Very rare, separately issued 1799 German map of the United States

Description

This very scarce map of the United States was published at the Schneider- und Weigelsche K.K.privilegirte Kunsthandlung, in Nuremberg. It was likely created by Daniel Friedrich Sotzmann after maps by Aaron Arrowsmith and Samuel Lewis, published in 1795 and 1796.

The map is exceptionally rich in detail. It includes the following notable features:

• Relief is depicted using hachures.
• Rivers, lakes, settlements, and roads are shown in much detail and named, where applicable.
• Countless annotations in German communicate a wealth of information, including relief, terrain, and ground conditions (“hill”, “swamp”, “light soil”), the width of rivers (measured in the German unit “Elle”) and some of their attributes (“raging”, “stony”, “rapids”, “without waterfalls”), mines (salt, marble, coal, copper), events (“General Sinclair’s defeat 1791”), and much more, such as a “Mosquito Landscape”, “Indian Nations”, “Northwestern Indian Lands”, and a river on which “the Sioux come down”.
• Numerous Native North American peoples are named throughout, including Mascouten (Maskutenier), Myaamia (Myamier), Potawatomi (Putewatomier), and Winnebago (Winnebagoer), to name but a few.
• Bordering Lake Erie to the south, a “Reserved area of ​​the state of Connecticut” is depicted.
• Appearing under “Tennassee Gouvernement”, Tennessee is shown during a transitional phase, just on the eve of becoming the sixteenth state of the Union.
• Georgia extends to the Mississippi.
• East and West Florida are noted.

The map is aligned to the El Hierro (Ferro) prime meridian.

At the bottom right of the map, two distance scales are shown, with the top one being in German miles and the one at the bottom – in English miles.

Considering that Schneider & Weigel issued a practically identical map in 1804, with the only difference being the date and the imprint which credits that later map to Daniel Friedrich Sotzmann, we feel cautiously confident that the present map, too, was authored by him.

An important, highly engaging, and very scarce 18^th century map of the U.S.

Condition

Very good.

A sharp impression on watermarked paper. Issued folding, now flattened. Early outline colouring, fading in places. Light creasing at upper right corner. Minor toning and staining, mostly confined to bottom and left margins. Professionally extended margins, to allow for easy framing.

Reference

McCorkle #799.11

Maps of The United States (1778-1800), #109. (2022, January 4). Map Forum. https://mapforum.com/2022/01/04/maps-of-the-united-states-1778-1800

Item #: 02996

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