B Y M A R K J . S T E G M A I E R W I T H R I C H A R D T.

M C C U L L E Y

Cartography,
Politics–
and Mischief
Ephraim Gilman’s 1848 Map
O F T H E U N I T E D S TAT E S ,
N OW E X PA N D E D C OA S T TO C OA S T

I n December 1848, the U.S. General Land Office pro-

duced a map of the United States by its principal
draftsman, Ephraim Gilman. It displayed all of the existing
states, territories, proposed territories, and the area of the
Mexican Cession in the southwest acquired by the terms of
theTreaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo,which ended the war with
Mexico.
 The Gilman map was specifically or-
dered by President James K. Polk to ac-
company his last annual message to Con-
gress that month. Polk wanted the map to
illustrate the territorial gains from the
Mexican War, advance his ideas on the
development of the newly acquired terri-
tories, and address the growing debate in
Congress and the nation over the exten-
sion of slavery in the territories.
Gilman colored the various areas in
pink, light green, and light yellow and fea-
tured tables of statistics on the square
miles and acreages on the right and left
borders.The map is a beautiful artifact on
its own, but it is also an intriguing docu-
ment with features that are not immedi-
Gilman’s map supported Texans’ claim that New Mexican
lands began to the west of the Rio Grande.
8 Prologue
ately obvious.While the Gilman map ap-
pears to be a credible rendering of the
United States at mid-19th century, closer
inspection reveals serious labeling errors,
misspellings, and egregious misplace-
ments of major geographic features. This
is surprising because Gilman was an expe-
rienced draftsman who had been at the
land office at least since 1839.
n n n n
The Gilman map shows that the 1840s
had been an important decade for the
expansion of the United States. The
Texas annexation by the United States in
1845 brought Texas into the Union as a
slave state. In 1846, the British ceded the
Oregon Territory south of the 49th par-
allel: what is now Washington, Oregon,
Idaho, and part of Montana. In the 1848
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo after the
Mexican War, Mexico ceded what are
now the states of California, Nevada, and
Utah and parts of Colorado, Wyoming,
Arizona, and New Mexico. The United
States now reached coast to coast, a fact
that the expansionist President Polk
wanted to highlight in this unique but
forceful political statement.
Some features of the map readily cap-
ture our attention. The shape of Texas
looks strongly distorted to the modern
eye, making west Texas appear much
smaller than it actually is.This distortion
reflects Gilman’s use of John Disturnell’s
1847 “Mapa de los Estados Unidos de
Mejico,”noted as a source on the
left-hand side of his map.
A comparison of Gilman’s map
with Disturnell’s shows an im-
portant difference regarding the
boundary between New Mexico
and Texas. Disturnell’s map,
which had been used for the
Treaty of Guadalupe Hildalgo
negotiations, was ambiguous re-
garding the Texas-New Mexico
boundary. Disturnell had the area
east of the Rio Grande one color
and the area west of the river a
different color, strongly implying
that everything east of the river
lay in Texas, while New Mexico
lay only on the western side. But
the wording Disturnell used on
the map—“Nuevo Mejico” (west
of the river) “O Santa Fe” (east of
the river)— supported the claim
that some of New Mexico lay on
the eastern side of the Rio
Grande. Gilman’s map did away
with the ambiguity, not only hav-
ing different colors on either side
of the river but also clearly label-
ing only the area west of the Rio
Grande as New Mexico.
The Gilman map’s rendering of
the boundary was part of Pres-
ident Polk’s effort to settle a dis-
pute between Texas and New
Winter 2009
Mexico. In December 1836, the Texas
Republic had defined its boundary on the
south and west as the Rio Grande from
mouth to source and from that point
northward to the 1819 Adams-Onís Treaty
line between the United States and Spain
at 42˚N.That boundary claim meant that
Santa Fe and all the settled parts of Mexico’s
northern province of New Mexico would
have been part of Texas since they all lay
east of the Rio Grande.
