California is an Island? On the Map, Maybe!

"California is undoubtedly an island. Why, I have had in my office mariners who have sailed round it" -Herman Moll, 1711

One of the great myths of history is that California is an island floating off the western coast of North America. This misconception originated with Father Antonio Ascension who drew a map of California based upon the Spanish navigators Juan De La Fuca (1592) and Martin d'Aguilar (1602). According to Tooley, Father Ascension sent the map to Spain by ship. The Dutch captured the ship and sent the map to Amsterdam for Dutch cartographers to study. However, it wasn't the Dutch but the English who popularized the idea that California is an island. Henry Brigg`s map is the first English map to depict California in this way (1625). John Speed copied the idea from Briggs on his map in 1626. The Dutch mapmakers resisted Speed's theory until Jansson adopted the concept on his North America map in 1638.

Even though two of the greatest Dutch cartographers, Hondius and Blaeu, resisted the innovation, another great Dutch cartographer, Visscher, revised his map and became an avid supporter of the island theory. Jansson and Visscher together were able to influence European cartography so that California as an island became an accepted concept well into the late 18th century.

Facts did not sway the geographic community in Europe. Father Eusebio Kino was the first European to cross over to the peninsula of California in the late 17th century. Much to his surprise, he didn't need a boat to get to New Albion. Kino published his map in 1705 and sparked a raging fire of criticism. Herman Moll, the leading English cartographer of the early 18th century, wrote in 1711 that California was undoubtedly an island, because English mariners had sailed around it! Even one of the greatest sea chartists in Holland, Van Keulen, agreed with Moll. So the concept persisted long into the 18th century on European maps.

Finally, in 1746, Father Consag sailed round the Gulf of California and proved to European geographers that they could walk from Mexico City to San Fransisco without getting their feet wet. King Ferdinand VII of Spain issued an edict stating that California is not an island.>

Until recently, Speed's and Jansson's maps of North America were collected as the first maps to show California as an island. Now some map experts are saying that Ortelius' map of the Caribbean (c. 1580), showing the southern half of California separated from the continent, is the first to propose the idea. Regardless of who you believe, these three maps are central to one of the hottest debates in the discovery of the New World.

In the late 17th century, Visscher's redrawn map of North America swings European cartographic opinion in favor of an island. Moll's Cod Fish map of North America (c. 1710) reinforces the idea for the next fifty years. Even poor King Ferdinand VII of Spain couldn't change some minds. DeVaugandy's map of 1770 still shows California sitting off the coast of North America.

Together, these maps tell the story of European exploration of the west over two hundred years. We have Moll's Codfish map and Ortelius' famous map in stock. Both maps are very tough to find. Jansson, Speed, and Visscher come to market from time to time but less so in recent years. We can find these maps on search for you.

" California is not an island ". -Edict, King Ferdinand of Spain, 1747

" It WILL be." -Nostradamus

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