Novus Orbis: Images of the New World
This section traces the evolution of geographic views of
North America from the first maps to represent the New World
as continents to the beginning of French exploration in
the Mississippi Valley.
When Europeans
Novus Orbis: Images of the New World
This section traces the evolution of geographic views of
North America from the first maps to represent the New World
as continents to the beginning of French exploration in
the Mississippi Valley.
When Europeans learned of the immense new continents that blocked their way to Asia, they did not abandon hope of finding a direct passage to the Orient. Explorers and geographers confronted the possibility that the new landmasses could be bypassed altogether, passed through via straits, or traversed on short overland routes.
In 1524 Giovanni da Verrazano, a Florentine employed by the king of France to find a passage to the Pacific Ocean, mistook the large body of water to the west of the Outer Banks of North Carolina for the Pacific Ocean. The map by Sebastian Münster shows this false Sea of Verrazano. Nearly a century later, John Farrers 1652 map of Virginia, which located the Pacific Ocean just over the Blue Ridge, confirmed the persistence of this yearning to find an easy route to Asia.
By the 1600s, the hope for a Panama-like isthmus crossing in North America faded. Moreover, once the Spanish gained control of the southern sea routes, French and English efforts to reach Asia shifted northward in the quest to find a Northwest Passage. Several generations of seamen searched for this route across the continent. Although these explorers made several discoveries of passages that were later proven false or nonviable, their efforts added significant ne