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Our Maine Ancestors:
Early Navigation and Maps |
Until the late eighteenth century, voyagers from Europe found their way to North America by dead reckoning, the compass, the chip log, and the lead line. Latitude measurement was available, but there was not yet a reliable way to determine longitude. Charts were poor and there were limited sailing directions for Maine.
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European explorers such as Champlain and Smith made maps of the Maine coast and other parts of New England.
Native Americans made maps, and in fact influenced early European maps of North America. But Indians viewed mapping differently from Europeans, who measured distances and fixed exact locations. Native people thought of location in social terms: kinship, cooperating groups, and land use. See American Beginnings for a discussion of maps and Native Americans.
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Names illustrate differences between Natives and European settlers. Indians named landmarks by use, while Europeans chose names of owners or names reminiscent of their home country. Europeans could write down place names, lending those labels an added communicative power that proved more durable than the Indians’ oral language. Names and fixed boundary locations helped English settlers in Maine take over tribal lands: besides determining boundaries, a map with familiar-sounding English names in print also could help persuade prospective colonists to brave a dangerous journey and the unknown hazards of life in the new world.
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