Investigate maps connected to European voyages and early coastal mapping. Compare their labels with sources from Native communities whose homelands they describe.
These maps are grouped by the date of the original map. A preview may show a later photograph or facsimile (a copy). Check the caption for both dates. The 1500s maps show wider regions, before Massachusetts existed as a colony or state.
Showing 11 of 11 resources
regional · 1500s
An early European world map gives context for changing ideas about the Americas.
What could this broad map tell you—and not tell you—about New England?
Compare the map’s creator, date, purpose, scale, and missing information with a second map. Explain what changed and what stayed connected.
regional · 1500s
An early regional map shows an unfamiliar-looking northeastern coast.
Which coastlines can you recognize?
Compare the map’s creator, date, purpose, scale, and missing information with a second map. Explain what changed and what stayed connected.
regional · 1600s
Compare this 1624 edition of John Smith’s map with a map today.
Which English place names were added to the coast?
Compare the map’s creator, date, purpose, scale, and missing information with a second map. Explain what changed and what stayed connected.
regional · 1700s
Read an early coastal map with land and water details.
How does its coastline compare with a modern map?
Compare the map’s creator, date, purpose, scale, and missing information with a second map. Explain what changed and what stayed connected.
Gosnold / North Atlantic / Cape Cod · 1700s
This Dutch map retells an earlier voyage. It is evidence of how the voyage was presented in 1706, not a map made aboard Gosnold’s ship. The meeting scene is an artist’s later depiction.
How does knowing the map’s publication date change what it can tell us?
Patuxet / Plymouth / New England · 1600s
Houses and gardens show that this coast was already home to Wampanoag people. Water-depth numbers and sandbanks record features useful to visiting sailors. The map presents Champlain’s view of the place.
Which details show a community living here before Plymouth Colony?
New England / Atlantic Canada · 1600s
This chart follows coastlines and harbors that mattered to sailors. Symbols mark settlements, trees, anchorages, and dangerous shallows. It combines Champlain’s observations with knowledge he gathered from Indigenous people.
Why might a sailor need more detail along the coast than far inland?
New France / New England / Atlantic Canada · 1600s
The map links the Atlantic coast to the St. Lawrence and inland waters. Its border illustrations also reveal what European readers were being shown about people and plants. Such pictures reflect a European maker’s choices.
What does the map emphasize besides the shapes of land and water?
New France / eastern North America · 1600s
Compared with Champlain’s earlier maps, this map brings together a larger area of lakes and waterways. It also records European territorial ideas and many Indigenous communities. More information did not remove every geographic error.
What changed between this map and Champlain’s 1612 map?
Earlier voyages / Atlantic coast · 1500s
This copy preserves an early European attempt to map the Atlantic coast after Verrazzano’s voyage. Its long, unusual coastline is useful for comparing changing geographic knowledge. It should be labeled as a later facsimile.
Which parts of the coastline look different from a modern map?
Jamestown / Chesapeake comparison · 1600s
Smith’s map centers rivers and the communities beside them. Its compass shows that north is to the right. The maker relied on his journeys and information from Indigenous people, including places he had not visited.
Find the compass. How does the map change when you locate north?
Sources checked September 23, 2026. Open the source for current programs, hours, access, and map updates. Historical maps may contain outdated language or incomplete representations of Native homelands.