A plan of Carver's grant from the Nawdowissie Indians.

Format:

Manuscript

Map/Atlas

Contributor:

Edward E. Ayer Collection (Newberry Library), owner.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Carver, Jonathan, 1710-1780.

Dakota Indians--Land tenure--Maps.

Land grants--Maps.

Minnosota--Maps.

Wisconsin--Maps.

Genre:

Manuscript maps.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (1 map).

Production:

[Place of production not identified : producer not identified, approximately 1825]

Summary:

Unsigned map showing territory in west central Wisconsin and southeastern Minnesota, a triangular tract roughly bounded by present day St Paul (Minn.) and Iron and Wood Counties (Wis.). Drawn on a General Land Office township grid; many townships include names of title claimants. 'Explanation' contains 13 lines of text describing the limits of a land grant purportedly given to explorer Jonathan Carver by two Dakota Indian chiefs in 1767. Beginning after Carver's 1780 death and well into the twentieth century, his descendants and other parties repeatedly made unsuccessful claims on the so-called 'Carver grant'.

Notes:

AM reference: VAULT drawer Ayer MS map 257

Indigenous Histories and Cultures in North America was originally published in 2013, as American Indian Histories and Cultures. The title was changed in 2024.

Indigenous Peoples metadata has been supplied by exonym as these are the terms most commonly used in the documents. Updates are being made to metadata to reference preferred names wherever possible. For more information on our approach to language and metadata in the resource visit the Language Statement.

Inset view, 103 x 172 mm: 'The Falls of Saint Anthony on the River Mississippi, near 2,400 miles from its entrance into the Gulf of Mexico'. View copied from engraving by M. A. Rooker published in multiple eds. of: Carver, Jonathan, Travels through the interior parts of North America, in the years 1766, 1767, and 1768 (1778). Date from c.A. Smith, 'List of ms. maps Ayer Coll.' no. 257; note on map refers to another map published in 1821. For discussion of the fraudulent development of the Carver Grant, see John Parker's New light on Jonathan Carver. For brief description of another manuscript map of the grant dated c.1845 at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, see David Bosse's The Maps of Robert Rogers and Jonathan Carver. Both pieces appear in The American magazine and historical chronicle v. 2 no. 1 (Spring-Summer 1986).

Scale c.1:352,000.

Description based on publisher-supplied metadata (viewed January 30, 2024).