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A finely engraved map of the Caribbean basin and surrounding territories by the prolific British cartographer Thomas Kitchin, capturing Britain’s view of its most strategically and economically significant colonial region in the final decades of the eighteenth century.
The map spans from the Isthmus of Panama and the Spanish Main across the Antilles to the Gulf of Mexico, the southeastern United States, and the Bahamas. It encompasses Central America, the northern reaches of South America, and colonial holdings in the West Indies, with especially dense labeling across the islands of the Caribbean Sea. Notable are British Jamaica, Barbados, and the Virgin Islands; French Saint-Domingue and Martinique; and the Spanish territories of Cuba and Puerto Rico.
At lower left, a decorative cartouche visually anchors the British mercantile vision of the region. Bales, and hogsheads are shown beside a ship's and an enslaved man loading goods, evoking the trade in sugar, tobacco, and other commodities.
Kitchin delineates key ports and sea routes, including Havana, Port Royal, Cartagena, and Santo Domingo. A dotted line notes the landfall of Hernando de Soto in Florida in 1539, an antiquarian nod to early Spanish presence. The Bahamas are rendered in intricate detail, and coastlines from Honduras to Trinidad are sharply engraved. Florida appears as divided between “W. Florida” and “E. Florida,” a geopolitical reality that existed only between 1763 and 1783, helping date the map’s original conception to that period. The presence of “New Leon,” “New Mexico,” and “Louisiana” in the mainland north of the Gulf points to lingering interest in Spanish interior holdings.
The map is dated by the Library of Congress to circa 1782. This places its production at the end of the American Revolutionary War, at a moment when British attention remained fixed on the Caribbean, especially as the lucrative sugar colonies were seen as far more economically vital than the rebelling mainland colonies.
Thomas Kitchin was a British cartographer and engraver. Born in Southwark, England, Kitchin was the eldest of several children. He was apprenticed to the map engraver Emanuel Bowen from 1732 to 1739, and he married Bowen’s daughter, Sarah, in December 1739. By 1741 Kitchin was working independently and in 1746 he began taking on apprentices at his firm. His son Thomas Bowen Kitchin was apprenticed to him starting in 1754. By 1755 Kitchin was established in Holborn Hill, where his firm produced all kinds of engraved materials, including portraits and caricatures. He married his second wife, Jane, in 1762. Beginning in 1773 Kitchin was referred to as Hydrographer to the King, a position his son also later held. He retired to St. Albans and continued making maps until the end of his life.
A prolific engraver known for his technical facility, clean lettering, and impressive etched decorations, Kitchin produced several important works throughout his career. He produced John Elphinstone’s map of Scotland in 1746, and the first pocket atlas of Scotland, Geographia Scotiae, in 1748/1749. He co-published The Small English Atlas in 1749 with another of Bowen’s apprentices, Thomas Jefferys. He produced The Large English Atlas serially with Emanuel Bowen from 1749 to 1760. The latter was the most important county atlas since the Elizabethan era, and the first real attempt to cover the whole country at a large scale. In 1755 Kitchin engraved the important John Mitchell map of North America, which was used at the peace treaties of Paris and Versailles. In 1770 he produced the twelve-sheet road map England and Wales and in 1769–70 he produced Bernhard Ratzer’s plans of New York. In 1783, he published The Traveller’s Guide through England and Wales.
![Cuba Insula [with] Hispaniola Insula [with] Insula Jamaica [with] Ins. S. Ioannis [with] I.S. Margareta Cum Confiniis](https://storage.googleapis.com/raremaps/img/small/98441.jpg)
