ABSTRACT
In the Spanish dominions of America the phase of settlement and administrative organisation, which followed upon that of discovery and exploration, saw extensive topographical mapping during the 16th and 17th centuries. In South America, during the 16th and 17th centuries, cartography followed the Spanish settlement of Peru, the Chilean coast, Venezuela and the River Plate region, and the Portuguese settlement of the eastern and southern coasts of Brazil and in the Amazon valley. Map-production in the British colonies of North America began only in the third quarter of the 17th century. The first map to be drawn and printed in America was that of New England, a crude woodcut made in 1677 by John Foster, a Boston printer. The map of the coastal region between Florida and Chesapeake Bay, drawn by the Englishman John White in 1585–1587, is the most accurate delineation of any part of North America produced in the 16th century.