Many people in northern states doubted
or totally rejected the validity of the Texas
boundary claim, and President Polk had
wavered on the boundary issue himself
during the Mexican War. After General
Stephen Watts Kearny’s forces occupied
New Mexico inAugust 1847,Polk reassured
Texans that the U.S. government was not
setting up an adverse claim to that of Texas
by establishing a military government at
Santa Fe.Then on July 24, 1848, President
Polk sent a message to Congress that defi-
nitely leaned toward the New Mexicans’
claims that their area east of the Rio Grande
had never been occupied by the Texans
and had always been governed as a pro-
vince of Mexico until the U.S. conquest in
1846.Polk probably assumed this stance to
encourage passage of the Clayton Com-
promise, a Senate bill that would have es-
tablished governments in the Mexican ses-
sion but failed to pass Congress.
In his last annual message to Congress
on December 5, 1848, Polk appeared to
favor the Texas claim again.Although his
message implied that some of New Mex-
ico might extend east of the Rio Grande,
he recommended that Congress establish
a territorial government only in the areas
of New Mexico west of the Rio Grande.
The features on Gilman’s map reflected
Polk’s sentiments.
Another politically significant feature of
the Gilman map is not initially apparent—
a line drawn from the southern boundary
of Missouri (the Missouri Compromise
line of 1820) to the Pacific Ocean.This ren-
dering suggests Polk’s policy regarding the
extension of slavery in the territories. In
the upper left-hand corner of the map, the
line is mistakenly designated as lying at
39˚30‘ instead of 36˚30‘, possibly indicat-
Cartography, Politics—and Mischief
ing the haste with which the map was pre-
pared and printed. The Missouri Com-
promise of 1820,extended further west by
the Texas annexation resolutions of 1845,
had prohibited slavery north of the line
and permitted it south of the line.
The beginning of the Mexican War in
1846, with the prospect that the United
States would acquire the vast region lying
betweenTexas and the Pacific Coast,prompt-
ed northern politicians in Congress to rally
behind Pennsylvania Rep. David Wilmot’s
August 1846 proposal to ban slavery from
any territory the United States might
acquire from Mexico in the war.
The Wilmot Proviso set off a firestorm of
controversy, as southerners responded
that they had a constitutional right to
carry their slaves into the common terri-
tories of the nation.Alternative proposals
for resolving the issue of slavery in the ter-
ritories emerged. One allowed settlers in
the territories themselves to determine
the slavery question, i.e. popular sover-
eignty; another left the question to the
Supreme Court to determine; and a third
called for extending the Missouri Com-
promise line to the Pacific Coast.
Polk made clear his preference for ex-
tending the Missouri Compromise line in
a message to the House of Representatives
on August 14, 1848, when he signed into
law the bill creating a territorial govern-
ment for Oregon. Polk emphasized the
“calming”influence which the 36˚30‘ line
had had on earlier crises over slavery
extension,and he strongly urged the appli-
cation of the same division line to the
Mexican Cession. A few months later, in
the December 5 annual message, Polk
used the Gilman map to reiterate this rec-
ommendation to Congress.
The idea of extending the Missouri Com-
promise to the Pacific would recur in the
debate over slavery in the territories.It was
championed by southern politicians in
1850 as an alternative to California’s admis-
sion to the Union as a free state, and the
36˚30‘ line’s extension,excluding California,
would become a major suggestion of com-
promise during the secession crisis of
1860–1861.
Also notable on the Gilman map is its dis-
play of boundaries for two “proposed” ter-
ritories, Minnesota and Nebraska.These fea-
tures signaled administration support for
Senate bills organizing territorial govern-
ments in those two areas. Illinois Senator
Stephen A. Douglas introduced both bills
and chaired the Senate’s Committee onTer-
ritories. These bills expressed Douglas’s
vision of America’s“manifest destiny,” a pro-
gressive migration of settlement westward,
establishment of territorial governments
as settlers advanced (Minnesota) and
sometimes in anticipation of settlement
(Nebraska), and ultimately the binding of
this huge expanse together with a network
of railroads from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
Polk and his administration ardently cham-
pioned Douglas’s plans, which may explain
the inclusion of the two“proposed”territo-
ries on Gilman’s map,with their boundaries
delineated according to Douglas’s 1848
bills.
