1776 Longchamps Revolutionary War Map of Colonial America

American colonies at the outset of the Revolutionary War.

This is the 1776 edition of Sebastian G. Longchamps's map of eastern North America, published at the outset of the American Revolutionary War (1775 - 1783) to capitalize on popular French interest in the conflict. The map was first issued in 1756, during the French and Indian War (1754 - 1763), but has here been revived with significant new engraving, additional relevant details, and a new title to illustrate the opening theaters of the American Revolution. Key revisions give greater prominence to the individual New England colonies and expand the coastal nomenclature of northern Newfoundland, where France retained valuable fishing privileges despite losing Canada.

A Closer Look

The main map extends from Newfoundland and Labrador westward through the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River, and south along the Atlantic seaboard to the Carolinas. A substantial inset at lower right continues the coverage through Georgia and Florida to the Gulf Coast and the Mississippi Delta. This arrangement accommodates both the northern river-and-lake corridors and the southern coastal colonies without reducing the latter to a narrow strip at the foot of the sheet.

Waterways organize the interior. The St. Lawrence links the Atlantic to the Great Lakes, while the Ohio and its tributaries connect the Appalachian frontier with the Mississippi. Forts, trading establishments, settlements, and Indigenous nations occupy these networks. Labels for the Iroquois, Illinois, Outagamis, Chickasaw, and Cherokee preserve a geography in which European territorial claims overlay extensive Indigenous homelands. The dense coastal settlement pattern contrasts with the more widely spaced names and river systems farther inland.

Pink, green, and yellow outlines distinguish shores and territorial divisions. Green edging gives particular definition to the Atlantic colonies, while older French regional names remain across the interior. The map thus combines a revised political presentation with much of its earlier geographical framework. Offshore, finely stippled fishing banks extend around Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, making the productive waters of the northwest Atlantic an unusually conspicuous part of the composition.

The rococo title cartouche occupies the upper left, its scrolling foliage framing both the revised title and the dated Paris imprint. The address is Rue et College des Cholets, at the sign of the Place des Victoires. This differs from the Rue Saint-Jacques address transcribed on the 1756 edition.

Revising an Earlier Theater of War

First published in 1756 to distinguish French and British possessions, the map now names the British colonies in its title and adds geographical information within the engraved plate. Within New England (Nouvelle Angleterre), the names 'Massachuset', 'Hampshire,' and 'Conecticut' identify the suddenly significant constituent colonies. These revisions give greater prominence to individual New England colonies and expand the coastal nomenclature of northern Newfoundland, where France retained valuable fishing privileges. Fort de la Presentation is also added on the St. Lawrence northeast of Lake Ontario. Founded in 1749 at present-day Ogdensburg, New York, the French mission-fort was evacuated in 1759 - 1760 and subsequently occupied by the British as Fort Oswegatchie. Longchamps retains its French name, but its inclusion is pertinent to a Revolutionary-era map: the British used Oswegatchie during the war as a key defensive point on the river route between Lake Ontario and Montreal. These additions refocus the map not as a contest between European empires but as a revolution in which the colonies became the principal participants.

Newfoundland and the French Shore

Northern Newfoundland receives a particularly concentrated revision - possibly reflecting James Cook's c. 1760 marine surveys. Added names include Pointe Riche, Port à Choix, Cap d'Argent, the Groais Islands, Havre du Petit Maître, and Cap Saint-Antoine. These are consequential additions for a French audience. The Treaty of Utrecht (1713) recognized British sovereignty over Newfoundland but allowed French fishermen seasonal access to the coast between Cape Bonavista and Pointe Riche. The Treaty of Paris (1763) renewed those privileges and provided Saint-Pierre and Miquelon as a base for the French fishing fleet.

The fisheries supplied export income and maritime employment and were valued as a training ground for seamen. Their importance therefore survived France's territorial defeat. After 1763, expanding British settlement and fishing activity brought renewed conflict and reinterpretations of access rights to the French Shore. The additional coastal names can be understood in light of this continuing French commercial and strategic interest, rather than simply as incidental improvements to a distant coastline. The American Revolution again disrupted the fishery, and the Anglo-French peace settlement of 1783 shifted the French Shore westward, from Cape St. John around the Northern Peninsula to Cape Ray.

