How to read John Smith’s 1612 map of the Chesapeake, part by part

John Smith’s map of Virginia shows more than 200 Indian towns, a compass rose that points north to the right, and two sea monsters. It was the first detailed map of the Chesapeake Bay, and the National Park Service’s Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail explains how to read it.

Smith’s map, first published in England in 1612. Image from NPS’s page.

What the map shows

Smith’s map covers the Chesapeake Bay and what are now Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C. It shows:

• the shoreline, rivers, tributaries, bays and islands he visited;
• more than 200 Indian towns and their names;
• illustrations of Powhatan, a paramount chief, and of a Susquehannock warrior.

The page calls the map invaluable for Tribal citizens, researchers and others interested in the details of Native societies in the Chesapeake before European interference.

How it was made

Smith traveled about 2,500 miles in a series of short expeditions with only rudimentary mapmaking tools. In 1608, he and his crew sailed the Bay writing notes, making sketches and using navigational equipment to record approximate positions. Exact positions were hard to fix in the 1600s. Smith probably used a compass with a speed-measuring device such as a chip log to judge distance from a given point, and estimated latitude with a quadrant. No tool for determining longitude had been invented.

A great deal of the geographic and cultural information came from American Indians, who did not make paper maps but had other effective ways of recording and sharing location and geography. For example, Native people told Smith of towns farther upstream than his crew could travel in their shallop.

From Jamestown to print

Smith compiled what he learned while still in Jamestown in 1608 and sent an early map to England. That map ended up in Spanish hands and became known as the “Zuñiga Map.” He returned to England in 1609 after an injury and in 1612 prepared the definitive version. Titled “A Map of Virginia. With a Description of the Countrey, the Commodities, People, Government and Religion,” it was published by Oxford University Press. William Hole engraved the map from Smith’s descriptions and calculations, and Smith wrote a narrative description of Virginia and its Indigenous people to go with it.

Things you might notice

• The map does not show the route of Smith’s voyages. Scholars mapped them from his writings.
• The date printed on it is 1606, before Smith’s earliest explorations of Virginia and the Bay in 1607.
• North is to the right, because Smith drew from the perspective of a ship arriving from the Atlantic.
• The scale is the league, equal to about three miles.

Parts of the map

Scale and compass rose. The scale shows distance, in leagues of about three miles each. The compass rose marks the cardinal directions and confirms that north is to the right.

Key. A cross marks how far Smith traveled up each river. A house symbol labels what he calls a “King’s House,” a town where a regional chief, or weroance, lived. A circle marks the remaining towns.

Coats of arms. The English royal arms, which date to the 12th century, appear beside Smith’s own. His shows his motto, “To live is to conquer,” and the heads of three men he killed while fighting in Eastern Europe.

American Indians. On the left is a Susquehannock man carrying a bow and club and wearing a bear-skin mantle. On the right is the paramount chief Powhatan presiding over his longhouse at Werowocomoco. As paramount chief, Powhatan received tribute from some 30 tribes in Tidewater Virginia, which his language called Tsenacomoco.

Sea monsters and the shallop. Two sea monsters swim in the Bay, a common decoration on maps of the early 1600s. Smith’s shallop, the vessel he captained around the Bay, sails toward its upper reaches.

Sources

• National Park Service, Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail, John Smith's Map of Virginia: A Closer Look; rewritten in hubnx's own words.