Research branch · dated evidence

Maps

A chronological stream of original historical maps. Dates are primary here. Do not redraw an old map to make it fit The Living Realm. Show the original, record what it depicts, then set it beside the next one.

Seven period originals. Two later schematics, labeled as such. Nothing is corrected silently — Disturnell’s El Paso error stays on Disturnell; island California stays an island until a later plate draws a peninsula. Photographs of later cities are a different shelf. Photographic Breadcrumbs.

Sequence

07 / 10

Mexican California

Alta California on the 1847 Disturnell sheet — the map clipped to the peace.

Mapa de los Estados Unidos de Méjico, 1847. John Disturnell (after White, Gallaher & White, 1828). — 1847
Mapa de los Estados Unidos de Méjico
John Disturnell (after White, Gallaher & White, 1828)
Period original

What this plate depicts

Mexico as Disturnell issued it in 1847, including Texas and Alta California. Upper California is on the sheet as Mexican territory at the moment the war map becomes a treaty map. Later boundary commissions found Disturnell’s El Paso too far north and east of the ground. Record the plate as printed: a New York publisher’s Mexico, attached to a peace, with errors that then had to be surveyed out. Do not silently correct the El Paso error on this image.

Source: University of Texas at Arlington Libraries Special Collections; the 1847 edition used in Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo copies.
License: Public domain.

Open plate Compare with 1857

All plates

Year order. Open a plate, read what it depicts, then compare it with the next original.