Eliot, Jean-Baptiste | A rare map of the 1782 provisional treaty, among the first maps to name the United States

Eliot, Jean-Baptiste

Carte Generale Des Etats Unis De l'Amerique Septentrionale Avec les Limites de Chacun des dits Etats Convenus par le traite provisionel Dui Mois de Novembre 1782... Paris: chez Mondhare, 1783

Engraved map on a full sheet (sheet: 550 x 753 mm). Hand-colored, early annotation in French on verso regarding the English colony in "Nouvelle Ecosse," or Nova Scotia; old central fold, trimmed close or just within the platemark on three sides, a few small spots, two closed tears, one on the right edge, the other at the head of the fold, the verso with light staining, some pencil annotations, the remnants of a stub along the fold and of tabs from framing to the verso.

A major map in the history of the United States of America—among the earliest maps to name the newly formed nation, and one of the first and only maps to show the boundaries set forth by the Provisional Treaty of 1782.

The Provisional Treaty, or the Preliminary Articles of Peace, between Great Britain and the United States of America was negotiated in Paris by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, and Henry Laurens. Signed on 30 November 1782, it was the foundational agreement that ended the war between Britain and its former colonies. In the treaty, Article II established the borders of the newly formed United States. The agreement was provisional because France, excluded from the discussions between the Britain and its former colony, needed to conduct its own separate peace talks. Once those negotiations concluded, the terms of the treaty were finalized and signed into law at the Treaty of Paris on 3 September 1783.

Jean-Baptiste Eliot's biography is a bit murky—he describes himself as a French military engineer and an Aide-de-Camp for General George Washington, but there is no evidence of him having served in the Continental Armies. Ristow suggests that he may have served as a liaison between the French army and Washington. What is clear, however, is that he had an interest in the war, and that he had access to privileged information, like an early account of the terms of the Provisional Treaty.

In 1778, soon after the French entered the War, Eliot produced his best known work, the Carte Generale des Etats Unis de l'Amerique, which is regarded as the earliest map to name the United States. The present map was printed five years later at another critical moment during the course of the Revolutionary War. In order to get the map out quickly, he based its geography largely on J. Leopold Imbert's Carte des possessions angloises dans l'Amerique Septentrionale... (Paris: Mondhare, 1777), but made some small yet important changes.

Eliot's 1783 map shows North America from Florida to Canada, from the East Coast to the just west of the Mississippi. Central to the map's purpose are the dotted lines representing the borders of the newly-formed United States of America. There are also lines of small "+" marks delineating the provisional boundary between the United States and the British colonies in Canada. The "+" line also follows the course of the Mississippi South before turning East to arrive at the Atlantic just above St. Augustine, Florida—the borders of the Spanish dominions. At the bottom right of the map is a large inset showing the Florida Keys, Cuba, Santa Domingo, and Jamaica, all of which remained European colonies. As such, Eliot's map includes nearly all of the territorial claims in North America, showing what exactly belongs to whom. Printed in Paris entirely in French, the map is also emblematic of the French public's vested interest in the outcome of the Revolutionary War, and in the future of the United States. It supports American expansion up to the Mississippi, but not beyond it—this would have appealed to the French, who had territorial ambitions in that part of America.

We are able to identify just six maps, including this one, published in 1783 showing the borders set by the provisional treaty. The five other maps are:

• Carrington Bowles. New Pocket Map of the United States.... (rework of previous copperplate)
• Sayer and Bennett. The United States of America with the British Possessions (rework of previous copperplate)
• John Wallis. [Untitled proof map of the United States] (only one copy known, see Sotheby's, The Jay T. Snider Collection of Benjamin Franklin, lot 125)
• John Wallis, engraved by Thomas Jones Woodman, Henry Mutlow. [Second state of the previous map] (one copy known at the British Museum)
• John Wallis. The United States of America laid down... (newly engraved, but incorporating the previous Wallis plate into the decorative cartouche)

Exceedingly rare—there are no past auction records for this map (Rare Book Hub), and WorldCat lists just 3 copies in institutions (Brown, Library of Congress, University of Bern).

REFERENCES

McCorkle, New England in Early Printed Maps, 783.7; Ristow, American Maps and Mapmakers, p. 63