Hindoostan

The atlas object

Samuel Augustus Mitchell’s map appeared in the 1857 Philadelphia issue of the New Universal Atlas, published by Charles DeSilver. The matching catalogue records the plate as entered in 1856, an important warning against reading every feature as a commentary composed after the events of 1857.

Territory by political status

Colour and legend sort the subcontinent according to legal and political relationship with British power. The distinction between direct territory, possessions and independent states turns a complex landscape of sovereignty into a compact imperial classification.

India for an American reader

The map was made for a commercial atlas in Philadelphia, not for Company administration. Its categories show how thoroughly British imperial geography had become the international default through which India was explained even outside Britain.

The gaze

India is rendered as a ledger of political control. The coincidence of publication with the uprising makes the calm classificatory surface especially striking, but the map should be read as evidence of the settled pre-rebellion atlas image rather than as an illustrated response to the rebellion.