Exploring the West

The European or American approach to understanding the West required detailed mapping, but early attempts to map the West were fragmentary and scattered in nature. The vast area west of the Mississippi was mapped only in stages, over many decades. Easily transported from one place to another, maps imposed "order" and enhanced the understanding of the region by outsiders, from East Coast settlers to those in Congress and assorted halls of power.

Geographical understanding of the West changed after gold was discovered in California in 1848, when massive exploratory expeditions were funded and organized by the federal government to find railroad routes to the Pacific coast. These expeditions resulted in maps that filled in pieces of the Western mosaic for Easterners. Nothing equivalent comes to mind, unless we think of the federal money and attention expended on the space race.

Scientific and military expeditions to study and map the West particularly suited the sensibilities of the Victorian era, which was a time of intense interest in exploration, geography, and knowledge of the earth and all its creatures, plants, animals, rocks, rivers, and deserts. Everything was examined, cataloged, described, and illustrated.

The need to create detailed mapping of wide-open spaces may wrongly imply emptiness and non-inhabitance before the cartographer appeared on the scene. Yet in the West, Native Americans, because of their relation to the land and sense of space, did not require paper maps and technical surveys. Their knowledge of the land was valued, sought after, and recorded on maps, usually to their own later detriment. Incorporated into maps based on data from official surveys, Native American information complements and enhances the data on military and commercial maps throughout this online exhibit.