Historic Map : Pinkerton Map of of La Plata (Southern South America, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia), 1818, Vintage Wall Art

An altogether extraordinary 1818 map of the southern parts of South America by John Pinkerton. Covers the modern day countries of Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Chile as well as parts of adjacent Brazil and Peru. Pinkerton offers impressive detail throughout noting indigenous groups, missions, towns and cities, swamps, mountains, and river systems. Upper left hand quadrant features the title plate and two distance scales, one in British Miles and the other in Castile Leagues. Cartographically speaking this is an often neglected part of the world - especially in the early 19th century. Though the coastlands and open plains had been well mapped early in the 16th century, the interior was rarely penetrated. The combination of mountainous terrain, daunting jungles, malaria, and unfriendly indigenous groups combine to make this area all but unexplorable - even today. Nonetheless, Pinkerton make a commendable attempt to piece together early conquistador accounts, explorer's journals, missionary records, and indigenous reports into a coherent mapping of the area. In doing so he achieves a number of significant advances in the mapping of the region. In general, this map reads like a litany of disappointment. The number if ruined towns, abandoned missions, forgotten mines, and destroyed settlements would be hard to match in any other map. This is the first map to exhibit this change which is itself a significant advance the mapping of the Amazon Basin. Drawn by L. Herbert and engraved by Samuel Neele under the direction of John Pinkerton. This map comes from the scarce American edition of Pinkerton's Modern Atlas, published by Thomas Dobson & Co. of Philadelphia in 1818.