1755 Mitchell / Tirion Map of North America

A very fine example of Issak Tirion's 1755 map of North America, a Dutch translation on a reduced scale of the famous 'Mitchell Map' published the same year. Tirion's adaptation is significant for highlighting the speed with which cartographic knowledge spread across Europe in the context of competition between global empires.

A Closer Look

Coverage extends from New France to Florida, and from the Mississippi River in the west to the Atlantic coast in the east. Tirion follows Mitchell's presentation, though without the detailed notes on sources of information or the inset of Hudson Bay to allow for the reduced scale. However, notes on the settlement of boundaries are compiled, rearranged, and even expanded upon those from Mitchell's map. Native American groups are recorded in some detail, particularly those with which the British were most familiar, such as the Six Nations of the Iroquois. British and French forts are marked with red and labelled, highlighting the proximity of their respective forces.

A Brief History of the Mitchell Map

Mitchell, who was born in Virginia but spent most of his adulthood in England, first produced a map of North America in 1750, either on his own initiative or at the request of George Montagu-Dunk, 2nd Earl of Halifax, a colonial administrator in North America (historians debate the origins of the map's production). In either case, the two men shared a concern about the vulnerability of Britain's North American colonies to French invasion. The War of the Austrian Succession (also known as King George's War, 1744 - 1748) had just ended with little in the way or territorial changes, but it took a heavy toll on the British colonists in New England, leaving them ill prepared for another fight.

By the time Mitchell published his map in 1755, the British in French were locked in yet another global conflict with a significant North American component, the Seven Years' War (French and Indian War, 1754 - 1763). In the years after 1755 and even after his death, Mitchell's map continued to be updated with extensive notes on sources employed. It played a central role in the negotiations resulting in the Treaty of Paris in 1783, ending the American Revolutionary War, and in subsequent border disputes between the U.S. and Great Britain.

Publication History and Census

This map was published by Issak Tirion in Amsterdam in 1755, based on John Mitchell's map 'A Map of the British and French Dominions in North America…' published in London the same year. It appeared in the book Hedendaagsche historie, of tegenwoordige staat van Groot Brittanie, a partial translation of Thomas Salmon's work on English history. It was later re-issued in Tirion's 1769 Nieuwe en Beknopte Hand-Atlas. Covens and Mortier published Mitchell's map (in English) in Amsterdam in 1755, considered to be the first Dutch edition of the map, but Tirion's was perhaps the first edition of the Mitchell map in Dutch. Due to the complexities of authorship and the date of the map's publication, it is listed in the OCLC ten times, with about thirty institutions worldwide noting it among their catalogs, while the entire Hedendaagsche historie… is somewhat more widely distributed.