1779 Jefferys / Le Rouge Map of St. Kitts and Nevis

This Anthony Ravell’s survey map of the islands of St. Christopher and Nevis, in its 1779 French translation published by George-Louis Le Rouge. The map is based on the best 18th century survey of the islands, executed by Anthony Ravell, probably in 1717. Ravell's survey of St. Kitts was not committed to print until Jefferys engraved it for Robert Sayer in 1768; Jefferys would produce a further map of the island (combined with an inset map of Nevis) for his 1775 The West-India Atlas. It is this 1775 Jefferys map that Le Rouge copied to produce the present work. While the gap between 1717 and 1779 seems vast to our sensibility, at the time Ravell's survey remained the most current available: consider that the Mount and Page map of St. Christopher, published as late as 1783, was based on the surveys of Andrew Norwood, who died nearly a century prior in 1685. Norwood's survey also provided the source material for maps by Moll, Bowen, and Bellin.

A Bone of Colonial Contention

During the course of the 17th century, the island saw the establishment of colonies by the English (1623) and the French (1625). The two colonial powers vied for dominance, cooperating only in the massacre of the indigenous Kalinago population, and interrupted only for a year by the 1629 Spanish occupation. Thereafter, the English and French partitioned the island, and it changed hands several times through both military action and treaty.

A New Survey

As a result of the 1715 Peace of Utrecht, France ceded the entirety of Saint Kitts to Britain. Anthony Ravell, Surveyor General of the Leeward Islands, was tasked to provide up-to-date surveys to the Lords Commissioners. These were submitted in October of 1717, although no printed examples of these are known. The surveys did, nonetheless, make their way Thomas Jefferys, who incorporated them in his 1768 St. Christophers, Surveyed by Anthony Ravell Esqr. published in Robert Sayer's General Topography of North America and the West Indies. Le Rouge's source is not Jefferys' 1768 map but rather his 1775 map, which incorporates a detailed inset map of Nevis, and copious depth soundings and place name changes not evident on Jefferys' earlier work.

Division of the Spoils

St. Christopher/ St. Kitts, as administered by the British and the French, was divided roughly between the east and west: The western portion of the Island being British, with a capital at Sandy Point Town, and the eastern part being controlled by the French from Basseterre. All of the maps derived from the Ravell survey show all the European settlements in sufficient detail to distinguish different plantations from one another. Of course, the occasion for the execution of the survey was the passage of the whole of the island to the English. Many of the remarks added to the map reference the Franco-Anglo conflict over the island, both obliquely and directly. The high ground east of Frigate Bay, for example, shows the site of the hill upon which Sir Timothy Thornhill won what was once a famous victory against the French in 1690; fortifications appear throughout the island.

Differences between the 1768 and 1775 Jefferys

The two Jefferys maps are not identical. The latter features a coastal view of Nevis, as well as an inset map of the smaller island. The 1775 Jefferys adds depth soundings all around St. Christopher, and adds many place names not present on the 1768. It is not at all clear whether the 1775 incorporates new data added by Jefferys, or if the map is simply a more complete expression of Ravell's surveys. In any case, it is the more detailed 1775 which Le Rouge chose for his model.

Arse Hole or Shitten Bay

The island's southeastern peninsula shows a remarkable proliferation of place names, most of which appear to date to the Ravell survey. Frigate Bay, Great Potato Bay (and Little Potato Bay) and White House Bay, for example. Most remarkable of these, arguably, is 'Arse Hole or Shitten Bay.' The 1768 Jefferys only names it 'Arse-Hole Bay,' with the alternate 'Shitten Bay' added for the first time on the 1775 map, which is preserved on Le Rouge's translation. The 1794 Stockdale map of the island dispenses with the first part, naming it only 'Shitten Bay.' The nearby 'Buggs Hole' likewise appears on the maps derived from Ravell. Both of these locations are now popular for snorkeling, but the etymology is unclear. An oral tradition tells that 'Shitten Bay' was the location where slave ships, newly arrived from the middle passage, would stop to clean the slaves prior to their sale in Basseterre. It may be the case that the new place names along the eastern coasts of the island, being applied by the English following the 1702 defeat of the French, were intended to denigrate the former occupiers.

Context of the Pilote Americain

In 1778 and 1779, Le Rouge produced his Pilote Americain Septentrional. France was on the verge of entering hostilities in the American Revolution, and so Le Rouge's collection of the best maps of the British colonies in the Americas was timely. Virtually all of the maps in the Pilote Americain were British, the maps of Jefferys figuring especially prominently. Le Rouge's maps were meticulously and scrupulously faithful to the originals, retaining the English notes and providing translations to the French.

Publication History and Census

This separate map is scarce; OCLC lists only four examples at the Bibliotheque Nationale de France, the Clements, the University of Bern and the Boston Public Library. Complete examples of the Pilote Americain are catalogued by the California State Library and the Navy Department Library.