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A map of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands from The natural history of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands.

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Catesby, Mark

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The natural history of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands: containing the figures of birds, beasts, fishes, serpents, insects, and plants…A map of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands.The political boundaries marked in this map show the early days of North American colonization before European explorers knew how large the continent actually was. French Louisiana would encompass the entire Mississippi River watershed as well as what is now Mississippi and Alabama. The Spanish holdings in Florida, the Caribbean, and Central America seemed vast, while Great Britain was beginning to lose its hold on its 13 colonies further north on the eastern seaboard. Great Britain and Spain clashed constantly as the British tried to push the border south, and Spain welcomed runaway slaves to their population as freemen if they converted to Catholicism. Later in the century, Spain would trade the whole of Florida to Britain for Havana, Cuba, only to take it back 20 years later. What the map fails to show is Spain’s second wind in the colonization of North America. By coming up on the other side of Louisiana through her holdings in Mexico, Spain was far from finishing making her mark in the New World with claims extending through the American Southwest and into California.
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