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Territorial changes
European rights, a treaty map, then a later schematic of what the treaty moved.
1755
A New and Accurate Map of North America
John Huske; Thomas Kitchin sculpt.
Period original
The title states the job: to correct “the errors of all preceding British, French and Dutch maps respecting the rights of Great Britain, France & Spain, & the limits of each of His Majesty’s provinces.” Coverage runs from Newfoundland toward Florida, with a Hudson Bay inset. Pennsylvania’s drawn limits are part of the argument. This plate is a dispute about European rights, drawn as geography.
1847
Mapa de los Estados Unidos de Méjico
John Disturnell (after White, Gallaher & White, 1828)
Period original
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.
1848 outcome (modern schematic)
Mexican Cession
Modern teaching schematic of the 1848 territorial outcome.
Modern schematic · not a period original
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.