Cartography as a Tool of Colonization: Sir Humphrey Gilbert’s 1583 Voyage to North America^*

Abstract

An analysis of Sir Humphrey Gilbert’s 1583 expedition to North America, which was England’s first attempt at colonization beyond Britain, shows that the nation’s earliest expansionists perceived the significance of maps in supporting colonization. Gilbert recruited several specialists, including John Dee and Richard Hakluyt, who expended considerable time and resources conducting research for their maps and drawing up plans to survey the colony. A thorough examination of Gilbert’s sea chart and terrestrial maps clarifies how his circle used them to promote the expedition, to guide it to North America, and to assert their control over the territory. Scholars often depict early modern English colonizers as having little interest in cartographic materials, but Gilbert and his supporters proved that maps served a number of vital functions in preparing and executing a colonizing expedition.

Inventing the Grand Banks: A deep chart

“…The “Graveyard of the Atlantic” is symbolised in Giacomo Gastaldi's 1556 chart as a rectangular box (Figure 10 ) off the coast of Nova Scotia labelled Isola dell arena (Isle of Sand). Sir Humphrey Gilbert's flagship, the Delight , grounded on Sable Island in 1583 with the loss of 93 souls after claiming Newfoundland for England (Cameron, 1965 ; Pope, 2012 ; Probasco, 2014 ). In 1610, a year before the premiere of The Tempest , the London and Bristol based Newfoundland Company underwrote the first English fishery settlement in Cupids Cove.…”