1732 Hermann Moll's famous 'Codfish Map' of North America

An attractive example of Hermann Moll's 1720 'Codfish' Map of North America. The map was issued to bolster British North American claims, countering Guillaume De l'Isle's 1718 Carte de La Louisiane , whose bold claims of French territory sparked outrage amongst the English.

A Closer Look

The map presents Central and North America, from Terra Firma and the West Indies to Greenland and Baffin's Bay in the north. The continent is delineated from Newfoundland in the east to California (here presented emphatically as an island) and the equally conjectural Strait of Anian. Coverage reaches as far east as Ireland and the English ports of Milford and Bristol, thus spanning the North Atlantic.

The Cod Fisheries

The left side of the engraving is embellished with an ornate dedicatory cartouche, ten inset charts of important American harbors, and a detailed illustration of the harvest and processing of codfish, which gives the map its common name. The Newfoundland cod fisheries here illustrated were important: dried cod was a key North American export of the 18th century. Since the fish were a staple for the British Royal Navy, the fisheries were understood to be a military resource. The British operated the largest cod fishing fleet in the Grand Banks. Moll illustrates all stages of the fishery, from the catching of the fish to their drying, cleaning, and packing. A typical fisherman in his cold-weather kit appears at left.

A Late Insular California

This is one of the last maps to represent California as an Island. Moll's confidence in the theory - despite the growing prevalence of maps disputing the notion, came from his claim that he 'had in [his] office mariners who have sailed round it.' It is possible that Moll also wished to distinguish himself from De l'Isle, whose maps increasingly steered away from the California-as-an-island trope.

Drawing from De l'Isle

Despite taking strong exception to the French cartographer's aggressive territorial claims, Moll presented many of De l'Isle's geographic details with little change. In the west, Moll embraces Baron Lahontan's geography. De l'Isle's incorporation of Lahontan ends with an indistinct large body of salt water. Moll replaces this with the strait created by an Insular California.

The British and the French

De l'Isle's maps uniformly claimed the Carolinas for France, while Moll's maps explicitly correct the notion. In the northeast, De l'Isle's maps placed the border of New France well to the south of Lakes Erie and Ontario, and entirely south of Lake Champlain while Moll places the border on the St. Lawrence River, hugging the southern coast of Lake Erie. Oddly, Moll's Great Lakes do not copy De l'Isle's, instead they resemble the lakes as presented by another French publisher, Henri Chatelain. Moll's territorial claims also extend to the seas: the Atlantic abutting on the British colonies in North America is here termed 'Sea of the British Empire,' a patriotic but arbitrary term which unsurprisingly did not take hold.

Teguaio and New Mexico

Barring California, Moll follows De l'Isle for the remainder of the southwest's geography. This region, from 'Great Teguaio' south, is copied from the Frenchman's 1703 Carte du Mexique. Teguayo was believed to be one of the seven Kingdoms of Gold, presumably to be discovered in the unexplored American west. The name Teguayo first appears in the Benevides Memorial, where it is described as a kingdom of great wealth to rival Quivara, another mythical kingdom dating to the Coronado Expedition, which also appears on this map.

Tantalizing Galleon Route

Much like Moll's map of the West Indies, this map can also be understood as a guide to English piracy and privateering in the Americas. Moll, most likely through his acquaintance with the pirates William Dampier and Woodes Rogers, offers a wealth of information on the traffic of silver-bearing Spanish treasure fleets en route from the Mexican port of Veracruz, through the West Indies, to Spanish ports in Europe. Following the dotted line, Moll identifies the Spanish treasure fleet's entrada into the Caribbean via the passage between Granada and Trinidad. The fleet then sailed westwards, skirting the Spanish Main until they reached Cartagena, where they rested and provisioned before heading northwards, rounding western Cuba and stopping in Havana. Using the strong Gulf Stream current - shown here - ships would sail northwards from Havana while being steadily forced to the southeast, thus alighting at the deep-water port of Veracruz. On the return, laden with silver from the mines in Peru, Chile, and Mexico, the Spanish fleet took advantage of eastward blowing trade winds, which helped to overcome the strong current on the sail to Havana. From Havana, they traveled northwards via the narrow passage between Florida and the Bahamas before cutting eastward and out to sea at St. Augustine. It was here, in this crucial passage between the English-dominated Bahamas and Spanish Florida, where the most nefarious pirates lay in wait for their prey. In addition to descriptions of the sailing routes and currents, Moll provides insets of six treasure ports, including Port Royal, Veracruz, Havana, Porto Bella, and Cartagena. As privateer fleets grew in strength and number in the early 18th century, full-scale assaults on major ports became increasingly common. Moll's choice of these key treasure ports leaves little doubt regarding his intentions and sources.

The Search for a Northwest Passage

Moll's inclusion of the North Atlantic and the western ports of England permits the plotting of the sailing tracks of two explorers: the 1610 journey of Henry Hudson, and the 1631 passage of Thomas James. The tracks show both expeditions sailing from the British Isles to Hudson's Bay. Hudson's journey notes that the return journey only included Hudson's crew, obliquely referring to their mutiny. At the north of Buttons Bay is Roes Welcome Sound, with a tantalizing opening at the top. Buttons' note indicating he had gone no further - ne ultra - has been here mistranscribed 'New Ultra.' The western shore of the bay marks the site of Jens Munk's ill-starred 1619 voyage to Hudson's Bay, with the notation Hopes Checkt indicating that yet no northwest passage had been found.

Publication History and Census

This map was produced by Herman Moll for inclusion in his World described, or, A new and correct sett of maps.. It is dated by some institutions as early as 1712, but most likely was drawn in 1719 or 1720. The cartouche was engraved by George Vertue after a drawing by Bernard Lens. A further state - possibly even a new plate - was executed by Thomas Bowles around 1755, to bring the map up to date with the territorial claims of the early French and Indian War (1754 - 1763). The map is listed some 25 times in OCLC; the atlas is cataloged in only a few examples by institutional collections. The map appears on the market from time to time.