Native American Influence
Native Americans played a critical role in European mapmaking. Early explorers based many of their projections on existing Native American maps. Examine the map and passage below to learn other ways that Native Americans participated in European cartography.
[A] misconception of early maps of the Americas is that the maps resulted solely from the gaze of the Western observer. In fact, the maps of early North America bear witness to a major native contribution. Despite the traditional view that Europeans created maps of the continent on their own, Native Americans helps in the mapping of North America. . . . Robert Juet, an officer on the [Dutch] Half Moon, . . . acknowledges the sharing of local knowledge . . . :
''This morning two Canoes came up the river where we first found loving people, and in one of them was an old man. . . . He brought another old man with him, which brought more stropes of Beades, and gave them to our Master, and shewed him all the Countrey.''
The European maps of the New World resulted from this exchange of information.
Source: Short, John Rennie. Representing the Republic. London: Reaktion Books, 2001. 35.
Along the ridge of the mountains, the map says, ''STONY MOUNTAINS according to Mackenzie, or YELLOW MOUNTAINS according to the Indians dwelling along the Missouri . . . ''
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Source: Collot, George Henri Victor; Tardieu, P.F. Map of the Missouri; of the higher parts of the Mississippi. 1796. National Atlas. David Rumsey Collection.
Questions:
1. According to the map and the passage, in what ways did Native Americans contribute to European mapmaking?
2. What does the author mean when he says that many people think early American "maps resulted solely from the gaze of the Western observer?"