Publication History

Longchamps (1718 - 1793) first published the map in Paris in 1756 to illustrate the theater of the French and Indian War (1754 - 1763), as Carte des Possessions Françoises et Angloises dans le Canada et Partie de la Louisiane, during the French and Indian War (1754 - 1763). The original engraving is credited to L. Chevenard (sometimes read as Thevenard), with the southern supplement engraved by Gobert-Denis Chambon (? - 1781). The present second edition is dated 1776 and bears the revised title Carte des Possessions des Colonies Anglaises dans le Continent de l'Amérique Septentrionale et Partie de la Louisiane. The southern inset's title was likewise altered to refer to the British colonies. This edition is scarce.

Cartographers

Sebastian G. Longchamps (1718 - 1793) was a French geographer and map publisher active in Paris during the mid-18th century, also known as Sébastien Longchamp, the valet and copyist of Voltaire. Born in Lorraine, he worked in domestic service before moving from Ghent to Paris in 1746 to join the household of Émilie du Châtelet (1706 - 1749), subsequently serving François-Marie Arouet, known as Voltaire (1694 - 1778). His duties extended beyond personal attendance to copying manuscripts, keeping accounts, and assisting scientific work. After leaving Voltaire's service in the early 1750s, Longchamps entered the Parisian map trade through Louis-Charles Desnos (1725 - 1805), whose stock and geographical collections provided materials for his training in studying, copying, and drawing maps. His principal publishing association was with Jean-Denis Janvier (fl. 1746 - 1782), with whom he issued an ambitious series of five wall maps in 1754: a world map and separate maps of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. Announced in the April 1754 Mercure de France, the series was engraved by Gobert-Denis Chambon (d. 1781) and sold under the partners' imprint on the rue Saint-Jacques, at the sign of the Place des Victoires. These publications combined geographical information with allegorical cartouches, historical illustrations, and explanatory texts, adapting the established French tradition of wall maps with historiated borders. Longchamps and Janvier reduced the continental borders to 17 historical scenes, eliminated much of their predecessors' dynastic glorification, and revised the accompanying historical terminology. Their American map was particularly unconventional: north appeared at the left, allowing both American continents to occupy a horizontal field, while the four continental maps employed approximately comparable scales. Their African map likewise integrated geography with historical and commercial information, including representations of European trade and the traffic in enslaved Africans. Longchamps's recollections of Voltaire remained an important eyewitness source for the philosopher's final years at Cirey; published posthumously in 1826, they were substantially reworked by their editor, and the original text was restored to scholarly circulation in the 2009 critical edition of Anecdotes sur la vie privée de Monsieur de Voltaire. Longchamps died in Paris in 1793.   Further Details...

L. Chevenard (fl. 1756 - 1759) was a French map engraver associated with the Paris map trade in the mid-18th century. His documented cartographic work is the engraving for the Carte des possessions françoises et angloises dans le Canada, et partie de la Louisiane, issued in Paris by the geographer Longchamps in 1756. Longchamps's imprint gives his address on rue Saint-Jacques, at the sign of the Place des Victoires.   Further Details...

Gobert-Denis Chambon (? - 1781) was a French map engraver and geographer active in Paris during the mid-to-late 18th century. His work encompassed decorative geographical maps and the specialized engraving of map lettering. In 1754, he engraved maps of Africa and America published in Paris by Longchamps and Jean Janvier; examples incorporated elaborate borders with historical narrative scenes, combining geographical information with accounts of the origins and histories of peoples and kingdoms. Chambon also contributed to the Carte générale de la France directed by César-François Cassini de Thury (1714 - 1784). The Lyon sheet, published in 1760 - 1761, distinguishes his lettering from the map engraving undertaken by Nicolas Chalmandrier, illustrating the division of labor within this major cartographic enterprise. In 1776, Chambon was recorded as a taille-douce engraver residing on the rue Saint-Jean-de-Beauvais in Paris. His later work included the lettering for Longchamps fils's map of the Senegal and Gambia rivers, published in 1779, on which Tulpin was separately credited as engraver. Chambon died in 1781.   Further Details...

Condition

Very good.

References

OCLC 5488485, 494176797. Library of Congress, G3300 1776 .L5. Real Academia de la Historia, RAH20101000406. Sellers, John R. and Van Ee, Patricia, Maps and Charts of North America, # 70. Kershaw, Kenneth A., Early Printed Maps of Canada, 3358. McCorkle, B. B, New England in Early Printed Maps 1513 - 1800, #756.9.