Landscapes of conflict: cartography and empire in northeastern America, 1680-1713

This dissertation examines the relationship between cartography and empire in New France, New England, and New York during the late-seventeenth and early-eighteenth centuries. It begins as English and French imperial officials were attempting to transplant state cartographic practices and spatial epistemologies into their colonies during the 1680s. Before these years, metropolitan officials responsible for colonial policy did not actively solicit maps depicting the northeastern colonies beyond perhaps visiting the shop of a local map copyist or printer. Mostly they were content with whatever happened to cross their paths, even while knowing that the people providing maps usually expected something in return. In the 1680s both French and English imperial officials, wishing to centralize colonial affairs, began supplementing this patronage model by sending mapmakers and cartographically sophisticated governors to northeastern America and instructing them to send maps back to Whitehall or Versailles. Consequently, this was a period of boundary making and contestation, processes that played out between empires, peoples, colonies, and even landholders. These policies also empowered a wide range of geographic mediators—ranging from Iroquois delegates who navigated the continental interior to local notables in Maine who held sway over Boston surveyors—who had their own, frequently violent agendas. ❧ Rooted in a desire to order natural, social, and political environments, the European imperialist impulse to map and thereby mark territory in northeastern America contributed to a quarter century of warfare between English, French, Iroquois, and Wabanaki polities as well as upheaval within each of these societies. These wars catalyzed the movement of people within northeastern America, which created informal storehouses of geographic knowledge that could be translated into cartographic formats. Spies, captives, and mapmakers travelling in enemy territory used their observations to craft geographic narratives while military campaigns into interstitial spaces fostered geographic exchanges between Natives and the European allies who depended upon their knowledge. While some wars have united people within a given society against a perceived external threat, these wars exaggerated fault lines already existing within Native and European societies. Political officials in North America used maps as tools to frame these internal conflicts for imperial audiences at Whitehall and Versailles.本论文考察了17世纪末至18世纪初，新法兰西（New France）、新英格兰（New England）与纽约（New York）地区制图学与殖民帝国之间的关联。研究始于17世纪80年代，彼时英法殖民帝国官员正尝试将国家制图规范与空间认识论（spatial epistemologies）移植至各自的北美殖民地。在此之前，负责殖民地政策的宗主国官员并未主动征集描绘东北殖民地的地图，顶多会光顾当地地图复刻者或印刷商的店铺。他们大多满足于偶然获得的地图，即便清楚提供地图者通常会期待相应回报。17世纪80年代，为集权化殖民地治理事务，英法殖民帝国官员开始对此前的赞助模式进行补充：派遣制图师与精通制图业务的总督前往北美东北地区，并指令其将绘制的地图寄回英国白厅（Whitehall）或法国凡尔赛宫（Versailles）。由此，这一时期成为边界划定与争议频发的阶段，相关博弈在帝国、族群、殖民地乃至土地所有者之间展开。此类政策同时赋予了各类地理斡旋者权力：从穿梭于北美大陆内陆的易洛魁（Iroquois）代表，到掌控波士顿测绘人员的缅因州本地名流，这些斡旋者均怀有各自且往往带有暴力色彩的诉求。 欧洲帝国主义者怀揣着规整自然、社会与政治环境的愿景，在北美东北地区开展制图以宣示领土主权的行为，引发了英法、易洛魁与瓦班纳基（Wabanaki）政权之间长达四分之一个世纪的战争，同时也引发了各群体社会内部的动荡。这些战争推动了北美东北地区的人口流动，由此形成了可转化为制图形式的非正式地理知识储备库。穿梭于敌占区的间谍、俘虏与制图师利用自身观察构建地理叙事，而针对夹缝地带的军事行动则促进了原住民与依赖其地理知识的欧洲盟友之间的地理信息交流。尽管部分战争会让特定社会内部的民众团结起来对抗外部威胁，但此类战争却放大了原住民与欧洲社会内部本已存在的分歧裂痕。北美地区的政治官员将地图作为工具，向英国白厅与法国凡尔赛宫的帝国受众呈现这些内部冲突。