Striking map centered on North America, published by Pierre Du Val in Paris. The map was issued both as a separate map and the northwest sheet of Du Val's 4 sheet world map.
Du Val's map is a remarkably advanced treatment of North American and the North Pacific for the time period. California is shown as an island (see below), with the mythical landmass in the North Pacific beween Japan and North America, including Terre de Iesso and Terre de Compagnie (see below) shown. Remarkably, the latter includes three place names for Bays and Capes on this mythical landmass, along with the DeVries Strait, connecting the Sea of Okhotsk to the Pacific Ocean.
The depiction of the Great Lakes is advanced for the period, coming shortly after the first depiction of all 5 lakes. The treatment of the Mississippi River pre-dates the first accurate mapping of the course of the river by Thevenot in 1681. The Rio Grande River is shown flowing into the Gulf of Mexico. Cibola and Lac de Conibas appear in the American West. An unusual chain of mountains from the Appalachian to the Plains.
The map tracks a number of sea route attributed to the Spanish Manilla Galleon trade and the trading routes to the West Indies and the Mainland coast of Mexico. In addition, a route into the arctic regions and on to Japan and China in 1665 is recorded, without further explanation (see below).
Pierre-Esprit Radisson and the Northwest Passage
Of particular note is the appearance of an open-ended waterway, with notations suggesting a possible link to a western sea. This speculative feature reflects the persistent European ambition to find a navigable route through the continent, facilitating trade with Asia. This hope had been sustained by reports from indigenous peoples of a "salt sea" abundant in furs, a reference that French explorers Radisson and Groseilliers, during their 1659–1660 voyage, interpreted as referring to Hudson Bay. The explorers’ determination to uncover such a route drove their efforts to secure financing for subsequent voyages, further symbolizing the geopolitical and economic motivations underpinning these quests.
The map shows a possible Northwest Passage, depicted as winding through Hudson Strait and Button’s Bay, and labeled "Route tenue l’an 1665 pour aller au Iapon et a la Chine" (Route taken in 1665 to go to Japan and China). This route is likely a reference to Pierre-Esprit Radisson’s ill-fated 1665 attempt to reach Hudson Bay. Radisson and his partner Groseilliers had tried multiple times to access Hudson Bay, but their early voyages were thwarted by bad weather and shipwreck.
The pair had heard consistent reports of a sea rich in furs, leading them to believe that Hudson Bay was the key to both fur trade riches and potentially a passage to Asia. However, their first voyage to Hudson Bay ended prematurely when they judged their supplies insufficient to survive the early onset of winter, forcing them to return to Boston. A subsequent attempt in 1665, which Radisson undertook with the support of King Charles II of England, also failed when Radisson’s ship, Eaglet, was nearly lost in a storm and forced to turn back to Plymouth, England. Despite these setbacks, the continued depiction of this speculative passage on maps such as DuVal’s underscores the European obsession with discovering a Northwest Passage.
Radisson’s persistence paid off in part when, in 1668, Groseilliers successfully reached the shores of James Bay aboard the Nonsuch and established trade relations with local Cree groups, a venture that laid the foundation for what would become the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC). With the support of Prince Rupert of the Rhine, King Charles II’s cousin, Radisson and Groseilliers secured a royal charter in 1670 granting them exclusive rights to trade in the Hudson Bay region, thus founding the HBC. This charter not only provided the company with vast territorial claims—known as Rupert’s Land, comprising much of modern Canada—but also solidified English dominance in the North American fur trade. Radisson and Groseilliers, the only Europeans at the time with intimate knowledge of the Hudson Bay area and its indigenous inhabitants, were crucial to the early success of the HBC.
The depiction of Radisson’s 1665 voyage and the possible Northwest Passage route on the map also reflects broader European ambitions to control valuable trade routes and monopolize the fur trade. Radisson, in particular, navigated complex political and economic waters, securing royal patronage and substantial investment from London financiers. His partnership with Prince Rupert and figures like Sir John Robinson allowed the HBC to flourish in its early years. However, as anti-French and anti-Catholic sentiment grew in England, Radisson faced challenges within the company, ultimately leaving London in 1675 to return to French service. His shifting allegiances highlight the complex intersection of personal ambition and the political dynamics of the time, as both Radisson and Groseilliers operated in a volatile environment where their fortunes were tied to the shifting interests of European powers.
North Pacific chimeras: Yesso, De Gama, and Compagnie Land
The etymology of the idiom Yesso (Eso, Yeco, Jesso, Yedso) is most likely the Japanese Ezo-chi; a term used for the lands north of the island of Honshu. During the Edō period (1600-1886), it came to represent the ‘foreigners’ on the Kuril and Sakhalin islands. As European traders came into contact with the Japanese in the seventeenth century, the term was transferred onto European maps, where it was often associated with the island of Hokkaido. It varies on maps from a small island to a near-continent sized mass that stretches from Asia to Alaska.
The toponym held interest for Europeans because the island was supposedly tied to mythic riches. Father Francis Xavier (1506-1552), an early Jesuit missionary to Japan and China, related stories that immense silver mines were to be found on a secluded Japanese island; these stories were echoed in Spanish reports. The rumors became so tenacious and tantalizing that Abraham Ortelius included an island of silver north of Japan on his 1589 map of the Pacific.
