1843 Wyld Map and Chart of the West Indies

A beautifully engraved 1843 map and nautical chart of the West Indies or Caribbean by James Wyld, 'Geographer to the Queen.' It captures the region in a moment of transition, as plantation slavery in the British colonies began to be dismantled and revolution and rebellion destabilized island economics.

A Closer Look

Coverage stretches from South Florida (including 'Lake Mayaco,' that is, Lake Okeechobee) to the northern coast of South America and takes in much of Central America. Territories are outlined in hand color, with partial consistency according to their colonial empire (a list of islands and their European claimants is included under the title). Mountains, waterways, and settlements are recorded on land, while soundings (in Spanish brazas), hazards, islets, banks, passages between islands, and ocean currents are indicated on water. Additional information is provided in brief notes, such as recently discovered shoals and known anchorages. An intricate border marks out longitude and latitude.

The Decline of Plantation Slavery

Although European outposts on Caribbean islands had strategic military value, they primarily slave economies driven by sugar and tobacco. Along with economic factors, by the late 18th century the growing Transatlantic abolitionist movement and the Age of Revolutions, particularly the Haitian Revolution, signaled that the days of slave trading were numbered. Between 1780 and 1820, most European empires and the United States banned the slave trade, though the abolition of slavery itself usually lagged. This lag period was especially fraught, as the established economic order had a clear interest in maintaining slavery, while enslaved people and free people of color pressed for more immediate abolition. Slave uprisings, particularly the Haitian Revolution (1791 - 1804), terrified plantation owners, who invested heavily in 'security' and often became more stubborn in their commitment to plantation slavery as a result, further heightening tensions.

A series of slave revolts occurred in the West Indies in the 1820s-1830s, including Bussa's Rebellion on Barbados (1816), the Baptist War on Jamaica (1831 - 1832), and Nat Turner's Rebellion (1831), that hastened the abolition of slavery in several European colonial empires. Of the empires shown here, the British abolished slavery in 1833 and the Spanish colonies largely abolished slavery upon independence, although while slavery remained practiced on Puerto Rico and Cuba until the 1870s - 1880s. The French abolished slavery in their empire (for the third time) in 1848, the Dutch in 1860 - 1863, the Danish in 1848, and the Swedish, with a single colony at Saint Barthélemy (here as St. Bartholomew), in the mid-1840s.

The abolition of slavery did not end unfree labor, as the process was often gradual and colonial governments were more concerned with compensating plantation owners than ensuring the livelihood of newly emancipated people. For instance, on Jamaica, emancipated slaves were initially forced to 'apprentice' for their former owners for several years. Inequality was extreme and former slaveowners sought creative methods to reinstitute slavery in all but name, even though the plantation economy was clearly becoming unviable for reasons besides emancipation. Continuing racial tensions and heavy-handed administration by the white elite led to violence, as with the Morant Bay rebellion in 1865.

Publication History and Census

Editions of this map appeared between at least 1825 and 1851, though the present edition is unrecorded in the OCLC and the only other known example is held by the Huntington Library. It appeared as on optional supplementary plate in Wyld's A New General Atlas of Modern Geography, variously dated 1842 - 1844 or 1844 (tentatively), which is held in its entirety by the Library of Congress, Rice University, the University of Southern Maine, and the State Library of Western Australia.