CULTURETECHLENSAfrica in 1794 — Bolton after d’Anville, all its states and kingdoms
“Africa, with All Its States, Kingdoms, Republics, Regions, Islands, &c.” — Solomon Bolton’s 1794 London map following d’Anville, naming the African states European geography had finally learned to record.
Cartographers: Solomon Bolton, following Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d’Anville (per LOC)
Date: 1794, London
Held at: Library of Congress (via the World Digital Library) — loc.gov/item/2021668451
Image: Web copy on this page, 2,000 px wide; full LOC scan 15,326 × 13,293 px at the item record
Rights: Public domain (1794); 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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