About This Object
This volume was the first comprehensive British atlas of Florida and the Caribbean. It includes the first large, detailed printed maps of a number of Caribbean islands, such as Antigua, St. Christopher, and Barbados. On many of these individual maps, the topography is rendered with particular skill. The maps provide unprecedented detail documenting the sugar industry, slave life, roads, trade routes, and even individual homes and estates. The atlas exemplifies the qualities that ushered in a period of dominance for British chart-making related to the Americas.
* Currently on Exhibit
Thomas Jefferys (d. 1771). The West India Atlas: or a Compendious Description of the West Indies: Illustrated with Forty Correct Charts and Maps Taken from Actual Surveys. Together with an Historical Account of the Several Countries and Islands which Compose that Part of the World. London: Robert Sayer and John Bennett, 1780. Jay I. Kislak Collection, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress (129)