1756 Homann 1st Ed Antique Map of United States of America - French Indian War

Cartographer : Johann Baptist Homann

  • Title : America Septentrionalis a domino d Anville in Galiis edita nunc in Anglia coloniis in interiorem Virginiam deductis nec non fluvii Ohio cursu aucta notisq geographicis et historicis illustrata.....1756
  • Ref #:  82077
  • Size: 23in x 20in (585mm x 510mm)
  • Date : 1756
  • Condition: (A+) Fine Condition

Description:
This magnificent hand coloured original copper-plate engraved antique 1st edition map of the Colonial United States, at the beginning of the French-Indian war, was engraved in 1756 - dated in cartouche - by the Homann firm, Germany.

A fine example of the first edition of the Homanns map of the English Colonies in North America near the outset of the French and Indian War.
The map covers much of the eastern part of the modern day United States from just west of the Mississippi River to the eastern seaboard, and from James Bay to the Gulf of Mexico. The map is color coded in an attempt to illustrate the original colonial grants as bestowed by the British Crown. Although most of the text is in German, there is also much in English, including numerous place named annotations associated the the French and Indian War, such as the locations of Fort Duquesne and Fort Necessity, both taken by the French in 1754. Thus although the cartographer credits D Anville for the basic cartography, it is clear he is drawing from English, not French, sources. Both the bottom right and upper left quadrants feature copious textual notes in German offering a short history and describing the region in some considerable detail.

General Definitions:
Paper thickness and quality: - Heavy and stable
Paper color : - off white
Age of map color: - Original
Colors used: - Yellow, green, blue, pink
General color appearance: - Authentic
Paper size: - 23in x 20in (585mm x 510mm)
Plate size: - 20 1/2in x 18 1/2in (520mm x 470mm)
Margins: - Min 1in (25mm)

Imperfections:
Margins: - None
Plate area: - None
Verso: - None

Background: 
The French and Indian War (1754–63) comprised the North American theatre of the worldwide Seven Years War of 1756–63. It pitted the colonies of British America against those of New France. Both sides were supported by military units from their parent countries, as well as by American Indian allies. At the start of the war, the French North American colonies had a population of roughly 60,000 settlers, compared with 2 million in the British North American colonies. The outnumbered French particularly depended on the Indians. The European nations declared war on one another in 1756 following months of localized conflict, escalating the war from a regional affair into an intercontinental conflict.
The name French and Indian War is used mainly in the United States. It refers to the two enemies of the British colonists, the royal French forces and their various American Indian allies. The British colonists were supported at various times by the Iroquois, Catawba, and Cherokee, and the French colonists were supported by Wabanaki Confederacy members Abenaki and Mikmaq, and Algonquin, Lenape, Ojibwa, Ottawa, Shawnee, and Wyandot.
British and other European historians use the term the Seven Years War, as do English-speaking Canadians. French Canadians call it La guerre de la Conquête (the War of the Conquest) or (rarely) the Fourth Intercolonial War.
Fighting took place primarily along the frontiers between New France and the British colonies, from Virginia in the south to Newfoundland in the north. It began with a dispute over control of the confluence of the Allegheny River and Monongahela River called the Forks of the Ohio, and the site of the French Fort Duquesne in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The dispute erupted into violence in the Battle of Jumonville Glen in May 1754, during which Virginia militiamen under the command of 22-year-old George Washington ambushed a French patrol.
In 1755, six colonial governors in North America met with General Edward Braddock, the newly arrived British Army commander, and planned a four-way attack on the French. None succeeded, and the main effort by Braddock proved a disaster; he lost the Battle of the Monongahela on July 9, 1755 and died a few days later. British operations failed in the frontier areas of Pennsylvania and New York during 1755–57 due to a combination of poor management, internal divisions, effective Canadian scouts, French regular forces, and Indian warrior allies. In 1755, the British captured Fort Beauséjour on the border separating Nova Scotia from Acadia, and they ordered the expulsion of the Acadians (1755–64) soon afterwards. Orders for the deportation were given by William Shirley, Commander-in-Chief, North America, without direction from Great Britain. The Acadians were expelled, both those captured in arms and those who had sworn the loyalty oath to His Britannic Majesty. Indians likewise were driven off the land to make way for settlers from New England.
The British colonial government fell in the region of modern Nova Scotia after several disastrous campaigns in 1757, including a failed expedition against Louisbourg and the Siege of Fort William Henry; this last was followed by Indians torturing and massacring their British victims. William Pitt came to power and significantly increased British military resources in the colonies at a time when France was unwilling to risk large convoys to aid the limited forces that they had in New France, preferring to concentrate their forces against Prussia and its allies in the European theater of the war. Between 1758 and 1760, the British military launched a campaign to capture the Colony of Canada (part of New France). They succeeded in capturing territory in surrounding colonies and ultimately the city of Quebec (1759). The British later lost the Battle of Sainte-Foy west of Quebec (1760), but the French ceded Canada in accordance with the Treaty of Paris (1763).
The outcome was one of the most significant developments in a century of Anglo-French conflict. France ceded to Great Britain its territory east of the Mississippi. It ceded French Louisiana west of the Mississippi River (including New Orleans) to its ally Spain in compensation for Spains loss to Britain of Florida. (Spain had ceded Florida to Britain in exchange for the return of Havana, Cuba.) Frances colonial presence north of the Caribbean was reduced to the islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, confirming Great Britains position as the dominant colonial power in eastern North America. (Ref Shirley, Tooley, M&B)

$1,750.00