1854 Nebraska and Kansas
DESCRIPTION
Published in the very year Kansas and Nebraska were created, this important 1854 map captures the American West at a moment when new territories, transcontinental ambitions, Native lands, and the explosive national debate over slavery were converging on the Great Plains.
Published by J.H. Colton & Co. following passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act on May 30, 1854, the map belongs to the first edition of Colton's landmark depiction of the newly organized territories. The Act divided a vast portion of the former unorganized Louisiana Purchase into Kansas and Nebraska while allowing settlers to determine whether slavery would be permitted through the principle of popular sovereignty. The consequences were immediate. Pro- and anti-slavery settlers poured into Kansas, disputed elections followed, and political violence soon erupted during the period remembered as "Bleeding Kansas," an important prelude to the Civil War. This example is the second state of the first edition, issued later in 1854 after Colton made several changes to the original plate.
Routes Across a Rapidly Changing West
Colton's map extends well beyond Kansas and Nebraska, covering much of the American West between the Mississippi Valley and Pacific Coast. The Oregon Route, Santa Fe Route, military roads, wagon roads, and proposed northern, central, and southern routes for a Pacific railroad cross the sheet, showing the transportation network that was beginning to bind the western territories to the rest of the country. Forts, missions, settlements, rivers, mountain ranges, and trading posts appear alongside illustrations of buffalo, deer, bears, wolves, emigrant wagons, Native hunters, and other scenes associated with the West. The contrast is particularly striking in Kansas and Nebraska, where proposed railroad corridors and emigrant trails pass through enormous areas that remained lightly settled by Americans.
Native lands and communities occupy a prominent place throughout the map. The Pawnee, Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Omaha, Otoe, Kansas, and numerous other Native peoples are identified across the Plains, while Indian Territory dominates a large area immediately south of Kansas. Near the center of Nebraska, beneath an engraved scene of a Native hunter pursuing a buffalo, appears the unusual note: "All the Indian Tribes under the protection of the United States recognize a Head or principal Chief through whom all transactions with the government are conducted." The statement is particularly revealing of federal attitudes toward Native government during the period. It presents the many different political and leadership structures of Native nations through the simplified administrative system preferred by federal officials, who sought recognized individuals through whom treaties and other negotiations could be conducted. Its appearance here is especially significant because the creation of Kansas and Nebraska brought increasing pressure on Native lands precisely as the federal government was negotiating treaties that would open more territory to American settlement.
Expansion from the Great Plains to Mexico
Two large insets place Kansas and Nebraska within the larger story of American territorial expansion. One provides a general map of the United States, Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. The second, "Map of the Territory acquired from Mexico by the Gadsden Treaty 1854," focuses on the strip of present-day southern Arizona and New Mexico purchased from Mexico for $10 million. The acquisition was closely connected with plans for a southern transcontinental railroad and established the basic southern boundary of the contiguous United States. Its inclusion is particularly appropriate on this map: the Kansas-Nebraska Act and Gadsden Purchase both occurred in 1854 and represented two major changes to the political geography of the American West during the same remarkable year.
Colton filled the sheet with information reflecting both contemporary knowledge of the West and American ambitions for its future. Proposed railroad lines cross territories still dominated by Native nations, emigrant trails lead toward Oregon and California, and military forts protect important routes through the Plains. Original hand coloring distinguishes states and territories, while the elaborate grapevine border and numerous engraved vignettes give the map considerably greater visual appeal than most contemporary maps of western expansion. The illustrations themselves reinforce the nineteenth-century image of the West, combining Native peoples, wildlife, wagon trains, settlements, and dramatic landscapes within the geographical information.
The First Edition, Second State
Colton revised the map almost immediately after its initial publication, producing two identifiable states during 1854 alone. This example is the second state of the first edition, recognizable most readily by the solid, shaded lettering of the large "NEBRASKA AND KANSAS" title; the earliest state used open letters decorated internally with stars. Other geographical and decorative details were also altered as Colton updated the plate. These revisions provide an unusually tangible reminder of how quickly western geography was changing. Published within months of the creation of Kansas and Nebraska, the map brings together the territorial crisis over slavery, Native lands and federal policy, western migration, proposed transcontinental railroads, and the Gadsden Purchase on a single sheet produced while these events were still unfolding.
CONDITION
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