07/10/2023
A large 184.8 × 130.8 cm (72 3/4 × 51 1/2 in.) 1799 map of South America on display at Thomas Jefferson’s home at Monticello. Compiled by William Faden (1750-1836), it was essentially a copy of another map laid out and engraved by Juan de la Cruz Cano y Olmedilla of Spain in 1775.
Historians at Monticello offer more information on this fascinating map:
In 1786, while serving as minister to France, Jefferson received Cruz Cano's map of South America from William Carmichael and sought to have copies made for himself and Congress. Jefferson enlisted William Stephens Smith, John Adams's son-in-law who was then living in London, to help him commission the London mapmaker William Faden to make these copies. In a letter to Smith, Jefferson described the map and its importance:
“The government of Spain at first permitted the map, but the moment they saw one of them come out, they destroyed the plates, seized all of the few copies which had got out and on which they could lay their hands, and issued the severest injunctions to call in the rest and to prevent their going abroad. Some few copies escaped their search. A friend has by good management procured me one, and it has arrived safe through all the searches that travellers are submitted to.”
Sight unseen, Faden agreed to reproduce all twelve sheets of the map. In December 1786, Jefferson sent the map to Faden in care of Smith, and drew up a set of suggestions for republishing the map, including three sketches of the proposed layout of the sheets.
Thirteen years later, in 1799, Faden published his copy of Cruz Cano's work, but he neither sent Jefferson the copies he requested nor returned the original. Jefferson, who had enlisted friends such as James Madison to inquire as to Faden's progress, resorted to buying a copy from a London map dealer in 1805 — nineteen years after sending the original to Faden. Publication of the controversial map may have been delayed because of Faden's position as geographer to the King.