Gilman apparently had a difficult time
matching the bill’s description of the
northeastern part of Minnesota Territory’s
boundary with the features of his own
map. As a result of Gilman’s confusion,the
map shows a vaguely defined boundary
and the use of a different color—yellow—
in the northeastern part of Minnesota
when he had used green in the western
part of the territory. Overall this was the
least well-executed portion of Gilman’s
work. Nor did Gilman draw Wisconsin, the
Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and Lake
Superior with cartographic exactitude.
Neither the Minnesota nor Nebraska terri-
tory bills had passed Congress in the ear-
lier session,but MinnesotaTerritory would
achieve organization in 1849. Nebraska’s
status would become part of the great sec-
tional disruption over slavery expansion in
the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854.
A curious feature on the western por-
tion of this map is its presentation of Ore-
gon. Congress had organized a territorial
government for Oregon in August 1848.
On Gilman’s map, however, Oregon is not
labeled as an organized territory nor given
any specific boundary on the east. The
area to the east is labeled “N.W. TER y.”,
or Northwest Territory, even though
Congress had not organized any official
Prologue 9
The Oregon Territory had been organized in August 1848, but Gilman did not indicate this in his December map.
territory there.Why Gilman did not clearly
designate Oregon as a territory with its
proper boundaries is a mystery.
Since the other political dimensions of
the map are consistent with the adminis-
tration’s policies, it may be that President
Polk himself directed that the map be
drawn with Oregon only vaguely defined
to accommodate southern sensibilities.
Southerners had bitterly contested the
Oregon Territory bill in the previous ses-
sion, and they were still angry that the
bill had prohibited slavery in a federal ter-
ritory. The President may have preferred
not to remind southerners of their recent
congressional defeat by prominently dis-
playing the new, free territory of the
northwest.
While some of the omissions,anomalies,
and other peculiarities of the map might
be traced to its political context, the many
serious errors and misspellings on a map
that was an important state document
indicate hurried preparation.For example,
the erroneous listing of the Missouri Com-
promise line as 39˚30’ and the vagueness
of the depiction of the proposed Min-
nesota Territory were not corrected by
anyone before this map went to the
printer, P. S. Duval, in Philadelphia. That
10 Prologue
indicates that Ephraim Gilman and his
superiors were operating under a tight
deadline to get the map and its tables fin-
ished in time to accompany Polk’s mes-
sage to Congress.
The number of spelling errors and
spelling peculiarities suggest that the
drafting of the map was marred by hasti-
ness and carelessness.On theTexas part of
the map,“Rio del Norte,”another name for
the Rio Grande,is given on the map as“Rio
del North.” El Paso or Paso del Norte
becomes“Passo.”Matamoros is misspelled
“Matamoras,” and Nueces River is mis-
spelled “Neuces.” Gilman rendered the
Sabine River on the map as the “Saline
River,” although the river is correctly lab-
eled the Sabine in the right-hand table,
which was apparently prepared by some-
one other than Gilman.
A careful examination of the Oregon
part of the map reveals more egregious
errors, odd omissions, and peculiar
spellings. Gilman placed Mount St.
Helens south of the Columbia River. By
the time Gilman drafted his map, the
river emptying into the Columbia River
at present-day Portland was widely
known as the Willamette River, and the
older Indian names had fallen into dis-
use. Yet Gilman labels that river the
“Wahlahmath River” and Fort Walla Walla
as “Ft.Wahlah wahlah,” although we have
not been able to locate other maps of
that era with the same usages. It is also
curious that the major outpost of Fort
Vancouver is not on the map, although it
invariably appears in maps made in the
1830s and 1840s of the Pacific North-
west.
We were so intrigued with these errors
of omission and commission that we inves-
tigated the quality of Gilman’s draftsman-
ship by examining other maps he pro-
duced when he was employed by the
General Land Office. Those maps reveal
high-quality work based on recent surveys
but confined to rather limited geographic
areas in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Mis-
sissippi.
When Gilman got the assignment to
draft a map of the United States for Pres-
ident Polk, he had never undertaken car-
tographic work that ambitious. Since his
1848 map was not based on original sur-
veys and was drafted in haste, we also
examined maps from the 1840s at the
National Archives, from the Oregon His-
torical Society, and in published sources
that were either readily available to them
Winter 2009
 in the General Land Office or to
which they would have had
knowledge and access. But the
search for clues concerning
which maps Gilman might have
relied on to draft the 1848 map
proved fruitless and yielded
no maps full of the same or
similar irregularities that are
found in Gilman’s.
