41 • Spanish Colonial Cartography, 1450–1700 David Buisseret In all of history, very few powers have so rapidly acquired The maps of Guatemala are relatively few,7 but those of as much apparently uncharted territory as the Spaniards Panama are numerous, no doubt because the isthmus was did in the first half of the sixteenth century. This acquisi- tion posed huge administrative, military, and political I would like to acknowledge the help of Anne Godlewska, Juan Gil, problems, among which was the problem of how the area Brian Harley, John Hébert, and Richard Kagan in the preparation of this chapter. might be mapped. The early sixteenth-century Spain of the Abbreviations used in this chapter include: AGI for Archivo General Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand II and Isabella I, initially de Indias, Seville. responded to this problem by establishing at Seville a great 1. Between 1900 and 1921, Pedro Torres Lanzas produced a series of cartographic center whose activities are described in chap- catalogs for the AGI. These have been reprinted under different titles ter 40 in this volume by Alison Sandman. However, as and, along with other map catalogs, are now being replaced by a com- puterized general list. See Pedro Torres Lanzas, Catálogo de mapas y time went by, other mapping groups emerged, and it is planos de México, 2 vols. (reprinted [Madrid]: Ministerio de Cultura, their work that will be described in this chapter. After Dirección General de Bellas Artes y Archivos, 1985); idem, Catálogo de considering the nature of these groups, we will discuss mapas y planos: Guatemala (Guatemala, San Salvador, Honduras, their activities in the main areas of Spain’s overseas Nicaragua y Costa Rica) (reprinted [Spain]: Ministerio de Cultura, Di- possessions. rección General de Bellas Artes y Archivos, 1985); idem, Catálogo de mapas y planos: Audiencias de Panamá, Santa Fe y Quito (reprinted These areas will be defined by the same geographical re- [Spain]: Ministerio de Cultura, Dirección General de Bellas Artes y gions as those used by the map catalogers of the Archivo Archivos, 1985); idem, Catálogo de mapas y planos: Virreinato del Perú General de Indias (AGI) in Seville. This immense collec- (Perú y Chile) (reprinted [Spain]: Ministerio de Cultura, Dirección Ge- tion, originally brought together in the eighteenth century neral de Bellas Artes y Archivos, 1985); and Pedro Torres Lanzas and from a variety of earlier collections, is the richest deposi- José Torre Revello, Catálogo de mapas y planos: Buenos Aires, 2 vols. 1 (reprinted [Madrid]: Ministerio de Cultura, Dirección General de Bellas tory for Spain’s early colonial cartography. The main Artes y Archivos, 1988). See also Archivo General de Simancas, Mapas, headings are nine in number, covering the following areas: planos y dibujos, 2 vols., by Concepción Alvarez Terán and María del Santo Domingo, Florida/Louisiana, Mexico, Guatemala, Carmen Fernández Gómez (Valladolid: El Archivo; [Madrid]: Ministe- Panama, Venezuela, Peru /Chile, Buenos Aires, and the rio de Cultura, Dirección General de Bellas Artes, Archivos y Bibliote- Philippines. The maps of the area of Santo Domingo, cov- cas, 1980 –90), and Pilar León Tello, Mapas, planos y dibujos de la Sec- ción de Estado del Archivo Histórico Nacional, 2d ed. (Madrid: ering essentially the Caribbean Sea and its islands, number Ministerio de Cultura, Dirección General del Patrimonio Artístico, 2 a few over one hundred for the period before 1700. These Archivos y Museos, 1979). maps include delineations of whole islands, but also many 2. Julio González, Catálogo de mapas y planos de Santo Domingo plans of great cities such as Havana and Santo Domingo, (Madrid: Dirección General de Archivos y Bibliotecas, 1973). drawn by the military engineers. Plans of this kind may 3. Many are listed and reproduced in the invaluable catalog by Julio González, Planos de ciudades iberoamericanas y filipinas existentes en also be found scattered through depositories in Spain and el Archivo de Indias, 2 vols. ([Madrid]: Instituto de Estudios de Ad- 3 other countries. ministración Local, 1951). The maps of Florida/Louisiana number only about 60 4. Julio González, Catálogo de mapas y planos de la Florida y la for our period, as might be expected for a region that as Luisiana (Madrid: Dirección General del Patrimonio Artístico, Archivos yet was of little interest to Spain’s rulers.4 Mexico is an- y Museos, 1979). 