S20: Names as cultural heritage
  
 

5. Names in colonisation-names as claims or mementos (continued ...)
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When the European powers laid claims on the newly developed lands, they did not always take into account the Indian inhabitants.

Example: Virginia

  • Original English maps: almost only Indian names

  • These were increasingly dropped, keeping pace with colonization, or were just drowned in a sea of new "place names" given by the colonists.

  • Only hydronyms were kept in the original form


Map of Virginia by John Smith


The only Indian names still visible on nowadays maps are hydronyms (see underlined names below)

 
 
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Copyright United Nations Statistics Division and International Cartographic Association, July 2012