When one examines the
Kentucky-Tennessee part of
the map, however, the er-
rors appear to have been
deliberately inserted. Gil-
man changed the names of
the Cumberland and Tenn-
essee rivers to the “Great
Kanawha” and the “Big
between West Virginia
and Kentucky. The mis-
chievous Gilman simply
applied the names of
these lesser rivers in the
area to two major rivers
on his map. This experi-
enced draftsman could
not have done this by mis-
take. Since the focus of
the map was the western
part of it and especially
the Mexican Cession, not
Kentucky and Tennessee,
one Two days after Commissioner Young submitted this November 22, 1848, letter
to Secretary Walker, Young met with President Polk and gave him a copy of the
apparently no
detected the substituted Gilman map.
names for the Cumb-
erland and the Tennessee rivers before naming a few important rivers on his
the map was sent to the printer. map, especially ones proximate to and
Since there is no evi- within President Polk’s home state?
dence that the errors Knowing that the General Land Office
were the results of hur- was operating under a tight deadline to
riedly copying from complete the map and its tables,
inaccurate maps, we Gilman would have guessed that no
can only speculate on one was going to carefully proofread his
what may have moti- work before its printing. And the evidence
vated Gilman, an on the map itself shows that Gilman
apparently talented would have been correct in such an
draftsman, to falsify assumption. One can almost imagine him
the names of two chuckling with delight when no one
major rivers on his noticed the errors before the map went to
map,repeatedly use the printer.
incorrect place While the political meaning and the
names, and mis- many inaccuracies of the Gilman map
place major geo- are not readily apparent, neither is its
graphic features. remarkable provenance. Polk’s message
We conclude that of December 5, 1848, and many related
the most likely documents were published as House
explanation is Executive Document 1 (30th Cong.,
that Gilman 2nd sess., Serial 537), with Gilman’s
was a drafts- map the first among several maps at the
man with an end. Tables on either side of Gilman’s
artistic tem- map contain statistics gathered from a

Errors on the section of the map depicting Kentucky

perament November 22, 1848, letter from Com-
and Tennessee seem to have been deliberate.
who did missioner Young to Secretary of the
not like Treasury Robert J. Walker, discussing
Sandy,” respectively. Those two very having to draw his map under a tight the amount and value of the lands
prominent rivers had been known and deadline and probably under constant acquired from Mexico. Figures from
presented on maps for generations as pressure from General Land Office Young’s annual report dated November
the Cumberland and the Tennessee. Commissioner Richard M.Young to get 30, 1848, concerning acreages of some
The Kanawha is a river in present-day the job done. Peeved at the pressure, of the newer states appear in the right-
West Virginia, and the Big Sandy is a river what more appropriate way would Gil- hand table of the map. Young had per-
that forms part of the boundary man have had to retaliate than by mis- sonally reported to President Polk on

Cartography, Politics—and Mischief Prologue 11

November 24 about the dimensions of map now in the Archives corrected the
the newly acquired lands and gave Polk Missouri Compromise line error in the
a copy of Gilman’s map. Polk stated in upper left-hand corner by crossing out
his diary that he would employ the sta- 39˚30’ and writing in 36˚30’ . He also
tistics of Young’s “Report” in his upcom- sketched in, or had a draftsman sketch it
ing annual message. The report Polk in for him, the boundary line of Cali-
referred to was the November 22 letter fornia as proposed by its state constitu-
from Young to Walker, not the annual tional convention of 1849. The alter-
report. President Polk did use Young’s ations were probably made by a
statistics in his message but quoted a congressman or senator in early 1850 in
few of the figures slightly in error. The preparation for a speech.
statistics on Gilman’s map An examination of the map in January
2008 by the National Archives conserva-
tion laboratory revealed that the
blue line indi-
cating the
California
boundary
was drawn by
someone
after February
13, 1850, the
date President
Zachary Taylor
sent official
copies of the
California consti-
tution to the
House and Senate.
