From the margins: the Native American personage in the cartouche and decorative borders of maps

Abstract

When John Speed publishcd his map of America in 1627 he entitled it ‘America — with those known parts in that unknowne worlde Both people and manner of buildings (figure 1).1 My intention is to take Speed's statement as an organizing principle for analysis of the cartographic rcprescntation of America, with particular reference to the depiction of Indians in the cartouche. Maps are, after all, a species of knowledge relying on a formalized system of representation to impart information; but, whereas today we understand cartographic representation as an objective or ‘scientific’ depiction of the world, in earlier periods it moved between the realms of empirical knowledge and more abstract cosmological or symbolic understanding.2 When Speed speaks of ‘known parts in that unknowne worlde’ he indicates, perhaps unwittingly, the essentially provisional nature of cartography, raising questions about what might constitute knowledge and how it should be represented .

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