North American Buckskin Map

A History of the World in 100 Objects

BBC

History

4.4 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 6 October 2010

⏱️ 14 minutes

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Summary

The history of humanity - as told through one hundred objects from the British Museum in London - is once again in North America. This week, Neil MacGregor, the museum's director, is looking at Europe's engagement with the rest of the world in the 18th century. Today he tells the story of a map, roughly drawn on deerskin that was used as the colonists negotiated for land in the area between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi. It was probably drawn up by a Native American around 1774. Neil looks at how the French and the British were in conflict in the region, and examines the different attitudes to land and living between Europeans and Native Americans. Martin Lewis, an expert on maps from this region, and the historian David Edmunds describe the map and the clash of cultures that was played out within its boundaries. Producer: Anthony Denselow

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thank you for downloading this episode of a history of the world in a hundred objects from BBC Radio 4.
0:10.0	The First World War began in 1756.
0:17.0	For the next seven years Britain and France were to fight each other on land and sea in
0:28.0	Europe and Africa, India and America.
0:31.0	It was the first truly global conflict and it was particularly hard fought in
0:35.6	America. A satirical account of the time explained why the two countries were
0:40.4	fighting over the chill wilderness of North America.
0:44.0	They are at present engaged in a very destructive war.
0:47.0	They have already spilled much blood,
0:49.0	and all on account of each side desiring to want greater quantities of fur than the other. The pretext of the
0:54.8	war is about some land a thousand leagues off, a country cold, desolate and hideous, a country
1:02.4	of a people who are in possession from time immemorial.
1:06.6	The hideous land actually refers to Canada, and the author, the poet and novelist Oliver Goldsmith, goes on to argue that Britain and France are despoiling the legitimate inhabitants of the countries they explore and exploit.
1:21.0	From Canada, the wall drifted south, and today's object is a map which shows part of the
1:26.4	area that the British moved into as they captured the long line of French forts
1:31.1	that ran from the Great Lakes to the Mississippi as far south of St Louis.
1:36.4	The map was made around 1774, probably by Native American, one of the people who had in
1:41.7	goldsmiths' words been in possession from time immemorial.
1:47.0	If you give up land and you move away from your homeland, you are moving away from God for practical purposes.
2:02.8	So that's why the Indian removal or the removal of people off of land is very, very traumatic.
2:08.8	It's a particularly rich map.
2:12.0	With a lot of research I could relate it with a high degree of
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