Yet whoever in-
serted the Cali-
fornia boundary
did not sketch in
the boundary line
between Utah and
New Mexico or be-
tween New Mexico
Gilman extended the Missouri Compromise line of 36˚30’
Territory and Texas,
all the way to the California coast.
both of which were
defined by Congress
in bills during August
agree with those in Young’s letter to and September 1850 as part of the Compro-
Walker. mise of 1850. The absence of these lines
The copy of Gilman’s map preserved strongly suggest that the map was altered
at the Center for Legislative Archives at after February 13 but before September
the National Archives is an extraordinary 1850.
document because it is somewhat cor- Could someone have altered this copy
rected and updated from the version of the Gilman map prior to February
originally published in the Congres- 1850, possibly during the short second
sional Serial Set and was referred to dur- session of Congress in December
ing congressional debate over the Com- 1848–March 1849? No. Among the vari-
promise of 1850. ous bills that proposed to organize
Whoever used the copy of Gilman’s either a state or territorial government
12 Prologue
for California, no boundary provision
matched those defined by the California
constitution later in 1849 and drawn on
the map. If a member of Congress was
responsible for altering the Archives
copy of the Gilman map in the first ses-
sion of the 1849–1851 Congress, who
could it have been? Only Louisiana’s
Senator Solomon W. Downs specifically
referred to Gilman’s map in a speech on
February 19, 1850, during debate on the
compromise proposals previously pre-
sented by Senator Henry Clay of Ken-
tucky; Downs used the map to point out
that Clay’s proposal on Texas boundaries
would have cut off northern Texas from
the state.
Others who referenced the map
pointed to its statistical tables. Most cita-
tions of statistics from the map were
made in the House during speeches by
northern representatives supporting the
admission of California as a state. On
March 11, Rep. Orin Fowler (W-MA)
quoted a few statistics from the tables
on both sides of the map, and on June 3
Rep. Peter H. Silvester (W-NY) quoted a
few aggregate statistics from the right-
hand table. Two congressmen, Rep.
Samuel R.Thurston (D-OR) on March 25
and Rep. Jesse C. Dickey (W-PA) on June
6, both copied much of the entire right-
hand table into their pro-California state-
hood speeches. One figure that both
cited, which was not on Gilman’s map,
was an estimate of approximately
145,000 square miles for the area of Cal-
ifornia as defined by its constitution’s
boundaries. Thurston’s speech, at least
the printed version, occupied parts of
10 pages in the Congressional Globe; it
analyzed much of the California consti-
tution and quoted its section on bound-
aries. In our opinion, if a member of
Congress was responsible for the inser-
tion of the California boundary on the
Archives copy of the Gilman map, that
member was most likely Samuel
Thurston of Oregon. No member of the
Texas delegation, all Democrats, cited
the Gilman map in support of their
state’s claim to all the territory east of
the Rio Grande, although the map
Winter 2009
clearly supported that claim. When the
Texans did mention maps in the first ses-
sion of the 1849– 1851 Congress, they
cited Disturnell’s, which had authority
by virtue of its having been the map
used in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
negotiations, or a more recent and more
accurate one based on actual surveys by
the Texas General Land Office, the Jacob
de Cordova-Robert Creuzbaur map of
August 1848. Senator Sam Houston did
not himself refer to the Cordova-Creuz-
baur map in this session but had
strongly promoted it as an accurate map
of Texas during the second session of
the 30th Congress in 1848. The two
maps the Texans cited simply served
their purpose of defending the Texas
boundary claim in debate during 1850,
and they saw no need to also cite the
Gilman map.
Ephraim Gilman’s 1848 map proved
more useful in Congress for its statistical
data than for its colorful depiction of U.S.
geographic contours. But with its presen-
tation of New Mexico lying unambigu-
ously west of the Rio Grande, the map
does illustrate the final tilt of the Polk
administration toward the validity of
Texas’s 1836 claim.
The map also reflects President Polk’s
view that the best solution to the sec-
tional crisis over slavery in the territories
was the extension of the Missouri Com-
promise line to the Pacific Coast. The
marking of the proposed California state
boundary on the Archives copy of the
map used during the course of the
debate over the Compromise of 1850
makes it a unique document.