Yesso is often tied to two other mythical North Pacific lands, Gamaland and Compagnies Land. Juan de Gama, the grandson of Vasco de Gama, was a Portuguese navigator who was accused of illegal trading with the Spanish in the East Indies. Gama fled and sailed from Macau to Japan in the later sixteenth century. He then struck out east, across the Pacific, and supposedly saw lands in the North Pacific. These lands were initially shown as small islands on Portuguese charts, but ballooned into a continent-sized landmass in later representations.
Several voyagers sought out these chimerical islands, including the Dutchmen Matthijs Hendrickszoon Quast in 1639 and Maarten Gerritszoon Vries in 1643. Compagnies Land, often shown along with Staten Land, were islands sighted by Vries on his 1643 voyage. He named the islands for the Dutch States General (Staten Land) and for the Dutch East India Company (VOC) (Compagnies, or Company’s Land). In reality, he had re-discovered two of the Kuril Islands. However, other mapmakers latched onto Compagnies Land in particular, enlarging and merging it with Yesso and/or Gamaland.
In the mid-eighteenth century, Vitus Bering, a Danish explorer in Russian employ, and later James Cook would both check the area and find nothing. La Perouse also sought the huge islands, but found only the Kurils, putting to rest the myth of the continent-sized dream lands.
The popular misconception of California as an island can be found on European maps from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries. From its first portrayal on a printed map by Diego Gutiérrez, in 1562, California was shown as part of North America by mapmakers, including Gerardus Mercator and Abraham Ortelius. In the 1620s, however, it began to appear as an island in several sources. While most of these show the equivalent of the modern state of California separated from the continent, others, like a manuscript chart by Joao Teixeira Albernaz I (ca. 1632) now in the collection of the National Library of Brasil shows the entire western half of North America as an island.
The myth of California as an island was most likely the result of the travel account of Sebastian Vizcaino, who had been sent north up the shore of California in 1602. A Carmelite friar, Fray Antonio de la Ascensión, accompanied him. Ascension described the land as an island and around 1620 sketched maps to that effect. Normally, this information would have been reviewed and locked in the Spanish repository, the Casa de la Contratación. However, the manuscript maps were intercepted in the Atlantic by the Dutch, who took them to Amsterdam where they began to circulate. Ascensión also published descriptions of the insular geography in Juan Torquemada’s Monarquia Indiana (1613) (with the island details curtailed somewhat) and in his own Relación breve of ca. 1620.
The first known maps to show California as an island were on the title pages of Antonio de Herrera’s Descripción de las Indias Occidentales (1622) and Jacob le Maire's Spieghel Der Australische Navigatie (1622). Two early examples of larger maps are those by Abraham Goos (1624) and another by Henry Briggs, which was included in Samuel Purchas’ Hakluytus Posthumus or Purchas his Pilgrimes (1625). In addition to Briggs and Goos, prominent practitioners like Jan Jansson and Nicolas Sanson adopted the new island and the practice became commonplace. John Speed’s map (1626-7), based on Briggs’ work, is well known for being one of the first to depict an insular California.
The island of California became a fixture on mid- and late-seventeenth century maps. The island suggested possible links to the Northwest Passage, with rivers in the North American interior supposedly connecting to the sea between California and the mainland. Furthermore, Francis Drake had landed in northern California on his circumnavigation (1577-80) and an insular California suggested that Spanish power in the area could be questioned.
Not everyone was convinced, however. Father Eusebio Kino, after extensive travels in what is now California, Arizona, and northern Mexico concluded that the island was actually a peninsula and published a map refuting the claim (Paris, 1705). Another skeptic was Guillaume De L’Isle. In 1700, De L’Isle discussed “whether California is an Island or a part of the continent” with J. D. Cassini; the letter was published in 1715. After reviewing all the literature available to him in Paris, De L’Isle concluded that the evidence supporting an insular California was not trustworthy. He also cited more recent explorations by the Jesuits (including Kino) that disproved the island theory. Later, in his map of 1722 (Carte d’Amerique dressee pour l’usage du Roy), De L’Isle would abandon the island theory entirely.
Despite Kino’s and De L’Isle’s work, California as an island remained common on maps until the mid-eighteenth century. De L’Isle’s son-in-law, Philippe Buache, for example, remained an adherent of the island depiction for some time. Another believer was Herman Moll, who reported that California was unequivocally an island, for he had had sailors in his offices that claimed to have circumnavigated it. In the face of such skepticism, the King of Spain, Ferdinand VII, had to issue a decree in 1747 proclaiming California to be a peninsula connected to North America; the geographic chimera, no matter how appealing, was not to be suffered any longer, although a few final maps were printed with the lingering island.
Pierre Duval (1618-1683) was a French geographer, cartographer, and publisher who worked in Abbeville and Paris during the seventeenth century. He was born in the former city, in northeast France, before moving to Paris. Duval was the nephew of the famous cartographer Nicolas Sanson, from whom he learned the mapmaker's art and skills. Both men worked at the royal court, having followed the royal request for artists to relocate to Paris. In addition to numerous maps and atlases, Du Val's opus also includes geography texts. He held the title of geographe ordinaire du roi from 1650 and died in 1683, when his wife and daughters took over his business.