On the Colonial Genealogy of George Vancouver’s Chart of the North-West Coast of North America

Abstract

This paper contributes to the burgeoning critical literature on the history of cartography by tracking the links between maps, knowledge and power that stemmed from George Vancouver’s survey of the north-west coast of North America. Dispatched to the region by the British in 1791, Vancouver conducted an exhaustive cartographic survey and has been represented as the ‘true discoverer’ of the coast. It is argued here that he created a cartographic space (rather than simply discovered a pre-existing geography), and that his reconnaissance induced and supported a range of imperial and colonial practices. Vancouver’s work played a central role in the creation of a system of imperial inscription that primed the coast for colonial intervention. Attention is paid to the ways in which Vancouver’s project became (and remains) authoritative and influential in imperial and colonial terms: how it turned the coast into an arena of British imperial interest by occluding prior and alternative inscriptions on the land; how a variety of colonial images, projects and associations were derived from his work; and how we might now see his work in relation to the present.