#191 Augustine Herrman’s Map

I got the idea for this episode talking to a bartender in Prague. The place was empty, and the fellow was garrulous and quickly said he loved American history, which naturally prompted me to suggest a podcast where he could find some. The barkeep called my bluff – “did I know who Augustine Herrman was?” Uh, noooo.

It turns out he was a Bohemian – now we would say Czech – from Prague who became one of the wealthiest and most influential men in mid-17^th century English and Dutch America, particularly in New Netherland and Maryland. He would live and trade in the early colonies for more than 40 years before his death in Maryland in 1686, and such diverse characters as Pieter Stuyvesant and Lord Baltimore would rely on him for their most sensitive diplomatic matters. Most famously, Herrman would draw the most detailed map of the Chesapeake Bay, at a time when maps were evidence in the settling of disputes between empires. Hermann’s map would, among other things, determine the border between Virginia and Maryland on the Eastern Shore, and – through twists and turns – play a role in the establishment of the colony of Delaware. The Czechs are understandably proud of Augustine Herrman, so in gratitude to that bartender and his surprising knowledge of 17^th century America, this episode is about Herrman, through the story of his map.

Augustine Herrman’s Map:

Augustine Herrman’s woodcut of New Amsterdam, mid 1650s:

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Selected references for this episode (Commission earned for Amazon purchases through the episode notes on our website)

Earl L. W. Heck, Augustine Herrman: Beginner of the Virginia Tobacco Trade, Merchant of New Amsterdam and First Lord of Bohemia Manor in Maryland

Christian J. Koot, “The Merchant, the Map, and Empire: Augustine Herrman’s Chesapeake and Interimperial Trade, 1644–73,” The William and Mary Quarterly, October 2010.