5. Torres Lanzas, Catálogo de mapas y planos de México. See Archivo other matter, for this was one of the richest and best- General de la Nación, Catálogo de ilustraciones, 14 vols. (Mexico City: mapped of early regions. Not only are there the 135 or so Centro de Información Gráfica del Archivo General de la Nación, maps in the AGI, but there are many maps in other repos- 1979–82), which, with its many reproductions, gives a remarkable con- itories such as the archives of Valladolid, as well as in the spectus of the holdings. Archivo General de la Nación in Mexico City.5 More- 6. See Ernest J. Burrus, La obra cartográfica de la Provincia Mexicana de la Compañía de Jesús (1567–1967) (Madrid: Ediciones José Porrúa over, the Jesuits were very active in this area, particularly Turanzas, 1967), and Barbara E. Mundy, “Mesoamerican Cartogra- in the more remote provinces, and there was a lively in- phy,” in HC 2.3:183–256. digenous mapping tradition.6 7. Torres Lanzas, Catálogo de mapas y planos: Guatemala. 1143 1144 State Contexts of Renaissance Mapping the central communications point between Spain’s posses- tude and longitude, but clearly resembles portolan chart- sions in the Atlantic and those in the Pacific. In South making in the way it shows coastlines. Santa Cruz based America, there are three divisions: Venezuela, Peru /Chile, his work on a large collection of manuscript cartographic and Buenos Aires.8 These three areas were not yet central material, which at his death in 1572 included about one to Spain’s ambitions in the New World, and the number of hundred maps of different parts of the world. This col- maps consequently ranges up and down from fifty or so. lection was passed on to his successor, Juan López de Ve- However, they did contain great cities such as Cartagena lasco, and can be traced to the library of the Escorial in and Lima, which attracted military cartographers, and in 1635; it no doubt perished there in the fire of 1671. their more remote reaches the Jesuits were often active.9 The maps of the “Islario” do not show very much de- Finally, there are the Philippines, an even more remote re- tail about internal regions of the New World. This began gion, for which fewer than twenty maps have survived.10 to be corrected with the publication in 1562 of the map It might seem from this enumeration that a good many of America by Diego Gutiérrez. He was also cosmógrafo maps have survived, and that is indeed the case, even if at the navigation school, where he succeeded his father, they are much scattered. But it is also the case that a huge Diego Gutiérrez, in 1554, serving on until at least 1569. number have perished, both in archival accidents and in Although the map survives now in only two copies, at the mishaps that occurred even before they reached the Library of Congress and at the BL, it was once widely dis- archives. We are thus in the situation of attempting to de- scribe a phenomenon without having any clear idea of its 8. Julio González, comp., Catálogo de mapas y planos de Venezuela original extent, and this must always be borne in mind (Madrid: Dirección General de Archivos y Bibliotecas, 1968); Torres when trying to make generalizations. However, students Lanzas, Catálogo de mapas y planos: Virreinato del Perú; and Torres of Spanish colonial cartography have a remarkable ad- Lanzas and Torre Revello, Catálogo de mapas y planos: Buenos Aires. 9. See Guillermo Fúrlong Cárdiff, Cartografía jesuítica del Río de la vantage in terms of the number of excellent collections of Plata (Buenos Aires: Talleres S. A. Casa Jacobo Peuser, 1936), and idem, map facsimiles that have been published over the past one Cartografía histórica argentina: Mapas, planos y diseños que se conser- hundred years.11 ven en el Archivo General de la Nación (Buenos Aires: Ministerio del Interior, 1963 [1964]). 10. Archivo General de Indias, Catálogo de los documentos relativos The Various Groups of a las islas Filipinas existentes en el Archivo de Indias de Sevilla Cartographers Working on Maps (Barcelona: [Imprenta de la Viuda de Luis Tasso, Arco del Teatro], of Spain’s Overseas Territories 1925–). 11. See, for example, Eduardo Acevado Latorre, comp., Atlas de ma- Sandman has described the activities of the navigation pas antiguos de Colombia: Siglos XVI a XIX (Bogotá: Litografía Arco, school at the Casa de la Contratación as far as nautical [1971?]); Julio F. Guillén y Tato, Monumenta chartográfica indiana (Madrid, 1942–); Egon Klemp, ed. and comp., America in Maps: Dat- cartography is concerned, explaining how the pattern ing from 1500 to 1856, trans. Margaret Stone and Jeffrey C. Stone map was generated and the nature of the institutional (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1976); François-Auguste de Mon- arrangements. As time went by, leading members of the têquin, “Maps and Plans of Cities and Towns in Colonial New Spain, school began to produce land cartography of the overseas the Floridas, and Louisiana: Selected Documents from the Archivo Ge- territories. The first of these was Alonso de Santa Cruz, neral de Indias of Sevilla,” 2 vols. (Ph.D. diss., University of New Mex- ico, 1974); J. H. Parry and Robert G. Keith, eds., New Iberian World: whose title was “cosmógrafo de hacer cartas y fabricar A Documentary History of the Discovery and Settlement of Latin instrumentos para la navegación.” Born about 1505 in America to the Early 17th Century, 5 vols.