1784 Seutter / Probst Map of the Americas w/ California as an Island

This is Johann Michael Probst's rare 1784 issue of Mattheus Seutter's map of the Americas. Among other features, it includes a very late representation of California as an island, a cartographic myth that had largely been dispelled decades earlier.

A Closer Look

Covering North and South America and portions of Europe and Asia, and combining text in Latin, English, French, and Spanish, this map includes detail on the waterways, mountains, settlements, and peoples of the Americas. However, many of these are speculative and were anachronistic by the time of publication. The most obvious distinguishing feature of the map is the maintenance of California as an island (discussed below), making this among the last published maps to do so (unironically, at least).

The entire North American continent is oddly apportioned with the eastern part of the continent including the Great Lakes enlarged, and the Mississippi River shifted west and emanating from large lakes in the vicinity of today's Montana. No attempt is made to approximate the western part of the continent north of the Salish Sea. The Yucatan Peninsula is also narrow and misshapen. Perhaps strangest of all, Probst maintains 'N. Hollandia' in the vicinity of New York more than a century after the colony had changed hands and even following the establishment of the United States. The geography of South America also includes interesting relics of earlier cartography, including a large Lake Xarayes in the middle of the continent (one supposed location of El Dorado).

In the west, in addition to Insular California, the inclusion of 'Terra Esonis Incogna' just below the decorative cartouche at top-left most likely a reference to Ezo (Yesso in European sources), the islands, including Hokkaido, the Kurils, and Sakhalin, to the north of Japan. Here, Seutter suggests a close proximity and a Northwest Passage between the Americas and Asia across the Strait of Anián. Further south, the Soloman Islands and other lands explored by Mendaña are displayed as fairly close to the South American continent.

Another noticeable aspect of the map is the inclusion of not one but two large, decorative cartouches at left. The first, at top, depicts the European exploration of the Americas and the introduction of Christianity, represented by the Virgin Mary holding a large cross and an altar to her right, before which two indigenous men pray. The cartouche at bottom illustrates contented natives cultivating sugar cane, tobacco, and corn.

California as an Island

The idea of an insular California first appeared as a work of fiction in Garci Rodriguez de Montalvo's c. 1510 romance Las Sergas de Esplandian, where he writes

Know, that on the right hand of the Indies there is an island called California very close to the side of the Terrestrial Paradise; and it is peopled by black women, without any man among them, for they live in the manner of Amazons.

Baja California was subsequently discovered in 1533 by Fortun Ximenez, who had been sent to the area by Hernan Cortez. When Cortez himself traveled to Baja, he must have had Montalvo's novel in mind, for he immediately claimed the 'Island of California' for the Spanish King. By the late 16th and early 17th century, ample evidence had been amassed through explorations of the region by Francisco de Ulloa, Hernando de Alarcon, and others that California was, in fact, a peninsula.

However, by this time, other factors were in play. Francis Drake had sailed north and claimed 'New Albion' (identified here in the northern part of the fictitious island) for England. Thus, there was some interest in promoting Cortez's claim on the 'Island of California' to preempt English claims on the western coast of North America. This led to a major resurgence of the Insular California theory. In the early 18th century, Eusebio Kino, a Jesuit missionary, traveled overland from Mexico to California, proving conclusively the peninsularity of California. Among cartographers, Guillaume De L'Isle undertook an intensive study of the matter (including Kino's account) and concluded that California must not be an island. Nevertheless, the island theory had its defenders and, as the present map demonstrates, it took several decades for the misconception to fully disappear.

Publication History and Census

This map was published by Johann Michael Probst in Augsburg in 1784. It is based on the map that first appeared in Matteus Seutter's Atlas Novus sive Tabulae Geographicae around 1730, itself strongly influenced by earlier maps (such as Homann's ' Totius Americae Septentrionalis et Meridionalis'), and was republished in several states, most easily distinguished by whether or not the Virgin Mary is holding a cross in the cartouche at top-left and the text at bottom-right. After Seutter's death, the plate for this map was acquired by Johann Michael Probst (the Elder) and then his sons after his death. This issue of the map with Probst's name is quite rare, being noted among the holdings of ten institutions in the OCLC.