South America Colonial Maps: A Hilariously Inaccurate Guide to the Continent's Awkward Teen Years

Welcome, cartographic adventurer! You are about to embark on a journey through the wild, wacky, and wonderfully wrong world of South America colonial maps. Think of the 18th and 19th centuries as the continent’s awkward teen years—full of territorial acne, strange haircuts (borders), and parents (Spain and Portugal) arguing over who gets the car keys (the Amazon). This guide will decode the lies, the truths, and the sheer audacity of these old maps, using two prime examples: one from 1798 and another from 1807. By the end, you’ll be an expert at spotting a colonial cartographer who clearly drank too much rum before drawing the coastline.

Why the Coastlines Look Like They Were Drawn by a Drunken Octopus

Behold the 1798 map, titled "South America from the latest Spanish and Portuguese surveys." The word "latest" is doing some serious heavy lifting here, because "latest" in 1798 meant "we asked a sailor who had a bad memory." Look at the squiggly lines that pretend to be the coast of Brazil. They bulge, they retreat, they invent bays that don’t exist. That’s because cartographers in London were stitching together reports from rival empires. The Spanish would say "the Amazon river is 500 miles wide," and the Portuguese would reply "no, it’s a small creek, but we own it." The result? A map that looks like a topographic map of a puddle after a rainstorm. The "latest Spanish and Portuguese surveys" were often just gossip passed between galleons. So if you see a giant inland sea where Bolivia should be, just nod and smile. It’s vintage colonial cartography.

The Treaty of Tordesillas: The Original "You Sit Over There" Line

No colonial map of South America makes sense without the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494). In a move that only 15th-century popes could pull off, the Pope literally drew a line down the Atlantic Ocean and said, "Spain, you get everything west of this line. Portugal, you get the east." This is why Brazil speaks Portuguese and the rest of the continent speaks Spanish. The 1798 and 1807 maps show this imaginary line as though it were a permanent border, like a fence made of divine paperwork. But here’s the funny part: nobody knew where the line actually was for decades. The Portuguese kept moving it east, then west, then east again, like a toddler playing with a ruler. By 1798, the line had become a polite suggestion. The Spanish-controlled Viceroyalty of Peru and the Portuguese-controlled Brazil are shown as distinct, but look closely at the Amazon basin—it’s a big green smear where mapmakers just gave up and wrote "Inhospitable Jungle."

The Great Patagonian Exaggeration

The 1807 map by Faden (titled "Rare Old Map of South America by Faden, 1807 - Spanish Colonialism - B") is a masterpiece of wishful thinking. Look at Patagonia, the southern tip. In reality, it’s a windswept, barren land that makes Scotland look tropical. But on this map, Patagonia is drawn as a massive, inviting landmass, dotted with speculative cities like "City of the Caesars" (which never existed). Cartographers believed there was a mythical kingdom of giants down there. They didn’t just draw it; they wanted it to be true. The map even includes a weird inland sea in southern Argentina, because why wouldn’t there be a secret lake the size of France? This is Spanish colonialism in full swing: claiming land you’ve never set foot on, drawing gold mines where there are only sheep, and naming rivers after saints who probably cried when they saw the place.

Amazon River: The Superhighway That Wasn’t

Both maps have a love-hate relationship with the Amazon. On the 1798 map, the river is shown as a wide, majestic thoroughfare, connecting the Andes to the Atlantic. It’s drawn with confidence, like a freeway on a AAA map. But in reality, the Amazon was a logistical nightmare: full of piranhas, mosquitoes, and indigenous people who didn’t appreciate uninvited conquistadors. Colonial mapmakers solved this problem by simply filling the empty spaces with "Unexplored" or "Cannibal Tribes." They also added fictional tributaries that branched off into the heart of the continent. These rivers were basically the 18th-century equivalent of "here be dragons." They represented hope for gold, spices, and a shorter route to the Pacific—none of which existed.

The Viceroyalties: A Game of Musical Chairs

By 1798 and 1807, the Spanish had organized their colonies into Viceroyalties: New Granada (Colombia, Ecuador), Peru, Rio de la Plata (Argentina), and the capricious Viceroyalty of Brazil (Portuguese). These maps show them as tidy boxes with neat borders. But the reality was chaos. The Viceroyalty of Peru kept losing pieces to the Viceroyalty of Rio de la Plata. Bolivia was passed back and forth like a hot potato. And the Portuguese in Brazil just kept expanding west, ignoring treaties because they had more sugarcane and slaves. The mapmakers in London and Paris had to guess where the borders fell. So they used dotted lines, which in map language means "we’re guessing, and we’re probably wrong." The 1807 map is particularly guilty of drawing straight lines through the Andes, as if mountain ranges were somehow easy to cross.

