Map of Ruatan or Rattan, surveyed by Lieutenant Henry Barnsley, with improvements by Thomas Jefferys, Geographer to the King

Every old map has a story to tell, and few do it with the elegance and precision of the 1775 work titled “Ruatan or Rattan, surveyed by Lieutenant Henry Barnsley, with improvements by Thomas Jefferys, Geographer to the King.” Printed in London on February 20, 1775, by Robert Sayer, this map is more than a piece of parchment with ink, it’s an image of a world in transition, when empires were staking claims, sailors were risking everything on the sea, and the Caribbean was in the middle.

Measuring 62 cm wide and 47 cm tall, the chart captures Roatan Island with extraordinary care. Relief is shown with hachures, reefs and shoals are outlined with precision, and sea depths are marked by soundings. The engraver left nothing to chance, making sure that a sailor could find his bearings while navigating dangerous waters. At its center lies a compass rose.

But the story does not end with Roatan. The map includes inset charts of Old Providence and Sta. Catalina, as well as New Port-Royal harbour, a site surveyed when the English took possession of it in 1742. These details show us the strategic value Britain placed on these islands, not just as places on a map but as footholds in the struggle for power in the West Indies. The “geographical observations” inscribed at the very bottom capture the knowledge and ambitions of the era.

Thomas Jefferys, who held the title of “Geographer to the King,” was one of the most respected cartographers of his day. Although he died in 1771, his work lived on through the hands of Robert Sayer and Bennett, who published The West-India Atlas in which this map appears. That atlas was designed as a companion to Jefferys’ American Atlas, first issued the same year, and together they offered Britain a comprehensive vision of the New World. The West-India Atlas was no ordinary book; it was a volume that included 41 maps and charts, along with a historical account of the islands.

This Roatan map was part of that collection, cataloged as List No. 4723.026, Series No. 31, and Page II. Later editions of the atlas were issued in 1781, 1787, 1794, 1796, 1807, and 1818, with updates to coastlines and even new maps added. They weren’t relics at the time, they were working documents, constantly revised as sailors returned with new observations.

Preserved today in the David Rumsey Historical Map Collection, the 1775 Ruatan or Rattan map invites us to see Roatan not just as an island, but as part of a larger story, one that stretches from the ambitions of European empires to the daily lives of sailors, and from the ink of an engraver’s hand to the reefs and forests still visible today.