The Caribbean Basin was the first place in the Western hemisphere to encounter the full force of European colonial development. The unholy trinity of slavery, sugarcane, and the plantation system took shape in this circum-Caribbean region. As a result, the Greater Caribbean’s demographic and physical landscapes were rapidly and thoroughly transformed. As Indigenous, African, European, and later Asian, peoples encountered one another and forged new societies in a crucible of destruction, the institutions, practices and templates created on the islands helped shape settlement on the adjacent continental landmasses. No other part of the Americas was more diverse, more multinational, more polycultural than the Greater Caribbean.
The spatial history of this region has lagged behind better-known political, social, and economic histories. Serving as graphic visualizations of people, places, things, and ideas, maps should occupy a prominent role as vital primary source material. Yet no comprehensive bibliography of the maps of the circum-Caribbean region exists.
This project catalogs maps of the region—the Antillean islands, and the adjoining maritime rimlands–created by a wide range of forces from ca 1450 to ca 1850, that is, from the pre-encounter indigenous mapping traditions of Taíno and Carib natives, through European empire building, Afro-Caribbean and Asian-Caribbean contributions, to emergent nation-state construction.
The aim is to create an open access dynamic catalog or research platform, which can be easily updated, incorporates digital links, contains visual material, and is fully searchable. It will be organized along two axes: 1) mapping types, focusing on particular modes of construction, whether geographical form, marine chart, urban plan, property survey, or topographical observation; and 2) mapping processes, focusing on purpose, function, and use, whether military, maritime, cadastral, or administrative. Catalog details will include, where possible: title, author, engraver, publisher, place of production, date, size, manuscript or print, original or facsimile, region and territory, language, holding location, digital link/permalink, decorative features, key or legend, scale, bibliographical reference, and notes on content.