The lovely French symbol of the fleur-de-lis is employed as a symbol in this map in a subtle way to establish French ownership. As much as England did, France used maps to portray its possessions as greater than perhaps they were. Ignoring the current inhabitants, France drew out a map of all the new colonies it desired, erasing any memory of past owners with the sly word choice of "Nouvelle Georgie"--New Georgia, now Old Georgia Already Claimed. New Georgia.
Even Americans today have a mental block of newness as soon as ownership is achieved: when I buy a used book, in my mind because it is newly mine it is "new." It doesn't matter that anyone else ever owned it, read it, wrote in it. It only matters that it is mine now.
"A growing sense of European entitlement to the Americas" (page 50 of Ms. Babb's essay) is clearly evident in the French and English misconceptions of new ownership portrayed in their maps, particularly this one that is doused in French names and symbols.
http://www.libs.uga.edu/darchive/hargrett/maps/1764b4.jpg
Nice analysis, Mary. You found a lot of the nuances of the map that many would've overlooked. I think it's cool that you used a simile in your analysis as well. I feel the same way about that, too-- resale finds feel as new to me as anything else (except they usually smell a bit weirder).
ReplyDeleteI really like how you compared the way the Europeans got something new to the way you get new things. I never really thought of the Europeans taking the Native American's land as getting a book from the used book store, but I think that it really makes sense!
ReplyDeleteGreat metaphor of how buying used is like taking over a person's country. Who knew they were so similar! Too bad it was a French map. They never were good at taking nations over so those French names should have be English.
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