Finally, the Gilman map illustrates
how much of the nation’s history a sin-
gle document can reveal and how many
mysteries the draftsman embedded in
this fascinating example of 19th-cen-
tury cartography. P
Cartography, Politics—and Mischief
NOTE ON SOURCES
The map that is the subject of this article, Map of the United States Including
Western Territories, December 1848, can be found in RG 233, Records of the U.S.
House of Representatives, Center for Legislative Archives, National Archives and
Records Administration (NARA).The Disturnell map of 1847 is in General Records
of the United States Government, Record Group (RG) 11, NARA. Information on
Ephraim Gilman is from the United States Official Register, 1839–1851 at the
National Archives; 1840 and 1850 U.S. Censuses for the District of Columbia,
National Archives Microfilm Publication M704 and M432, respectively; and the
New York Times, February 23, 1853. On President James K. Polk’s request for the
map and his statements based on the Gilman map and tables, see Milton M. Quaife,
ed., The Diary of James K. Polk During His Presidency, 1845 to 1849 (Chicago:
A.C. McClurg & Co., 1910), and James D. Richarson, A Compilation of Messages
and Papers of the Presidents, 1789–1897, volumes 4 and 5 (Washington: G.P.O.,
1897). Correspondence relating to the Gilman map is in the U.S. Serial Set, U.S.
Congress, House of Representatives, H. Ex. Doc. 1, 30th Congress, 2nd session, vol.
537, 1849. The f loor debates in the House of Representatives that referenced the
Gilman map and tables are available in the Congressional Globe, 31st Congress,
1st session, 1850.
The published sources most helpful for understanding the political context of
the Gilman map are Stegmaier, Texas, New Mexico, and the Compromise of 1850,
cited above, and Stegmaier,“The Guadalupe Hidalgo Treaty as a Factor in the New
Mexico-Texas Boundary Dispute” in John P. Bloom, ed., The Treaty of Guadalupe
Hidalgo: Papers of the Sesquicentennial Symposium, 1848–1998 (Las Cruces,
NM: Doña Ana Co. Historical Society and Yucca Tree Press, 1999), pp. 31–33. See
also Robert W. Johansson, Stephen A. Douglas (New York: Oxford University Press,
1973); Paul H. Bergeron, The Presidency of James K. Polk (Lawrence: University
Press of Kansas, 1987); Chaplain W. Morrison, Democratic Politics and Sectional-
ism: The Wilmot Proviso Controversy (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 1967); and Allan Nevins, Ordeal of the Union, volume 1, Fruits of Manifest
Destiny, 1847–1852 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1947).
The authors would like to thank National Archives and Records Administration
archivists Constance Potter for editorial suggestions and for furnishing biograph-
ical information on Ephraim Gilman; Richard H. Smith of the Cartographic for
assistance in our examination of the cartographic work of Gilman; and William
Davis of the Center for Legislative Archives. We also thank NARA conservationist
Yoonjoo Strumfels for conducting a ver y detailed analysis of the map. We also
appreciate Scott Daniels, research librarian at the Oregon Historical Society, who
conducted at our request a search of Oregon maps drawn before 1850.
Author
Mark J. Stegmaier is professor of history at Cameron University in Law-
ton, Oklahoma, where he has taught since receiving his Ph.D.from the Uni-
versity of California at Santa Barbara in 1975.He is the author of Texas, New
Mexico, and the Compromise of 1850: Boundary Dispute and Sectional Crisis (Kent, OH:
Kent State University Press, 1996) and co-author of James F. Milligan: His Journal of Fre-
mont’s Fifth Expedition, 1853–1854: His Adventurous Life on Land and Sea (Glendale,
CA:Arthur H. Clark Co., 1988).
Richard T. McCulley is the historian at the Center for Legislative Archives
at the National Archives and Records Administration,Washington, D.C. He
received his Ph.D. in U.S. history from the University of Texas at Austin and
was a lecturer and research associate at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of
Public Affairs. He is the co-author of White House Operations:The Lyndon
Johnson Presidency (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1986) and author of
Banks and Politics during the Progressive Era (New York: Garland Press, 1992).
Prologue 13