By Anna Xie
This map of the Caribbean shows the relief with hill-shading, hydrography, settlements, and shorelines and countries outlined in color. It was made in 1824 in Germany. The cartographer is August Ruhle von Lilienstern. He was seen as ahead of his time by depicting the hydrography and topography of the landscape without any of the place names nor boundaries.
During the 19th century, Germans were interested in the Caribbean islands because of military interests and resources. Spain was first to colonize the Caribbean islands, followed by France and England. However, when the Germans wanted to acquire land, they failed to build or purchase. One example was the failed purchase of the island of Curaçao from the Netherlands. The Germans wanted to build Naval bases under the guise of trade with Caribbean and South American countries.
Ruhle von Lilienstern’s map was used in schools. His motivation for making the map was to use an effective presentation style of a surface terrain. The rendering of the terrain was particularly innovative for his time. However, geography teachers didn’t use his map because they remained focused on political geography based around borders instead of environmental geography’s focus on physical geography features like watersheds. But this doesn’t stop Ruhle von Lilienstern, as he was devoted to public geography education.
This map was also critiqued because he filled in unexplored places of Earth with ideas of what he inferred it to look like. This has drawn controversy because it detracted from orographic (mountain) and physiographic (physical geography) depictions. Ruthle was among the pioneers of lithography, a technique where a design is drawn onto a stone surface and fixed through a chemical reaction. He used this process to create large-format atlases. He was successful as a writer, general, and diplomat. Despite critiques of his methods as a cartographer, he still made significant contributions to the field.
Source:
David Rumsey Map Collection