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{{distinguish|Mitchell's School Atlas}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2020}}
{{More footnotes needed|date=July 2011}}
[[File:Mitchell Map-06full2.jpg|thumb|300px|right|The Mitchell Map]]
The '''Mitchell Map''' is a [[map]] made by [[John Mitchell (geographer)|John Mitchell]] (1711–1768), which was reprinted several times during the second half of the 18th century. The map, formally titled '''''A map of the British and French dominions in North America''''' &c., was used as a primary map source during the [[Treaty of Paris (1783)|Treaty of Paris]] for defining the boundaries of the newly independent [[United States]]. The map remained important for resolving border disputes between the United States and Canada as recently as the 1980s dispute over the [[Gulf of Maine]] fisheries.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://usm.maine.edu/maps/web-document/2/1/sub-/1-introduction-and-overview |title= The Mitchell Map, 1755-1782: An Irony of Empire; 1. Introduction and Overview |publisher= University of Southern Maine |accessdate= 23 July 2011}}</ref> The Mitchell Map is the most comprehensive map of eastern North America made during the colonial era. Its size is about {{convert|6.5|ft|m}} wide by {{convert|4.5|ft|m}} high.
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Mitchell compiled a first map in 1750 from the materials that he could find in London, in official archives and private hands. It proved to be inadequate. Halifax accordingly ordered the governors of the British colonies to send new maps, which most did. These became the basis, when fitted into the overall geographical frame provided by the maps of the French geographer [[Guillaume Delisle]]. Late in 1754, Halifax was using one manuscript copy of Mitchell's second map to successfully promote his political position (no compromise with the French) within the British cabinet in the build-up to the [[Seven Years' War]] aka [[French and Indian War]]. Halifax also permitted Mitchell to have the map published: it appeared in April 1755, engraved by [[Thomas Kitchin]] and published by [[Andrew Millar]].
The published map bore the complete title ''A map of the British and French dominions in North America, with the roads, distances, limits, and extent of the settlements, humbly inscribed to the Right Honourable the Earl of Halifax, and the other Right Honourable the Lords Commissioners for Trade & Plantations,''. It bore the copyright date of 13 February 1755, but the map was probably not sold to the public until April or even May. Minor corrections to the map's printing plates were made probably during the printing process (for example, the name and address of the publisher were corrected). A copy of the map owned by King [[George III of Great Britain]] is in the [[British Library]]'s collection.<ref>[http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/display.do?frbrVersion=2&tabs=moreTab&ct=display&fn=search&doc=BLL01016676566&indx=6&recIds=BLL01016676566&recIdxs=5&elementId=5&renderMode=poppedOut&displayMode=full&frbrVersion=2&frbg=&&dscnt=0&scp.scps=scope%3A%28BLCONTENT%29&vl(2084770704UI0)=any&tb=t&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&srt=rank&tab=local_tab&dum=true&vl(freeText0)=mitchell%20map%201755&dstmp=1614600820375 British Library]</ref>
The geographer John Green (''né'' Braddock Mead) criticized Mitchell and his map soon after it appeared, emphasizing two failings with respect to Nova Scotia (an area of particular dispute with the French). Mitchell, Green noted, had used neither the astronomical observations for latitude and longitude made by Marquis [[Joseph Bernard de Chabert]] in the 1740s nor a 1715 chart of the Nova Scotia coast. In response, Mitchell released a new version of his map, now with two large blocks of text that described all of his data sources; the new version of the map also adjusted the coastline in line with Chabert's work but rejected the 1715 chart as deeply flawed. This version of the map, which Mitchell referred to as the "second edition," is commonly thought to have appeared sometime in 1757, but advertisements in the (London) ''Public Advertiser'' and ''Gazetteer and London Daily Advertiser'' on 23 April 1756 clearly indicate that this new map appeared at that time.
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* [[Minnesota River]]: ''Ouadebameniſsouté or R. St. Peter'' (reflecting the Dakota name ''Watpá Mnísota'' and the French name ''Rivière de St. Pierre'')
* [[Muskegon River]]: ''Maticon R.''
* [[Potomac River]]: ''Potowmack River''
The map also included non-existent features, such as [[Isle Phelipeaux]] in Lake Superior, found in earlier maps by [[Jacques-Nicolas Bellin]].<ref>[http://web2.geo.msu.edu/geogmich/IsleRoyale.html Michigan State University Department of Geography] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140826160757/http://web2.geo.msu.edu/geogmich/IsleRoyale.html |date=2014-08-26 }}</ref>
==Use at the Treaty of Paris and in the Northwest Ordinance==
The Mitchell Map remained the most detailed map of North America available in the later eighteenth century. Various impressions (and also French copies) were used to establish the boundaries of the new United States of America by diplomats at the 1783 [[Treaty of Paris (1783)|Treaty of Paris]] that ended the [[American Revolutionary War]]. The map's inaccuracies subsequently led to a number of border disputes, such as in [[New Brunswick]] and [[Maine]].{{Clarify|reason=|date=March 2018}} Its supposition that the Mississippi River extended north to the 50th parallel (into British territory) resulted in the treaty using it as a landmark for a geographically impossible definition of the border in that region. It was not until 1842, when the [[Webster-Ashburton Treaty]] resolved these inconsistencies with fixes such as the one that created Minnesota's [[Northwest Angle]], that the
Similarly, during the drafting of the [[Northwest Ordinance]], the map's inaccuracy in depicting where an east–west line drawn through the southernmost point of [[Lake Michigan]] would intersect [[Lake Erie]] led to a long dispute over the Ohio–Michigan border that culminated in the [[Toledo War]].
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*Mitchell Family Bible, Typed transcript, Virginia Historical Society.
*{{cite book |last1=Berkeley |first1=Edmund |last2=Berkeley |first2=Dorothy Smith |title=Dr. John Mitchell: The Man Who Made the Map of North America |publisher=University of North Carolina Press | year=1974 |location=Chapel Hill}}
*{{cite journal |last=Edney |first=Matthew H. |title=A Publishing History of John
*{{cite journal |last=Edney |first=Matthew H. |title=John
*{{cite book |last1=Green |first1=John |title=Explanation for the New Map of Nova Scotia and Cape Britain, With the Adjacent Parts of New England and Canada |publisher=Thomas Jefferys |year=1755 |location=London}}
*{{cite book |last=Ristow |first=Walter W. |title=À la Carte: Selected Papers on Maps and Atlases |place=Washington, D.C. |publisher=Library of Congress |year=1972 |chapter=John Mitchell’s Map of the British and French Dominions in North America, Compiled and Edited by Walter W. Ristow from Various Published Works of Lawrence Martin |pages=102–8}}
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[[Category:18th-century maps and globes]]
[[Category:History of the Thirteen Colonies]]
[[Category:Cartographic errors]]
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