While claiming to present the “whole continent,” this map actually shows us how much remained unknown or contested about American geography after the Revolution. The inset map of the northern territories suggests that the primary map alone couldn’t adequately capture all of North America’s geography, especially in the regions where British interests persisted after American independence. The map’s hemispheric perspective, stretching from the Arctic to Cape Horn, places the United States within a broader continental context of ongoing European colonial projects and territorial claims. The new nation and other imperial powers continued to compete over land claims in this vast space. Although European publishers like Robert Sayer had to update their maps in the 1780s to reflect the territorial sovereignty of the United States, the new nation was only one part of the evolving geography of the Americas. Just a few years after this map was published, the Haitian Revolution, led by enslaved people in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, would create the second postcolonial independent state in the Americas.
This map shows an outline of the Americas that is so familiar it might almost seem boring.
Imagine seeing these geographic outlines for the first time: How would you describe this “new” place? Where would you place yourself as a new citizen of the United States? How would you view these boundaries if they had been imposed on you? What if you viewed this map from the “other” side of the world?