CULTURETECHLENSAfrica in 1802 — Arrowsmith for the African Association
Aaron Arrowsmith’s great map for the British Association for Promoting the Discovery of the Interior Parts of Africa, London, 1802 — the exploration brief, drawn. The LOC item carries two of the four sheets; both are shown on this page.
Cartographer: Aaron Arrowsmith, London (per LOC)
Date: 1802
Held at: Library of Congress — loc.gov/item/2011585265
Image: Web copies on this page (sheets 1 and 2), 2,000 px wide; full scans at the item record
Rights: Public domain (1802); 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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