1962 Russell Diazo Map of Upstate New York w/ Native American Toponyms

An extraordinary 1962 diazotype map by Eber Russell displaying the Native American (Iroquoian) toponymy for settlements, waterways, and other features in upstate New York and portions of Pennsylvania. One of just 4 surviving examples, this map is the product of more than 50 years of research, and an invaluable resource for understanding the pre-colonial Native American presence in New York. The present work was compiled by Eber Russell, who substantially reworked a 19th century map by Lewis Henry Morgan and Adirondack specialist Ely Samuel Parker, two of the most prominent experts on Native American cultures in their time. Compared to its predecessor, Russell's map is a significantly different work on all levels: substantially larger, more focused, more toponymy, and heavily annotated.

A Closer Look

The title refers to Haudenosaunee ('People of the Long House'), the indigenous name of the Iroquois Confederacy or Five Nations (later Six Nations), formed sometime in the 15th-17th century and continuing to the present, consisting of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and, from 1722, the Tuscarora. A legend next to the title explains the symbols for waterways, villages, trails, approximate borders between nations, and other important sites.

Native American Toponomy

Coverage extends from around what became Erie, Pennsylvania, to the Hudson River, and stretching south to Long Island, Manhattan, and Staten Island at bottom-right, although the focus is on Upstate New York. Many of the indigenous names have clear connections with their modern Anglicizations, such as Cha-da-quet (Chataqua), Gen-nis-hee-yo (Genesee), Ne-ah-ga (Niagara), Gwa-u-gweh (Cayuga), and so on. Russell includes extensive notes on the mythology, history, and placenames (with English translation), including a list of places he has added to those that appeared on Morgan and Parker's map.

Vikings in Ontario?

The presence of a Viking ship on Lake Ontario is curious; although Russell claims that the Viking presence in America is 'well authenticated,' his map was published only shortly after the discovery of the L'Anse aux Meadows site in Newfoundland. Some thirty years earlier, however, a Canadian prospector claimed to have found Viking artifacts while digging in Port Arthur, Ontario. However, these claims were later found to have almost certainly been fabricated. In any event, Russell drew on the enthusiasm for research on the Viking presence in the Americas to reinterpret the Iroquoian myth of a great canoe on Lake Ontario.

Diazo Print or Whiteprint

The diazo print (whiteprint or diazo for short) is a photo reproductive technique best understood as a reverse cyanotype or blueprint. The process yields distinctive blue lines on white paper. Like cyanotypes, the diazo process gained popularity in architecture circles, where it was a simple and effective way to duplicate documents in the field. The earliest diazotypes appeared around 1880 and were adopted for military and field cartographic use from about 1895. The diazo process was commercialized in 1923, when the German firm, Kalle and Company, developed Ozalid, a patented diazo paper that made diazotyping even easier. By the 1950s, it supplemented cyanotypes as the reprographic technique of choice for technical drawings.

Publication History and Census

This map was drawn by Eber Russell in 1962 and published in 1963. As a diazo print, a technology capable of making only small numbers of copies, the present map is most likely a pre-publication proof (if it was published at all). We note a copyright entry filed in 1863, but no subsequent printed examples. When we acquired it, in both the title box at top-left and the copyright box at top-center, Russell's name was masked with tape (which we removed), suggesting a working prototype.

This map is rare, with only three institutions listing it among their collections: Harvard, the University of Kansas, and the Holland Land Office Museum. Of these, the first to are also diazo prints, or as they are described by those institutions, 'blue line prints'. We believe the example at the Holland Land Office to be the original Eber manuscript.