Maps for reading / America & independence
British North America · before independence
Locate Virginia and the Atlantic colonies before reading arguments about independence and rights. The inset expands the New England coast.
- Period shown
- British colonies in North America, 1763–1775
- Published
- 1911 · Atlas pages 194
- Suggested use
- Grades 5–12; discuss colonial claims and missing perspectives with an adult.
All grade-picker settings retain access to this map. Suggested grades describe support needs, not a restriction.
Historical judgment
Read this map carefully
A 1911 retrospective map of colonial claims, not a neutral account of ownership or Indigenous consent. Native nations and enslaved people’s lives cannot be reduced to its boundaries. The 1763–1775 period precedes the 1776 texts linked here; later borders differed.
No separate drawing date is established here; 1911 is the verified atlas publication date, not the period depicted.
At the table or in class
A question to begin
Locate Virginia and a neighboring colony. Whose political perspective organizes the colored areas, and whose geographical knowledge would you need to understand the same land more fully?
First read the map title, legend, scale, and inset headings. Then name what the map can show—and what it cannot.
Source & public-domain record
- Atlas & maker
- William R. Shepherd (atlas compiler); individual map maker not identified on this sheet. Historical Atlas. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1911. Pages 194. A separate drawing date is not established by this record.
- Source institution
- University of Texas Libraries, Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection. Exact original scan · Edition catalog · Original title page · Hosted title-page evidence.
- Rights
- Public domain in the United States (PD-US-expired). This exact sheet is listed in the archive’s 1911 edition and was published in the United States in 1911, as independently confirmed by the scanned New York title page. Its underlying publication is before 1931 and outside US copyright in 2026. The archive states that its public-domain map scans may be downloaded and reused without permission; this original atlas item is not flagged as a separately copyrighted modern map. Only faithful resizing/format conversion has been applied to previews; the downloadable scan is unchanged. Archive reuse statement · 2026 US copyright-term reference. US public-domain assessment, not a worldwide legal guarantee. Check local law when reusing outside the United States.
- Credit
- From William R. Shepherd, Historical Atlas (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1911). Scan courtesy of University of Texas Libraries.
- Download integrity
- Unchanged source JPG · 1539 × 951 pixels · 396,244 bytes.
SHA-256:0f92f9a0c8c58ece07e4e01bf633a3db225f89eda5e44fe4822907cfa5d11342
Reviewed 2026-11-06. Download complete provenance manifest.