1670 America Being an Accurate Description of the New World
America: being an accurate description of the new world; containing the original of the inhabitants; the remarkable voyages thither; the conquest of the vast empires of Mexico and Peru, their ancient and later wars. With their several plantations, many, and rich islands; their cities, fortresses, towns, temples, mountains, and rivers: their habits, customs, manners, and religions; their peculiar plants, beasts, birds, and serpents. Collected and translated from most authentic authors, and augmented with later observations; illustrated with notes, and adorn'd with peculiar maps, and proper sculptures, by John Ogilby
Ogilby's English translation of Montanus's work, De Nieuwe en Onbekende Weerld, published in the same year. Complete as issued, with the Arx Carolina plate and the Virginia pars Australis & Florida map replaced with the large folding "First Lords Proprietors" map and the map of Barbados at page 377. The final leaf of instructions for placing the plates retains the first issue listing, not reflecting the present changes.
Nova Terrae-Mariae tabula
Ogilby's map is the second appearance of this rare and highly important map, which was first issued in A Relation of Maryland; Together with a Map of the Countrey . . .
Papenfuse speculated that the map may have been prepared by Jerome Hawley and John Lewger, but the maker remains unknown. The map is the first map to focus on Maryland and is of great significance in border disputes with Pennsylvania, where the map was used as evidence by the Penn family against the Calvert family, the proprietors of Maryland because the map showed the 40th parallel too far south. The dispute was not settled until effort by Ferdinando John Paris to bring the families together in the early 1730s resulted in several rounds of litigation before the courts in England, which was ultimately resolved in the 1750s and resulted in the surveys by Mason and Dixon.
The map is drawn largely from Smith's and Thorowgood's explorations. The Ogilby edition corrects the 40th Parallel.
A New Description of Carolina
Rare and important early promotional map of the Carolinas, from the coast of the Appalachians, prepared by James Moxon to promote the newly established Carolina Colony.
This map is the first large format map of the newly settled Carolina Colony, preceded only by the much smaller and relatively simple maps by Robert Horne (1666) and John Lederer (1672) and Richard Blome (1672). The Ogilby-Moxon map would come to be known as The First Lords Proprietors Map, with a second Lords Proprietors Map appearing in 1682 .
The map covers the region of North and South Carolina from the James River in present-day Virginia to St. Augustine in present-day Florida and includes an inset of the site of Charleston on the Ashley and Cooper Rivers. Cartographic elements include sea banks or shoals, soundings, some topographical details, degrees of latitude, compass rose, scale, and location of rivers and settlements. Decorative cartouches include scenes with native Americans wearing furs and feathered headdresses, and holding spears, club, and bow. Also includes scene of swimming. Decorative elements include buffalo skull, ships, sea monsters, dwelling, and royal English coat of arms.
While the first contact with Cape Fear was made by Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1524, there was no English exploration of the Carolinas region for nearly 150 years. William Hilton conducted the first English exploration of the Cape Fear region in 1662, on behalf of the New England Company. Hilton sailed from Boston, entered the Cape Fear River, and proceeded upstream to an area near modern Wilmington. The purpose of the voyage was to establish settlement potential for the Carolinas.
The manuscript account of Hilton's expedition gives a detailed account of the region, the animals and plants seen, and notes on the potential for agriculture. While the Hilton account does not include a map, a chart of the voyage was drawn by Nicholas Shapley, in November, 1662. The New England Company's plan for colonization ended when Charles II granted eight of his courtiers the Proprietorship of the Province of Carolina, on March 20, 1663. The Proprietors retained Hilton, who in 1663 led a group of settlers from Barbados on a second expedition to the Carolinas, which resulted in the failed Charles Town colony, which was abandoned in 1667.
Lord Ashley, one of the Proprietors, organized the next expedition with John Locke. In the summer of 1669, 150 colonists sailed to the Carolinas via Barbados and Bermuda. The colonists arrived in March 1670 at Bull's Bay, 20 miles north of Charleston Harbor. After exploring Port Royal, they settled at St. George's Bay in Charleston Harbor on the Kiawah River, which was renamed the Ashley River.
In 1670, while Ogilby was beginning work on his America, he was approached by Peter Colleton, one of the Lords Proprietors, who in turn reported to John Locke that
Mr. Ogilby who is printing a relation of the West Indies haty been often with me to gett a map of Carolina wherefore I humbly desire you to gett of my lord (Ashley) those mapps of Cape feare & Albermarlee that he hath & I will drawn them into one with that of port Royal & waite upon my lord for the nominations ofthe rivers, & c. & if you would do us the favour to draw a dicourse to be added to this map in ye nature of a description such as might invite peope with out seemng to come from us it would very much conduce to the speed of settlemt.
Acting on this admonition, the Lords Proprietors prepared this map, engraved by James Moxon. Prior to this map, only the small map by Robert Horne of 1666 had focused on the Colony. Moxon's map was a significant improvement over the Horne map, both in size and the accuracy of its depiction of the Colony. The Albermarle and Pamlico Sounds are corrected, based upon information from and unknown source. The Cape Fear region is drawn from Horne's map. The map also relies heavily on Lederer 1672, for information concerning the interior, and it was chiefly through this popular map that Lederer's misconceptions became so quickly disseminated and so widely copied. Hilton's and Sandford's reports of the coast are also used. The inset is based on Ashley-Cooper 1671 manuscript, with some names taken from Culpeper 1671 manuscript and represents the earliest printed map of the region which would become Charleston.
Unfortunately, the map was not ready until after the first revised edition of Ogilby's work and is therefore much rarer than the map of Maryland (commonly referred to as the Lord Baltimore Map), which is the other original English map to appear in Ogilby's America. The Carolina map replaced the Montanus 1638 Blaeu inspired map of the Carolinas, which appeared in the earlier editions of Ogilby's America. The map was also issued separately and is found in some examples of Samuel Wilson's An Account of the Province of Carolina. The map would serve as the model for a number of later derivatives, most notably A New Description of Carolina, engraved by Francis Lamb for the1676 Bassett & Chiswell edition of John Speeds' s Prospect of the Most famous Parts of the World, published in London in 1676.
The map appeared in the last 2 editions of John Ogilby's seminal America: Being the Latest, and Most Accurate Description of the New World, published in London in 1671. While Ogilby's work is in part an expanded English translation of Arnoldus Montanus' Die Nieuwe en onbekende Weereld…, published in Amsterdam, this map did not appear in Montanus' work and was also not in the early editions of Ogilby's America. It was not until about 1673 that the map was added to one of the late revised editions. The late editions were used as promotional tracts by promoters of the Maryland and Carolina colonies in North America.