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Karte von der Insel Montreal…

Karte von der Insel Montreal…

$1,000.00

Christoph Heinrich Korn


Published 1776, Nuremberg

Size 22.1" X 29"

Description:

A rare map of the city of  Montreal published in Christoph Heinrich Korn’s Geschichte der Kriege, 1776, which is “probably the earliest European account of the [American] Revolutionary war.”  Korn’s Geschichte der Kriege also included 11 other maps, plans and views to explain the American Revolution to a European audience.
That being said, this map is the second state of a depiction originally published by Gabriel Nikolaus Raspe in Schauplatz des Gegenwaertigen Krieg, 1764. The main difference between the two states being the inclusion of a city plan at the bottom right hand corner in the later state.  It should be noted that these two states of the map are in effect based upon Bellin’s 1744 map Carte de L’Isle de Montreal et de Ses Environs published in Histoire et Description Generale de la Nouvelle France.
The strategic importance of Montreal both at conclusion of the Seven Year War and at the beginning of the American Revolution would have made this map important to the understanding of these respective conflicts.  The city was not only the heart of the French colony of New France that was ultimately defeated when Montreal capitulated to British forces in 1763, but was it was also the economic engine of the British North American colony of Quebec as the site where merchants of the fur trade were located and, along with the Hudson’s Bay Company, controlled a vast territory of the North American interior.
As such, it is important to note that the siege and fall of Montreal on November 13, 1775 was one of the two pillars in the proposed Invasion of Canada by American forces and marked the first major  military campaign of the Continental Army.  Although the stratagem was successful in the capture of Montreal by General Montgomery, the inability to capture Quebec proved fatal for the overall Invasion of Canada and allowed for the continued presence of Britain in North America following the conclusion of the American Revolution.
Sources: Kershaw 1107. Christies 1450-291.