Conclusion: A Map is a Lie Wrapped in Parchment

Congratulations! You’ve survived a tour of South America’s colonial map disaster. These beautiful, expensive, painstakingly drawn maps were works of art, but terrible pieces of science. They were tools of propaganda, showing European empires at their most arrogant. They drew cities that were just huts, labeled entire continents as "Spanish" when the locals hadn't been consulted, and invented geography to make their kings look powerful. The 1798 and 1807 maps are time capsules of imperialism, ambition, and a shocking lack of GPS. Next time you see a colonial map, remember: the south coast of Chile probably wasn’t that jagged, the Amazon didn’t have a highway, and Patagonia definitely didn’t have a kingdom of giants. But they sure looked good on a wall. And isn't that what cartography is really about? Making the impossible look official.

Old Map Of South America By Coronelli 1690 - Brazil, Spanish Colonies

Old Map of South America by Coronelli 1690 - Brazil, Spanish Colonies ...

1967 Map Of South America Colonial Possessions In 1810

1967 Map of South America Colonial Possessions in 1810

Old Map Of South America By Coronelli 1690 - Brazil, Spanish Colonies

Old Map of South America by Coronelli 1690 - Brazil, Spanish Colonies ...

South America Cities Map

South America Cities Map

A Map Of Colonial Latin America, With The Places Mentioned In The Text

A map of colonial Latin America, with the places mentioned in the text ...

From Spain To America Map

From Spain To America Map

South America Colonies Map

South America Colonies Map

Map Of Colonial South America

Map of Colonial South America

Colonial South America

Colonial South America

South America - Oil, Gas, Coal | Britannica

South America - Oil, Gas, Coal | Britannica

Old Map Of South America By Coronelli 1690 - Brazil, Spanish Colonies

Old Map of South America by Coronelli 1690 - Brazil, Spanish Colonies ...

The American Empires Of Spain And Portugal, 1492-1750. #America #

The American Empires of Spain and Portugal, 1492-1750. #America # ...

Colonial South America

Colonial South America

Map Of South America, 1453: Late Pre-Colonial History | TimeMaps

Map of South America, 1453: Late Pre-Colonial History | TimeMaps

394 Map Of South America 1575 Stock Photo - Alamy

394 Map of South america 1575 Stock Photo - Alamy

Colonial South America

Colonial South America

Rare Old Map Of South America By Faden, 1807 - Spanish Colonialism - B

Rare Old Map of South America by Faden, 1807 - Spanish Colonialism - B ...

1534-1550 : Expansion In South America By AlterHis On DeviantArt

1534-1550 : expansion in South America by AlterHis on DeviantArt

Rare Old Map Of South America By Faden, 1807 - Spanish Colonialism - B

Rare Old Map of South America by Faden, 1807 - Spanish Colonialism - B ...

Colonial South America

Colonial South America

7 Maps Of The Spanish Colonial Empire - World History Encyclopedia

7 Maps of the Spanish Colonial Empire - World History Encyclopedia

A Collection Of South America Maps: Navigating The Landscape, History

A Collection of South America Maps: Navigating the Landscape, History ...

Provincial Map Of South America In 1799 [1038x1599] : R/MapPorn

Provincial map of South America in 1799 [1038x1599] : r/MapPorn

Rare Old Map Of South America By Faden, 1807 - Spanish Colonialism - B

Rare Old Map of South America by Faden, 1807 - Spanish Colonialism - B ...

Spanish Colonies In South America - War History

Spanish Colonies in South America - War History

Colonial Spanish 18th Century Hi-res Stock Photography And Images - Alamy

Colonial spanish 18th century hi-res stock photography and images - Alamy

Colonial Spanish 18th Century Hi-res Stock Photography And Images - Alamy

Colonial spanish 18th century hi-res stock photography and images - Alamy

Rare Old Map Of South America By Faden, 1807 - Spanish Colonialism - B

Rare Old Map of South America by Faden, 1807 - Spanish Colonialism - B ...

Old Map Of South America By Coronelli 1690 - Brazil, Spanish Colonies

Old Map of South America by Coronelli 1690 - Brazil, Spanish Colonies ...

7 Maps Of The Spanish Colonial Empire (Image Gallery) - World History

7 Maps of the Spanish Colonial Empire (Image Gallery) - World History ...

Rare Old Map Of South America By Faden, 1807 - Spanish Colonialism - B

Rare Old Map of South America by Faden, 1807 - Spanish Colonialism - B ...

7 Maps Of The Spanish Colonial Empire (Image Gallery) P. 3 - World

7 Maps of the Spanish Colonial Empire (Image Gallery) p. 3 - World ...

Old Map Of South America By Coronelli 1690 - Brazil, Spanish Colonies

Old Map of South America by Coronelli 1690 - Brazil, Spanish Colonies ...