1757 Bellin Map of the Great Lakes

This elegant map of the Great Lakes, printed in 1757 for Abbe Provost's L'Histoire Generale des Voyages, was drawn by French cartographer Jacques-Nicholas Bellin. It is also notable for being among the earliest maps to identify Detroit and the Port of Chicago (Checagou). Significantly, Bellin's cartography was one of the first to depict the four phantom islands in Lake Superior (Philippeux, Pontchartrain, Maurepas, and St. Anne) - islands that, despite their nonexistence, influenced the structuring of post-Revolutionary War borders between British Canada and the fledgling United States.

A Closer Look

This is a smaller-format version of Bellin's foundational 1744 map of the region, representing the state-of-the-art of Great Lakes mapping for the 18th century. Coverage embraces the Great Lakes as well as adjacent Indian lands and the English colonies of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York. The Great Lakes' drainage system is detailed with fortifications, American Indian villages, missions, and some speculative topography (particularly in Michigan). Modern-day Lake Nipigon, sometimes referred to as the Sixth Great Lake, is also included.

Bellin based this map substantially on the work of the French fur trader and explorer Pierre Gaultier de Varennes et de La Vérendrye (1685 - 1739) and the explorer-missionary Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix (1682 -1761), allowing Bellin to synthesize a model of the Great Lakes superior to that proposed by De L'Isle, considered the best mapping of the region in the first part of the century. Bellin relies on Verendrye's journals with regard to the placement of numerous Indian nations and villages.

It was Charlevoix who invented the four spurious islands in Lake Superior: Philippeaux, Pontchartrain, Maurepas, and St. Anne. The islands were named to honor Charlevoix's personal patron, the Count of Maurepas, Jean-Frederic Phelypeaux (1701 - 1781). The largest of the three islands, Philippeaux, is named after the count. The second largest island, Pontchartrain, refers to Phelypeaux's family estate. The third island, which may be a mismapping of the factual State Island, is named after the count's seat, Maurepas. The fourth and smallest of the islands, St. Anne, references the count's patron saint. Charlevoix described the islands as being rich in minerals, leading explorers to search them in vain. Bellin dutifully introduced the islands to his map, offered here, and such was his influence that they were subsequently copied by most subsequent cartographers, including John Mitchell in his seminal 1755 wall map of North America. The highly regarded Mitchell map was used in negotiating the 1783 Treaty of Paris that formally concluded the American Revolutionary War (1775 - 1783). Therein, the apocryphal Philippeaux was assigned as a marker for the new United States - British America border thus setting the stage for later political strife.

Publication History and Census

The present edition was drawn by Jacques Nicolas Bellin and published as plate no. 18 in volume 9 of the 1757 French edition of Abbe Provost's L'Histoire Generale des Voyages. This work has a long publication history and is well-represented in institutional collections. The map appears on the market from time to time.