[{"_1":2,"_37":-5,"_38":-5},"loaderData",{"_3":4},"routes/collections.videos.$video",{"_5":6},"video",{"_7":8,"_9":10,"_11":12,"_13":14,"_15":16,"_17":18,"_19":-5,"_20":21,"_22":23,"_24":25,"_26":27,"_28":29,"_30":-5,"_31":32,"_33":34,"_35":-5,"_36":5},"model_id",5,"suppress","no","name","Max Edelson on William De Brahm and the duties of 18th century Lowcountry surveyors","category","Interview","embed_id","1079850987","provider","Vimeo","description","place_names",[],"places",[],"uuid","2443da31-8cf9-431a-acda-b78c3ec50023","slug","max-edelson-on-william-de-brahm-and-the-duties-of-18th-century-lowcountry-surveyors","transcript","

William De Brahm, after he serves as Georgia's provincial surveyor, he is appointed the Surveyor General for North America. And William De Brahm is not only a surveyor. He writes, I think, a beautifully written report of his surveys that is meant to be a real work of natural history of the era. And he thinks that this is the essential quality of this part of the world is its volatility.

So he really believes that this whole space is one of constant change, and that often doesn't sit well with his superiors who want to see it as a place of stability where if they grant a tract of land, it's going to be there ten years from now. Or if there's a water route that promises that you can vend your commodities to the Atlantic economy, it's going to be accessible.

The mapmakers, we often see them in the service of the state, advancing its goals, putting forth its messages about sovereignty and ideology. But these mapmakers are also scientists, and they're driven by other imperatives as well. William De Brahm is very clearly someone who thinks of himself as owing a debt to the Enlightenment, to the truth. He needs to paint this world the way he sees it. And sometimes that doesn't fit well with what his superiors want.

And virtually every surveyor is also a bio prospector. They are on the hunt for lands that can be settled by colonists. So even if they think of themselves as scientific, they're not dispassionate. They are, they feel like their work has utility, and that utility is to bring that land under cultivation.

So one of the famous examples of this is the naturalist John Bartram, who, he goes on a journey in the 1740s from Philadelphia to Iroquois country. And even though this journey is really meant to seal a peace between the English and the Iroquois, he can't help himself. Every time he sees a good land, he's like, there could be a sawmill there. There could be a farm there. And this is all Indian land that they don't want to give up. So it's an irresistible impulse from natural historians and surveyors of this era to imagine how that land could be developed.

William De Brahm, who's a the most important cartographer of the 18th century Georgia Lowcountry, he did attempt to divide all the spaces he mapped into separate landforms. So he would have noted where there was river, marsh and salt marsh, where there was oak land and where there was pine land, because those were the key categories for people thinking about land that could be appropriated for plantation agriculture. Each one of those land types had a particular use in terms of a commercial crop, or in terms of maintaining the domestic economy of a plantation. Enough firewood, enough planting land.

I think we have to be pretty humble about even our capacities as a modern states to understand that the complexity of the natural world. One of the things I study about 18th century surveyors is the government officials think, okay, if we get the maps, we can be in charge of this whole process. We can see it from London, what's happening on the ground. These maps that are mapped to a half inch to the mile or an inch or two to the mile, really high resolution maps. You can see the footprints of individual buildings at that resolution. That gives a false confidence to states that they actually can control things that are way beyond their understanding and control.

","publisher","thumbnail_url","https://vumbnail.com/1079850987.jpg","embed_url","https://player.vimeo.com/video/1079850987","location","media_type","actionData","errors"]

Max Edelson on William De Brahm and the duties of 18th century Lowcountry surveyors

Transcript