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Showing a 5th Century Chinese Settlement in North America
Interesting map of America and the Pacific, extending to New Zealand and the South Pacific.
The map is a fascinating look at the region on the showing first incorporation of the discoveries of Capt. James Cook on the maps of the period. Cook's Strait appears in New Zealand. The NW Coast of America is based largely on the earlier cartography. The Sea of the West is not shown, but the River of the West extends from Aguilar's entrance to the river system SW of Winnepeg Lake.
There is tremendous detail showing the Russian discoveries along the NW Coast and a fascinating reference to the discoveries of the Chinese (Fousang) in North America. Many of the islands in the Pacific includes notes and discovery dates.
The Legend of Fusang (Fou Sang)
The legend of Fusang (or Fou Sang) is quite complex. In the history of cartography, it is most notably associated with maps from second half of the 18th Century, when the legend of a Chinese voyage to the Northwest Coast of America thrived in certain scholarly circles.
Fusang, an atonal romanization of a Chinese term, appears in ancient literature as a mythical tree or location far to the east of China. In the Classic of Mountains and Seas, it is described as a tree of life associated with the sun’s rising and renewal. Early Chinese myths recount expeditions, notably by the court sorcerer Xu Fu under Emperor Shi Huang around 210 BC, seeking an elixir of life on an eastern island called Fusang. This mythical narrative laid the groundwork for later historical interpretations of Fusang as a distant land of marvels, potentially grounded in real-world geography.
The Buddhist missionary Huishen (慧深), arriving in China from Kabul in 450 AD, claimed to have traveled by ship to Fusang in 458 AD, some 20,000 Chinese li east of Dahan (likely Siberia's Buriat region). Recorded in the Book of Liang (7th century), his account described Fusang as a land rich in copper but devoid of iron, with well-organized communities producing paper and cloth from plant bark, and domesticating deer. While Huishen did not explicitly identify Fusang as the Americas, 18th-century French historian Joseph de Guignes posited this connection, arguing that Huishen's distances aligned with the west coast of North America. His claim, first published in Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres (1761), inspired a flurry of speculation about Fusang as a pre-Columbian reference to the Americas.
A number of European mapmakers incorporated Fusang (or Fou Sang) in their maps of America. French cartographer Philippe Buache, in his 1753 Carte des Nouvelles Decouvertes entre la partie Orientle. de l'Asie et l'Occidentle . . . , placed "Fou-sang des Chinois" north of California, near British Columbia. These depictions stemmed from Huishen’s claim that Fusang lay across the Pacific, leading some to equate it with the American northwest. Marco Polo's purported maps, including one featuring supposedly covering Kamchatka and Alaska, further fueled connections between Fusang and North America. The 19th-century writer Charles Godfrey Leland revived interest in these theories with his 1875 publications, asserting that Fusang corresponded to areas on or near the Pacific coast.
Despite its allure, the American hypothesis faced strong criticism. Sinologists such as Emil Bretschneider, Berthold Laufer, and Henri Cordier pointed to inconsistencies in Huishen’s descriptions, notably his mention of domesticated horses and deer, neither of which existed in pre-Columbian America. Joseph Needham, a 20th-century historian of Chinese science, concluded that by the First World War, the hypothesis was largely discredited. He instead suggested Fusang might correspond to locations such as Sakhalin Island, the Kamchatka Peninsula, or the Kuril Islands, areas geographically closer to China and aligned with Huishen’s distances.
Samuel Dunn (bap. 1723-1794) was a teacher of mathematics and navigation who published, among other things, maps and charts. Although information about his early education is lacking, by age nineteen he was leading his own school and teaching writing, accounting, navigation, and mathematics in Devon. In 1751, he moved to London, where he taught in several schools and tutored privately.
By the 1760s, Dunn was known as a respected astronomer and had published a range of textbooks on math, navigation, and astronomy. After the publication of the Nautical Almanac, Dunn acted as a certifier of ships’ masters under the new system, on behalf of the Board of Longitude. He performed similar work for the East India Company, as well as made charts of the East Indies. In 1776 he published A New Variation Atlas and, in 1777, A New Epitome of Practical Navigation, or, Guide to the Indian Seas. By 1780, he was named editor of the New Directory for the East Indies, which included his own charts. In 1786, he released a pioneering study, Theory and Practice of Longitude at Sea. He also designed several instruments for navigation.
Dunn died at his home in Fleet Street in January 1794. His books and maps were auctioned at Sothebys in a sale of over 1,000 lots. Many of these were bought by Alexander Dalrymple, hydrographer of the East India Company and soon-to-be-named first head of the Hydrography Office.
![[Straits of Le Maire, Nova Guinea, South Pacific]](https://storage.googleapis.com/raremaps/img/small/61345op.jpg)
