Chart of the New Islands, those called the Oriental or Indian for your information (and use).
| An early map of "The New World" showing both North and South America (as yet unnamed) along with islands of the Carribean.
Japan is that large island immediately above the mast of the sailing
ship. England is coloured bright red-orange and lies at the extreme
eastern edge of this map. "Francesca" denotes the country in which Mahone Bay, Lunenburg County lies. |
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Maps
dating from the early 1500's began
to suggest that there was a large land mass in the western Atlantic.
European sea-going nations did make territorial claims but there was
little interest in actually depicting that far-away coastline.
The first charts served fishermen who came to work the banks of
the northeast of North America and they were very inaccurate. Areas
within the interior gradually took on names derived from the early
explorers. Mountain ranges were arbitrarily scattered across the
continent. Apart from going ashore to restock on water and foodstuff,
there was no evidence of an established European presence with the
exception of seasonal huts outfitted to serve the inshore fisheries of
Atlantic Canada and New England.
The native population had mixed feelings about the visitors. Unhappily
for them, French colonizing expeditions appeared and set up
trading stations in the country at first called Acadia. English
businessmen were not far behind, placing their settlements in the
south of what is now the United States, later moving their
settlements as far north as Maine.
The name Arcadia appears on
the Zaltieri map of 1556 and was said to have been named by Verrazzano
in the 1520s. Although originally applied to a part of the coast of
Virginia or Maryland, it gradually migrated northward on subsequent
maps, and on Lavasseurs's map of 1601 appears as La Cadie planted on what appears to be present-day New England. He named what we now call New Brunswick and Nova Scotia Nouvelle France. Champlain's later cartography extended "New France" to include Cadie and lands along the Saint Lawrence River which appear on the Lavasseur map as Canada. |
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Close up of Francisca an earlier version of "New France."
From quite early on, Newfoundland and Cape Breton were known for
headlands which guided fishermen and explorers in sailing these waters.
On this map the former is identified as Cortereal honouring the early explorer "Cortes Real." The designation C. Britonum is easier to interpret and may indicate the presence of "British" rather than "Breton" fishermen on the nearby banks.
The inadequate outline of present day Nova Scotia, which lies
immediately south of Cape Breton, lacks the distinguishing landward
opening into the Gulf of Maine and the Bay of Fundy. The Saint Lawrence
River is also slighted. That massive embayment at left seems to by
Hudson's Bay. In the maps of this century which followed there
were vast areas labelled "Parte Incognita," but pictorial imagery
became much more important that on this simplistic map. |
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