DOCUMENT PROJECT 1

Mapping America

As Europeans expanded their trade and exploration in the fifteenth century, they gathered information about navigational routes and the regions they encountered. Cartographers used this information to create increasingly accurate maps of the known world. One of the leading efforts in mapmaking was conducted under the leadership of Prince Henry of Portugal. His assemblage of cartographers, geographers, astronomers, and explorers helped revolutionize European understandings of the western coast of Africa and nearby islands in the Atlantic. The 1513 Piri Reis map (Document 1.2), in particular, used Portuguese maps to chart Africa and the Atlantic.

Columbus’s discovery of the Western Hemisphere in 1492 redrew the map of the world. Although he believed he had found a route to Asia, by 1507 when the Universalis Cosmographia appeared, cartographers understood this as an entirely new region. Throughout the early sixteenth century, maps of the Americas continued to expand and modify knowledge of what was termed the “New World,” whose territory would be claimed by Spain, Portugal, England, France, and other European powers. Of course, the Western Hemisphere was not a “new” world but instead one inhabited by millions of indigenous peoples with complex societies of their own. Document 1.4 is an example of a map created by indigenous people in what is now Mexico; they often used maps not only to depict an area but also to record developments in that region that had occurred over decades or even centuries.

The following maps depict changing understandings of Europe, Africa, and the Americas from 1490 to the mid-sixteenth century, as well as the increasing interconnectedness of these regions. They represent not only attempts to chart territory and navigational routes but also cultural beliefs about the world and the people encountered by Europeans. As you examine them, think about what their creators chose to include, what they left out, and how these maps helped shape European attitudes toward Africa and the Western Hemisphere.