Colton's Map of The United States of America, The British Provinces, Mexico and the West Indies. Showing the Country from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.

This striking map is the very scarce third edition of Colton’s seminal large wall map of the United States, British Provinces, Mexico, and the West Indies. Apparently, Colton was very sensitive to ongoing political processes regarding territories and boundaries and did not jump to conclusions when it came to depicting boundaries and nomenclature on his maps. This third edition is the first to show the territory of Kansas named, but it still did not delineate the results of the Gadsden Purchase at the southwest border. “The southern boundary there depicted was the Conde and Bartlett line west from Doña Ana, and the “Southern Boundary of N. Mexico by A.B. Gray, U.S. Surveyor, about 8 miles above El Paso,” between them lying the “Disputed Territory about 6,000 Sq. Miles”” (Wheat; Mapping the Transmississippi West, 799, page 166). The map shows excellent detail in the California gold regions, the emigrant trails, and famous cutoffs (Lawson’s and Brophys). General Kearny’s, the Boundary Commission’s, and Fremont’s routes are shown, and Fremont’s maps' influence can also be seen. The West was in great transition in the 1850s, and the maps of the time show many iterations of the boundaries of the western territories and the subsequent progression to states years and decades later. It is clear that Colton gave wide latitude to the artists involved in making this map, as shown by the plethora of vignettes scattered to all corners of the map.