Virginia is the first English map of the first permanent English settlement in North America. Reflecting John Smith’s 1607 – 1609 forays from the Jamestown settlement into the surrounding Virginia countryside and published in 1612, this continued to be the definitive Virginia map for more than half a century.

To get your bearings, note that ‘North’ on the elaborate compass rose points to the right – not to the top of the map. This orientation was common for maps drawn in the early seventeenth century.

This first detailed description of the Chesapeake Bay is chock full of local place names. Looking from south to north across the bay, we see ‘Powhatan flu’; follow the soon-to-be James River inland to the location of Jamestowne. Just south of the river’s mouth, Cape Henry is near present-day Virginia Beach.

Further north, find the ‘Patawomech flu’ (later the Potomac River). Follow its course to the northwest to the eventual location of Washington, DC.

The map is as beautiful as it is fascinating and historically significant. At the upper left, a vignette depicts Chief Powhatan holding council. The early survival of the Jamestown settlement is attributed to Captain Smith’s amicable relationship with the Chief; and to the marriage of the colonist John Rolfe to the Chief’s daughter, Pocahontas.

About John Smith

Captain John Smith, under contract to The London Company and under the command of Capt. Christopher Newport, sails from London five days before Christmas, 1606 and arrives five months later at Chesapeake Bay. On May 14, 1607 they found and name the Jamestown colony for King James I.

The colony survives and eventually flourishes because Smith establishes friendly relations and commerce with Chief Powhatan, father of Pocahontas. Smith left Jamestown in 1609; John Rolfe, a colonist, married Pocahontas in 1614.