boundary has been placed round Delaware and Hudsons Rio. The Reas, elder and younger, had purchased the rights to Speed's work from William Garrett in 1589, who had previously purchased them from the widow of William Humble in the same year. Skelton suggests that the father and son intended a new edition of the atlas for the Restoration of 1660. However, the atlas would appear not to have been published until 1665.