CULTURETECHLENSAfrica in 1730 — De Wit & Ottens, L’Afrique
Frederik de Wit’s L’Afrique as reissued by the Ottens firm, Amsterdam, 1730 — a wall map on a grand sheet, its cartouches celebrating the trade Europe was extracting from the continent.
Cartographers: Frederik de Wit; reissued by R. & J. Ottens (per LOC)
Date: 1730, Amsterdam
Held at: Library of Congress — loc.gov/item/2017585730
Image: Web copy on this page, 2,000 px wide; the LOC scan is 29,903 × 24,410 px — the largest Africa scan in this set
Rights: Public domain (1730); LOC records no restriction
How to read these maps: the Atlas Source maps are European commercial cartography of their centuries — primary evidence of the European gaze as much as of African geography, with period place-names and colonial framings intact. None is African-produced; pre-colonial African cartography survives in other forms and other repositories, and that absence is part of the record.
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