Maps are (historical) images that represent an area of the world and encode various kinds of information. The maps displayed in this section were all produced in the 17th and 18th centuries. With the exception of the published engraved maps of the Caribbean region displayed in the first page, all the images displayed here are of manuscript maps and charts of the eastern region and coast of Cuba and of the locality of El Cobre in that same region. The originals are located in the Archive of the Indies in Seville along thousands of other images mapping far-flung areas of Spain's overseas empire. Fear of opening up these charted worlds to rival powers informed the Spanish state's policy of geographic-cartographic secrecy preventing their publication and the rise of a cartographic printing industry in Spain.

These drawn and handcolored maps and charts differ in skill, accuracy and beauty. They speak not only to the art of cartography in Spain at the time but to the value and interest associated with the areas or regions they sought to represent in particular ways. They were mostly produced by military personnel and officials in the service of the Spanish Crown and represent the imperial gaze upon this corner of the overseas empire. Most of them were considered "classified" documents with sensitive geographical and navigational data and access to them was strongly restricted.

Most of the maps and charts related to the Oriente region drawn up during these two centuries point to military and navigational considerations. The frontier location of Cuba's Oriente in the 18th c. multinational Caribbean region--then one of the most economically vital areas in the Atlantic world--increased the strategic naval and military significance of this particular coastal area despite its own economic lag.

Although the three local maps of Santiago del Prado (El Cobre) constitute another genre of map making, they also are a product of imperial concerns. The copper mines of El Cobre constituted a valued resource for the state and the territory constituted a mining domain under royal jurisdiction or a Real de minas. These are the only early maps of El Cobre found in the archive. In fact, although there is an unusually rich record of written documentation on El Cobre for the 17th and 18th centuries in the archives in Spain and Cuba, these three maps are among the very few images of this black local community made up mostly of royal slaves to have reached us from the past.

What can be culled from the images in this section? If they are now obsolete as maps, what new purposes do they serve? Can you think of alternative maps and ways of mapping a region? What kind of information (and perspectives) would they encode?