1817 West India Islands – Martinico / Dominica

This is a fantastic map of the Islands of Martinique and Dominica from the early part of the 19th century. At the time Martinique was under French rule and Dominica had been ceded to the English some 50 years earlier at the end of the Severn Years War that ended 1763. Both maps present exceptional detail with regards to the various parishes, towns, forts, bays, and physical topography of the islands. In the lower left is an insert map of what is presently known as the Bay of Fort France. The map was published as part of John Thompson’s “A New General Atlas,” in 1817 out of Edinburgh, Scotland. The atlas acted as a continuation of Pinkerton’s Modern Atlas of 1815 as the resemblance between the two in quite noticeable. Thompson’s atlas adds about twenty maps not included in that of Pinkerton. Nearly half of these extra maps focus on the West India Islands.