Agreed-upon Boundaries at the Close of the Revolutionary War

As Independence Day approaches, this week we’re highlighting this 1775 “Annotated Map of the British Colonies in North America with the Roads, Distances, Limits and Extent of the Settlements.”

Mitchell map
Click on the map to open it in a new tab or window and view it in more detail.

During the negotiations to end the Revolutionary War, all sides used a copy of the so-called Mitchell map. The red lines marked on the map were the agreed-upon boundaries between the United States, the remaining British colonies, and Spanish territories.

Also called the King George III Map, in 1897 B.F. Stevens annotated this 1775 map by copying all the colors and annotations from King George III’s map.

It comes from the Records of Boundary and Claims Commissions and Arbitrations and is stored in our Cartographic division in College Park, Maryland. (National Archives Identifier 2450020).

You can find and teach with it on DocsTeach.

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