On January 24, we hosted From The Vault: Reexamining History.

This selection of maps and the captions associated were curated in response to Percival Everett’s James, a reimagining of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn told from the enslaved Jim’s point of view. The selections of this From the Vault encourage visitors to consider the very real events that took place during the novel’s setting. How can maps help us reimagine and delve deeper into the literature we read? Explore this theme with us in this week’s From the Vault: Reexamining History.

Warner Bros. Pictures (1923-1967), The adventures of Mark Twain (1944)

This promotional map was made for the release of The Adventures of Mark Twain in 1944. The map functions more as a sentimental timeline of Twain’s life. Compare the Mississippi on this map with the new map of western rivers from 1851 also on view today. The Mississippi appears, like Twain’s life, as a straight and easy to navigate line.

G. W. Elliott, Map of the United States, showing by colors the area of freedom and slavery, and the territories whose destiny is yet to be decided: exhibiting also the Missouri compromise line, and the routes of Colonel Fremont in his famous explorations: with important statistics of the free and slave states (1856?)

“We don’t even know where we are,” Norman said. “Bound to be a slave state on the other side of the river.” 
”Probably,” I said. “We’re slaves, Norman. Where we are is where we are.” 
”What’s that mean?” 
”I don’t know. Sounded better in my head.” 
”I know what it means,” Sammy said. “We’re slaves. We’re not anywhere. Free person, he can be where he wants to be. The only place we can ever be is in slavery.”

Published as a campaign poster supporting the Republican Party’s first presidential bid in 1856, this broadside provides a commentary on the geographical sectionalism that was polarizing the nation. Using 1850 census data, it tabulated the demographic and economic differences between free and slave states, highlighting political concerns that the balance of Congressional power would shift as newly acquired western territories were admitted as states into the Union. The map clearly marked the 1820 Missouri Compromise line, which had defined the boundary between free and slave states. However, the passage of the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act nullified this long-standing compromise line, and potentially opened the entire western territory to slavery because it sanctioned “popular sovereignty“ whereby citizens of each territory could vote on the slavery issue.

Edward S. Hall, War maps and diagrams (1861)

Throughout their travels towards the Ohio River, James and Huckleberry Finn are subject to the twists and turns of the Mississippi. Towards the end of the novel, word of war breaking out reaches them and Huck wonders what side he would be on. Everett complicates “sides” throughout the novel. What side of the river or the street is safe? What side of a war is “better”?

Samuel B. Munson, A new map of the western rivers, or, Travellers guide : exhibiting the Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, and Illinois rivers with all the principal towns, islands & distances (1851)

“The problem with being lost on the river was that things appeared different facing south from the way they did looking north. It was as if there were two different bodies of water. The Mississippi, in fact, seemed like many different rivers. The level was always rising or falling. Sediment got pushed around, changing the locations of bars and shelves. Islands changed shape, sometimes becoming completely submerged, and old outcroppings disappeared while new ones materialized overnight. The upshot was that we had no idea where we were.”

James reminds us throughout that maps can never depict the world as it is. Throughout James, the river provides literal twists and turns and changes that provide opportunity and threat the same as any stranger James meets along his way. Even with a detailed map, James would never be safe with the world as it actually was.

Map of the Southern States, showing the relative proportion of slaves in the different localities (1863)

James constantly raises the questions: What does it mean to be safe? Where can an enslaved person ever be safe? Is the familiar safe? Is a place you can blend in safer than a place where you stand out?

This map uses shade to represent concentrations of people enslaved in 1863. James asks us to consider if this variance even matters if you are one of the people represented in grayscale.