1851 Tallis Map of Canada or British America

A scarce state of John Tallis and John Rapkin's c. 1851 map of British America or Canada. Among other features, it depicts the vast territory overseen by the Hudson's Bay Company.

A Closer Look

Covering nearly all of today's Canada, as well as Alaska (Russian America), this map notes rivers, lakes, forts, settlements, trading posts or houses, mountain ranges, administrative borders, and coastal features such as bays, capes, and islands. Aside from East and West Canada, as well as other established colonies in the east like Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, most of the territory seen here was under the technical purview of the Hudson's Bay Company, though aside from a series of forts and trading posts, its presence was limited. Extremely wealthy and intent on guarding against potential competitors, the Hudson Bay Company absorbed its rival, the North-West Company, in 1821. It vied with John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company along the western frontier, including the Pacific Coast. An American Fur Company post can be seen on Lake Superior in the vicinity of Duluth, Minnesota, while several forts and trading houses of the Hudson's Bay Company can be seen in what became the U.S. state of Washington. This map would have been prepared soon after the U.S.-British dispute over the Oregon Territory had mainly been settled in an 1846 treaty. However, disagreements and tensions remained until an international boundary dispute tribunal resolved the issue in 1872.

Around the map are numerous decorative vignettes typical of Rapkin and Tallis' work, including a seal, whale fishing, the exploring ships Fury and Hecla, a polar bear, some Esquimaux (Eskimos), and a view of 'Hudson City,' the most inexplicable feature of the map. The earliest edition (1849) of the map, previously sold by us, included the same view but captioned it 'Boston City,' also mysterious as the view does not resemble the city of Boston in Massachusetts (particularly the mountains in the background), nor the small town of Boston in Ontario. Later editions of this map would replace the Boston/Hudson City view with one of Montreal. The enigma of this unusual view remains unsolved; Tallis and his collaborators may have simply misunderstood North American geography, or perhaps Boston and Hudson were ephemeral names for a portion of Montreal, though we have been unable to locate any historical evidence of this. Hudson City may be the city of Hudson, N.Y., on the river of the same name, which was an important transit point between Canada and Boston as well as New York.

Publication History and Census

This map was drawn and engraved by John Rapkin, with illustrations drawn by H. Warren and engraved by R. Wallis, and was published by John Tallis. This rare state comes from John Howard Hinton's The History and Topography of the United States, published in Britain by Tallis at some point between 1850 and 1852, more likely towards the earlier part of that range. Hinton's book was popular and went through multiple printings in the U.S. and Britain, with different plates added depending on the publisher; Tallis naturally used his own maps.