"One of the Most Important Works on the History of Canada and of the French Establishments in Louisiana" - Lande
"The Pre-Eminent Authority on the French Period in the West" - Howes
An essential classic of Canadian and Mississippi Valley history, by the great Jesuit traveler and historian, Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix. A major early sourcebook of vital information about North America, especially French Louisiana and Canada, with 28 mostly folding engraved maps, including several important maps of North America, Louisiana, the Midwest and the Great Lakes. Plus, a suite of detailed engraved botanical plates of American and Canadian plants.
Charlevoix's book contains an excellent early history of Canada through the year 1736, including references to proposed settlements at Detroit by both the English and the French. There is also an important discourse on the origin of the American Indian.
This is the first duodecimo edition, in six volumes, after the first quarto edition (in three volumes) issued the same year.
The journal in the form 36 letters relates crucial early descriptions:
These letters relate... Charlevoix's canoe voyage from Fort Pontchartrain, the present site of Detroit, north to Michilimackinac, a side trip to Green Bay, and then south from Michilimackinac along the eastern shore of Lake Michigan to Fort St. Joseph on the river of the same name, near the present site of Niles. After a sojourn here, Charlevoix attempted to reach the Illinois River by crossing the southern end of Lake Michigan to Chicagou and thence via the portage from Chicago River, but rough weather forced him back to Fort St. Joseph, whence he reached the Illinois via the St. Joseph-Kankakee portage, and continued his voyage to the mouth of the Mississippi.... His history of the French in America is the best of those written by the earlier explorers... - Greenly.
The maps, mostly by Nicholas Bellin, the maps listed in bold are especially notable:
- Carte de l'Amerique Septentrionale. 1743.
- Carte de l'Accadie
- Carte des Costes de la Floride Francoise
- Carte de la Riviere de Richelieu et du Lac Champlain
- Carte de l'Isle de Montreal et de ses Environs
- Carte de l'Isle de Terre-Neuve
- Carte des Bayes Rades et Port de Plaisance
- Carte de la Partie Orientale de la Nouvelle France
- Carte de la Baye de Hudson
- Carte du Fonds de la Baye de Hudson
- Carte de la Louisiana
- Plan du Port Royal
- Plan du Port de la Haive
- Plan de la Baye de Chedabouctou
- Carte de l'Isle Royale
- Plan du Port Ville de Louisbourg
- Plan du Port Dauphin
- Plan de la Nouvelle-Orleans
- Carte de l'Ocean Occidental et Partie de l'Amerique Septentionale
- Carte du Cours de la Riviere du Saguenay appellee par les Sauvages Pitchitaouichetz
- Carte de l'Isle d'Orleans et du Passage de la Traverse dans le Fleuve St. Laurent
- Plan du Bassin de Quebec
- Plan de la Ville de Quebec
- Carte des Lacs Du Canada [Great Lakes]
- Carte du Detroit
- Carte des Embouchures du Mississipi
- Partie de la Coste de La Louisiane et de la Floride depuis le Mississipi ...
- Plan de la Baye de Pansacola
In addition to the great cartographical and historical value of this work, Charlevoix's Description des Plantes Principales de l'Amerique Septentrionale is of inestimable value to the early natural history of North America. Ninety-six plants, mostly native flora of Canada, but also a few herbs from the Mississippi Valley, are carefully described and illustrated with fine engravings. Some of these plants were used by Native Americans for medicinal purposes.
Jacques-Nicolas Bellin (1703-1772) was among the most important mapmakers of the eighteenth century. In 1721, at only the age of 18, he was appointed Hydrographer to the French Navy. In August 1741, he became the first Ingénieur de la Marine of the Dépôt des cartes et plans de la Marine (the French Hydrographic Office) and was named Official Hydrographer of the French King.
During his term as Official Hydrographer, the Dépôt was the one of the most active centers for the production of sea charts and maps in Europe. Their output included a folio-format sea atlas of France, the Neptune Francois. He also produced a number of sea atlases of the world, including the Atlas Maritime and the Hydrographie Francaise. These gained fame and distinction all over Europe and were republished throughout the eighteenth and even in the nineteenth century.
Bellin also produced smaller format maps such as the 1764 Petit Atlas Maritime, containing 580 finely-detailed charts. He also contributed a number of maps for the 15-volume Histoire Generale des Voyages of Antoine François Prévost.
Bellin set a very high standard of workmanship and accuracy, cementing France's leading role in European cartography and geography during this period. Many of his maps were copied by other mapmakers across the continent.