proclaims the British presence in the land and its dominion over
Instead, the map seems to evoke that American piece of paradise
the American landscape. In this cartouche, a net, an element that
before Columbus’s arrival. The only humans present in the middle
speaks of work, blocks the view of a waterfall. Perhaps this detail
of that exuberant nature are two natives, who are nearly naked.
can be interpreted again as European control and possession of the
One is seated on the ground and the other stands, holding an axe
vast and exuberant American landscape, and thus of the territory.
and pointing at the waterfall.
A very different American landscape is that framing the title
Such a different approach to previous American motifs in
of A map of the United States of North America: drawn from
cartouches could be understood from the point of view of the
a number of critical researches by Aaron Arrowsmith (London,
American Independence. As G.N.G. Clarke affirmed, “The cartouche
1802; plate 40). As the Romantic Movement gathered strength,
declares the newly won nationhood and establishes an alternative
images of natural features and products of the country were
symbolism … to displace former British possession.… The land, like
introduced in cartouches. Again, a waterfall, in this case Niagara
the map, is advertised as ‘free.’” Moreover, the emptiness of this vast
Falls, represents the United States of North America. The
American landscape as represented in the Niagara Falls cartouche
illustration accompanies a text by Andrew Ellicott (1789) that
could be related to the vast blank spaces in the map, especially in the
starts, “Among the many natural curiosities which this country
northwest below the fiftieth parallel, which could be read as a way of
affords, the Cataract of Niagara is infinitely the greatest.”
encouraging colonization.
After Jean Louis Hennepin (1626–ca. 1705) recorded the first
Echoing Jacques Derrida, Stephanie Pratt concluded his analysis
published description and image of Niagara Falls in his Nouvelle
of images of America at the borders of maps affirming that “the
découverte d’un très grand pays situé dans l’Amérique (Utrecht,
cartouche constitutes the map,” as they “make up the supplement
1697), translated into English one year later, these waterfalls
and are ‘the outside of the inside’, the exteriorizing of what is
became a landmark of the country and one of the wonders of
really internal and whose absence from that interior is a ‘de f