1703 Lahontan Map of the Great Lakes, Mississippi River, and Riviere Longue (first edition)

A foundational and influential map, this is the 1703 first edition of Baron Louis-Armand de Lom d'Arce de Lahontan's seminal map of the westernmost Great Lakes, the Mississippi River, and its enigmatic tributary river, the Riviere Longue or Long River, extending westwards towards the Rocky Mountains. Although Baron de Lahontan's cartography has been severely criticized and considered apocryphal by some, it exerted a profound influence on other mapmakers of the era, including Herman Moll, John Senex, Henry Popple, and Guillaume Delisle.

A Closer Look

Although framed as a single map, this is more accurately two maps separated by a dotted line: the right hand Carte de la Riviere Longue et de Quelques Autres (Map of the Long River and Some Others) covering from a recognizable Lake Michigan (Lac des Ilinois) and Lake Superior (Lac Superieur) westward beyond the Mississippi an unclear distance; and the Carte que les Gnacsitares ont Dessine Sur (Map drawn on the Gnacsitares) covering from some unknown point far west of the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains and beyond. We will deal with each map separately before addressing the document as a whole.

The first map is highly recognizable and is based upon earlier cartography combined with Lahontan's firsthand observations in the field during the Beaver Wars (1603 - 1701). Being gifted with languages, Lahontan mastered Algonquin and was sent with a detachment of French and American Indian troops to harass the Iroquois. He spent much of this time hunting and exploring the Upper Mississippi Valley, where he developed a romanticized impression of the local American Indians in line with the 'Noble Savage' trope.

Lahontan was not trained as a cartographer or field surveyor, so his map is best understood as an amalgam of earlier maps intended as a platform to illustrate a loose interpretation of his field observations. We can clearly recognize both Lake Superior and Lake Michigan. The Illinois River is evident, as is the Wabash. Based upon earlier maps, he identifies the Missouri extending westward from the Mississippi near the bottom edge of the map and offers reasonable approximations of the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers.

The main point of interest is the impressive river extending westward from the Mississippi here identified as the Riviere Longue or Long River. This river is Lahontan's most enduring contribution to cartography. While some scholars have decried the Long River as a fabrication, a close study of the map as well as Lahontan's journals suggests that he may have discovered and explored, without knowing it, much of the upper Missouri River generations before Lewis and Clark would embark upon their own famous voyage. Lahontan may have followed the Minnesota River rather than portage overland to meet the upper Missouri around Sioux City, mistaking it for the same river. His map and narrative describe encounters with the Eokoros, the Esanapes, the Gnacsitares, and the Mozeemlek. The Eokoros are likely the Arikaras, the pronunciation of which may have sounded similar to Lahontan's ear. If so, both the location and Lahontan's description of Eokoros life fits. Between the lands of the Gnacsitares and Esnapes, Lohontan divides the map with a double dotted line, marking the division between his actual explorations and the cartography he derived from indigenous sources.

Beyond Known Lands

Thus, our focus moves to the lefthand map, which continues to follow the Riviere Longue, though the name has changed to Riviere Morte (River of Death). The source of the Riviere Morte is high in a great North-South mountain range. Lahontan's indigenous informants describe the mountains as 'so high that one must pass an infinity of windings and turnings so that he may cross them' - surely an apt description of the Rocky Mountains. West of these mountains, Mozeemlek captives described a great river flowing westward into the lands of the Tahuglauk, a people who lived near a great salt sea or lake, lived in plank houses, wore conical hats, and built great canoes. To us, this seems a very apt description of the Columbia River and the American Indians of the Northwest Coast, specifically the Tillamook, who fit this description exactly and whose name bears a phonetic resemblance to Tahuglauk.

Regardless of whether our speculations regarding the veracity of Lahontan's explorations have any merit, his narrative, and this accompanying map, proved enormously popular in Europe, being published in multiple editions. Lahontan's Long River itself must have seemed a godsend to European powers and their cartographers who, despairing of finding the Northwest Passage, dreamed of a river route through the continent to the Pacific, where beaver pelts and other furs could be loaded onto ships and sailed to the rich markets of China. Lahontan's cartography was incorporated into numerous new maps published in the early to mid-18th century, including by such influential cartographers as Guillaume Delisle, Herman Moll, John Senex, and others.

Publication History and Census

This map appeared in the 1703 first edition of Lahontan's Nouveaux Voyages de M. le Baron de Lahontan dans l'Amerique Septentrionale ('New Voyages of the Baron de Lahontan in North America'). There are two states of the first edition, this being the first, identifiable by the absence of a longitudinal scale at the top. Subsequent reissues of this map were vastly reduced in size and scale. The Lahontan narrative, in its many editions, is well represented institutionally, but the separate map is scarce on the market, especially in the first state, as here.