Freedom and Slavery, and the Coveted Territories
- Title:
- Freedom and Slavery, and the Coveted Territories
- Alternate Title:
- Freedom and Slavery, and the Coveted Territories
- Collection:
- Persuasive Maps: PJ Mode Collection
- Creator:
- John C. Fremont Campaign
- Date:
- 1856
- Posted Date:
- 2017-04-14
- ID Number:
- 2199.01
- Collection Number:
- 8548
- File Name:
- PJM_2199_01.jpg
- Style/Period:
- 1800 - 1869
- Subject:
- U.S. Civil War
Politics & Government
Slavery/Race - Measurement:
- 15 x 22 sheet (centimeters, height x width)
- Notes:
- This map warning of the expansion of slavery into the west appears in a 7-page pamphlet issued in support of John Fremont in the 1856 Presidential election campaign. For more about the background and importance of the Fremont campaign map, see ID #2132, "Reynolds's Political Map of the United States Designed to Exhibit the Comparative Area of the Free and Slave States and the Territory open to Slavery or Freedom by the Repeal of the Missouri Compromise" (1856). The collection includes six examples of the Fremont campaign map, all dated 1856: ID #2132 (the Reynolds map poster), ID #1058 (handbill with map), ID #1059 (folding map in German), ID #2101 (pamphlet with map), ID #2199 (pamphlet with map), and ID #2264 (biography with map).
The map "startles the reader" (Schulten 129), in part through a number of techniques found in persuasive cartography. The grey tone of the "Coveted Territories" is very close to the black of the slave states, giving the impression that slavery has already (or nearly) arrived in the Territories. The text on the map describes the existing unfairness of congressional representation and postal expenditures, both favoring the slave states. Mexico (including Lower California), the Great Lakes, and the shorelines of the Pacific, Gulf and Atlantic are shaded in the same tone as the Territories, artificially enlarging the area "at risk." And the top of the map is tilted slightly away from the viewer, foreshortening the size of the Northern free States and enlarging those in the south.
The pamphlet containing this map is pointedly aimed at Irish Catholic immigrants, who had traditionally supported the Democrats. It asserts that the No-Nothing candidate, Millard Fillmore, and his party were "bigoted" and "opposed to the just rights of Catholic citizens." (p.2) As to Buchanan and the Democrats, because they support the extension of slaveholding into Kansas and the territories, "they have set up a DOCTRINE which is against the teachings of the Catholic Church, and which no sincere Catholic can approve." (Ibid.) In support, the pamphlet cites a Papal Bull from 1839 and writings of the recently deceased Daniel O'Connell. O'Connell, a figure revered among Irish Catholics as "The Liberator," led the successful fight for the British Emancipation Act. He was a friend of Frederick Douglass and a vigorous critic of slavery in America. Kinealy 153-54.
For further information on the Collector’s Notes and a Feedback/Contact Link, see https://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/content/about-collection-personal-statement and https://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/content/feedback-and-contact - Source:
- Ladd, Joseph H. 1856. To Catholic Citizens! The Pope's Bull and the Words of Daniel O'Connell. New York: Joseph H. Ladd.
- Cite As:
- P.J. Mode collection of persuasive cartography, #8548. Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.
- Repository:
- Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library
- Archival Collection:
- P.J. Mode collection of persuasive cartography
- Format:
- Image
- Rights:
- For important information about copyright and use, see http://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/copyright.