TIRION, Isaak (1705-1765).
[CALIFORNIA]. Kaart van het Westelyk Gedeelte van Nieuw Mexico en van California.
Engraved map.
Amsterdam: Isaak Tirion, 1765.
13 3/4" x 14 1/2" sheet.

Copper-engraved map of Baja California and Sonora, bounded on the north by the Colorado and Gila Rivers and approximately Mozatlan in the south; several folds as issued.

A scarce and important eighteenth-century map detailing the Spanish-Mexican borderlands in the California region. It focuses on the Gulf of California, Baja California, parts of Southern California including Cape San Diego (site of the modern city) and present-day Arizona. The Peninsula and Sonora are dotted with towns, indigenous villages, Jesuit missions, Spanish garrisons, watering places ("plaats"), and some offshore detail, with mountain ranges rendered in profile.

Cartographically this map falls between the seminal mapping of Father Kino at the end of the 17th century, which reattached insular California to the mainland, and the important discoveries of the Dominguez-Escalante expedition (1775). The various Jesuit settlements are identified with vignettes of churches, particularly on the Baja Peninsula and the Mexican mainland. Of note is the site identified by Father Kino as the Casa Grande on the Gila River. Although marked as a mission here, it is in fact a Native American Indian ruin of architectural enormity now protected by the National Park Service.

Tirion was a Dutch publisher who is chiefly known for his maps and atlases. This map was included in his his 3-volume Hedendaagsche Historie, of Tegenwoordige Staat van Amerika (1766-1769) - a history of the Present States of America, with a substantial portion devoted to Spanish settlements in North and South America.

REFERENCE: Cf. Sabin 31212.