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Engraved map, inset map of Nevis by Thomas Jefferys, coastal profile view of Nevis, compass rose, scales in English miles and sea leagues, soundings, parish boundaries, plantation divisions, roads, churches, towns, forts, bays, shoals, reefs, and hachured relief. A desirable example of Jefferys and Ravell's St. Christopher's/St. Kitts, combining a sophisticated land survey, a nautical chart, and an inset map of Nevis on one imposing copper engraved plate. Its strength lies in the accumulation of practical detail, the parish and plantation structure, the named coastal features, the Basseterre and Narrows soundings, and the rare inclusion of Nevis as both map and maritime profile. The map presents St. Kitts as both a maritime object and a worked colonial landscape. The coast is closely sounded, with depths given in fathoms, and the approaches to Basseterre, Sandy Point, Frigate Bay, the Narrows, White Flag Bay, Old Road, Great Potato Bay, North and South Friars Bays, White-House Bay, Mosquito Bay, and the southeast peninsula carefully described. The inland mapping is equally dense. Parish boundaries, roads, streams, churches, and numbered plantation parcels extend from the shore toward the mountainous center, while hachuring and stipple work distinguish the steep volcanic interior from the cultivated coastal belt. The printed observations state that St. Kitts contains 68 Square Miles and near 44,000 Acres of Plantations, and give the height of Mount Misery, formerly a Volcano, as 3,711 feet. Basseterre receives especially close treatment. The map identifies Irish Town, St. Georges Church, Fort Londonderry, the Basseterre Road, and neighbouring bays and coastal anchorages, giving the town its proper role as the islands administrative and commercial center. Sandy Point, Old Road, Half Way Tree, Cayon, Christ Church or Nichola Town, St. Mary Cayon, Trinity Palmetto Point, St. Thomas Middle Island, St. Anne Sandy Point, and the Capisterre parishes are all integrated into a single plantation and transport network. This is a map of roads, estates, ports, and defensible coastal positions, made for readers interested in navigation, property, administration, and imperial commerce. The inset map of Nevis adds an important second layer. It shows the Narrows between St. Kitts and Nevis with extensive soundings, together with Charlestown and its Great Fort, Mortons Bay, Newcastle, Hurricane Hill, Mosquito Bay, Long Point, Gingerland Parish, St. John Parish, St. Thomas Parish, and the central mountain. Above the main map is a finely engraved coastal profile of Nevis when it bears N.W. by N. 6 or 7 Leagues off, a practical recognition view for mariners approaching the islands. St. Kitts had been divided during the seventeenth century between French and English colonists, then ceded to Britain under the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. By the date of this map, the island had become one of the most intensively developed sugar landscapes in the British Caribbean. The cartography makes that history visible: fields, parishes, roads, churches, forts, ports, and soundings are compressed into a precise working image of an island economy dependent on plantation agriculture and the labour of enslaved Africans. Thomas Jefferys was one of the leading English cartographers of the 18th century. From about 1750, he published a series of maps of the Americas, that were among the most significant produced in the period. As Geographer to the Prince of Wales, and after 1761, Geographer to the King, Jefferys was well-placed to have access to the best surveys conducted, and many of his maps held the status of "official work." Jefferys died on 20th November 1771, but Robert Sayer (in partnership with John Bennett) 'having acquired the sole property of the Plates' and other material relating to the work, 'minutely followed' Jefferys' plans for The West India Atlas although Sayer does note that additional work was done using various sources to ensure that the information w.
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