An extraordinary monumentally proportioned 1794 map of North American by Governor Pownell. Issued shortly after the end of the American Revolutionary War, this map details the newly formed United States, the British dominions in Canada, the French territory of Louisiana, the West Indies, and Spanish holdings in Mexico, Florida, and Central America. As one might expect from a map of this size the detail throughout is extraordinary. All text is in English. We begin our examination of this map in the newly formed post colonial United States. The United States at this time extended from the Pacific to the Mississippi River and from Georgia to the Great Lakes and Maine. The early state boundaries roughly conform to their original colonial charters. Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina are drawn with indefinite western borders, suggesting claims to further unexplored land beyond the Appellation Mountains. By this time most of the boundary issues in the New England states had been resolved, though there remained some vagaries regarding the Massachusetts Connecticut border and, though Vermont is noted textually, its boundaries are not drawn in. This organization was part of a French investment plan comparable to the South Seas Company which was developing contemporaneously in England. The Mississippi Company's charter was to trade the riches of the Louisiana Territory. The main proponent of the Mississippi Company, John Law, greatly exaggerated the wealth of Louisiana by describing a rich mining region easily accessible along the Mississippi from New Orleans. This resulted in a stock buying rush which disproportionately overvalued Mississippi Company stock, resulting in one of the world's first Bubble Economies. Further North, along the northern border between the United States and British America (Canada), Rain Lake, the Lake of the Woods, and Lake Winnepeg are noted. This region was a hotbed of exploration throughout the 18th century.
