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.

10 / 10

Modern boundaries

A later schematic of the 1848 outcome. Compare it with Disturnell, which is the period map.

Mexican Cession, 1848 outcome (modern schematic). Modern teaching schematic of the 1848 territorial outcome..

1848 outcome (modern schematic)

Mexican Cession

Modern teaching schematic of the 1848 territorial outcome.

Modern schematic · not a period original

What this plate depicts

A later colored diagram of what the 1848 settlement moved: Mexican Cession in one tint, Texas annexation in another, Gadsden Purchase (1853) as a southern strip, Oregon Country, and the existing United States. State lines inside the cession are anachronistic on a “1848” reading. Record the diagram as a modern summary of outcome, then go back to Disturnell for the plate that was actually clipped to the treaty. Do not treat this PNG as a surveyed boundary.

Source
Wikimedia Commons “Mexican Cession.png” — a later diagram, not an 1848 survey.
License
Schematic. The period treaty map in this atlas is Disturnell 1847.
Open plate
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

All plates

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

  1. 1507Universalis CosmographiaOriginal
  2. c. 1650California as an islandOriginal
  3. 1755Map of the British and French Dominions in North AmericaOriginal
  4. 1755A New and Accurate Map of North AmericaOriginal
  5. 1847Mapa de los Estados Unidos de MéjicoOriginal
  6. 1848 outcome (modern schematic)Mexican CessionSchematic
  7. 1857U.S. Coast Survey — San Francisco Bay and the California coastOriginal
  8. 19th c. posts (modern schematic)Russian America — named settlementsSchematic
  9. 1877Distribution of Indian tribes in CaliforniaOriginal