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Foundational Florida Book and Map

Jacques Le Moyne's Landmark Map of Florida & The Southeast, Based On The Expedition of Laudonnière to Florida in 1564

Theodor De Bry's essential classic of early visual Americana - the ill-fated expeditions by the French Huguenots to Florida in the 16th-century - with Jacques Le Moyne's famous series of illustrations of Florida Native Americans and his highly influencial map of Florida and the Southeast. This volume forms Part II of Theodor De Bry's Grand Voyages, originally issued in 1591, here in the second edition of 1609. The text is in Latin (an edition was also issued in German), the title translating as "A Short Narration of What Happened to the Frenchmen in Florida..." The French Protestant expeditions to Florida described herein are Jean Ribaut (1562), René de Laudonnière (1564) and Dominique de Gourgues (1567).

The large map, the first to show the French colony, and the fascinating plates of Florida scenes and life engraved by De Bry after Le Moyne's drawings, make this an indispensable Florida item - Streeter.

Le Moyne, the artist who accompanied Laudonnière and one of the few to survive the massacre at Fort Caroline, luckily preserved and brought back his watercolors made during the Florida expedition under René Laudonnière, only the second such French attempt at a colony (after Jean Ribaut's 1562 voyage). De Bry managed to purchase Le Moyne's manuscript drawings from his widow, including his map of Florida, and had these engraved and published for the volume at hand. The original artwork by Le Moyne is now lost. 

One of the earliest Europeans to observe Indian agriculture firsthand was a French artist, Jacques Le Moyne, who accompanied a Huguenot expedition which attempted to establish a settlement in Florida in 1564. Before the French settlers were massacred or driven away by the Spanish a few years later, Le Moyne executed a series of images which form one of the best extant visual records of North American Indian life before 1800 (the other is that of John White, at Roanoake in 1585)... Le Moyne's original pictures have not survived ... we have only the published version of his illustrations, issued by the Frankfurt publisher Theodor De Bry in 1591... - Reese & Miles.

The series of engraved plates purport to show the Florida Indians in everyday activities, including planting seeds for crops, food preparation, hunting, fishing, playing a ball game, medicinal practices and religious ceremonies. Other views show violent punishments, wars, and human sacrifice. The first seven plates show the arrival of the French along coastal waterways with Indian villages, wildlife and trees on shore, as European ships and boats navigate to the fore.  The following English translations of the Latin caption titles are from Stefan Lorant, The New World, the First Pictures of America, made by John White and Jacques Le Moyne and Engraved by Theodor De Bry (1946):

1. The French arrive in Florida
2. Sailing to the River of May
3. Leaving the River of May, they discover two other steams
4. The discovery of six other rivers
5. They reach Port Royal
6. The French commander erects a column bearing the arms of the King of France
7. The French left in Charlesfort suffer from lack of provisions
8. The natives of Florida worship the column erected by the commander on his first voyage
9. A site for the fort is chosen
10. Fort Caroline
11. Saturiba goes to war
12. Outina consults a sorcerer
13. Outina defeats Potanou aided by French soldiers
14. Outina's order of march
15. How Outina's men treated the enemy dead
16. Trophies and ceremonies after a victory
17. Hermaphrodites as laborers
18. The widows approach the chief
19. The mourning widows
20. How they treat their sick
21. How they till the soil and plant
22. Storing their crops in the public granary
23. Bringing in wild animals, fish, and other stores
24. Drying meat, fish, and other food
25. Hunting deer
26. Killing alligators
27. Floridians crossing over to an island on a pleasure trip
28. Preparing for a feast
29. A council of state
30. A fortified village
31. Setting an enemy's town on fire
32. How sentinels are punished for sleeping at their posts
33. How they declare war
34. The sacrifice of first born children
35. Offering the skin of a stag to the sun
36. Exercises of the youths
37. The queen-elect is brought to the king
38. The king receives the queen
39. The king and the queen take a walk
40. Burial ceremonies for a chief or a priest
41. How the natives collect gold in the streams
42. Murder of the Frenchman Pierre Gambié

Seminal Early Map of Florida

Jacques Le Moyne's map of Florida and the Southeastern portion of the United States is one of the most important 16th Century maps of the region.

Le Moyne's map includes the peninsula of Florida and the surrounding regions from the northern part of Cuba to "Prom Terra falg" or Cape Lookout. 

It is the most remarkable and important map, which... has been preserved to us among the maps composed in the 16th century of that part of the East coast which lies between Cape Hatteras and Cape Florida - Lowery.

Jacques le Moyne was an artist who accompanied Laudonniere to Florida in 1564. Le Moyne prepared this map, along with the drawings which served as the basis to llustrate the book. De Bry first attempted to obtain the information from Le Moyne in London in 1587, but Le Moyne, who was then working for Sir Walter Raleigh, refused to part with them. After Le Moyne's death in 1588, De Bry acquired his work from Le Moyne's widow and published them in 1591. Cumming surmised that the manuscript map was the source of not only this map, but was also used by John White in making the southern part of his La Virgenia Pars.

The map stands as a landmark for the region, containing significant new information (albeit often inaccurate) which became a primary source for other maps for the next 150 years. It was Le Moyne's misfortune to have many of his errors incorporated and even exaggerated in Mercator's map of 1606, upon which for half a century much of the subsequent cartography of the region was based. Le Moyne's coastline is usually correct for latitude, but the shore extends too far east rather than northeast in direction. This caused a striking error in Mercator's map, with a compensating enlargement of the Virginia region; the mistake was corrected somewhat by Jansson in 1641 and those who followed him.

The sea shown at the top is probably Verrazano's Sea. A similar body of water is found in Lescarbot's map of 1611 and Seller's map of 1679. Along the coast are Latin names for rivers and bays, such as Gironda, Garumna, and Charenta, together with a few of the earlier Spanish names. While scholars have attempted to identify the rivers shown, Cumming questioned whether Le Moyne had definite knowledge of the number of rivers along the coast. The names were given on the first voyage under Ribaut, who in his account makes some reference to their latitude and appearance. They were eventually superseded by others when the seventeenth century English settlers arrived and only Le Moyne's "Portus Regalis" (Port Royal) survives.

Le Moyne's placement of Charlesfort on an island at Port Royal and Carolina (the fort "la Carolina") on the River May are helpful identifications. But the name "Carolina" copied by a later mapmaker, and by Sanson 1656 (put much farther north), was probably the original source of the later false belief of mapmakers (Delisle 1718, Covens and Mortier ca.1730) and even nineteenth century historians, that the whole country was named Carolina by the French.

Le Moyne added several lakes which endured in mythological proportions in the later cartography of the Southeast. In the peninsula of Florida is a lake with an island called "Sarrop," which probably represents Lake Okeechobee. North of Sarrop is a larger lake which over time became the great inland lake of the Southeast. Le Moyne locates it slightly southeast of the mouth of "May" (St. Johns River), into which it flows. He calls it "Lacus aquae dulcis" (fresh water lake) and says that it is so large that from one bank it is impossible to see the other side. To the north of the lake, among the "montes Apalatci" (Appalachian Mountains) is another large lake, fed by an enormous waterfall. This waterfall may have been inspired by tales of waterfalls in western North Carolina; but it is more likely to depict the legends heard from Indians of the great falls of Niagara. Below this lake is written "In hoc lacu Indigenae argenti grana inveniunt" (In this lake the natives find grains of silver).

To view a short video on this map by map collector Tom Touchton, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmCoYxYLbEs

Rarity

Nice complete examples of this work, with the map intact, are rare in the market.