Louisiana in 1815 - New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Natchitoches, Opelousas

Mathew Carey published this map of Louisiana in 1815 for his General Atlas, the first atlas produced in the United States to feature standard color on its maps as a matter of course, making this rare edition one of the earliest examples of American color-sheet cartography. Carey, widely regarded as America's first commercial publisher, issued this map only three years after Louisiana achieved statehood in 1812, and the sheet documents a state where detail thins dramatically moving west from the Mississippi delta, a candid reflection of just how little of the interior had been surveyed at this early date. Great care was given to the mouth of the Mississippi and its approaches, the single most commercially vital stretch of the entire state.

New Orleans, already the dominant port of the American interior and the gateway through which the entire Mississippi Valley's produce reached the sea, anchors the map's detailed eastern section. Baton Rouge appears upriver as the newer state's capital, while Natchitoches, one of the oldest European settlements in the entire Louisiana Purchase territory, marks the state's western frontier along the Red River. Opelousas, in the Acadiana prairie country, represents the state's early Cajun settlements. The blank western half of the map is itself telling, a candid record of how recently this land had passed from French and Spanish hands into American control. The map's decorative title cartouche and hand coloring reflect the pride Carey took in offering American buyers a truly modern, full-color atlas.

As the earliest Louisiana map in this collection by three decades, this 1815 Carey sheet offers a striking counterpoint to the more fully surveyed 1845 Meyer and 1879 Rand McNally editions also found here, together tracing the state's transformation from a barely mapped frontier to a fully settled commercial power. This piece is a significant find for a serious collector of early American atlases or anyone with deep Louisiana roots. It ships unframed and is available in multiple sizes.