An Early Map and the Cadastral Survey of St. Croix, Danish West Indies 1734-41 / A Cartographic Cul-de-sac

In 1733, the Danish West India and Guinea Company, in which the upper levels of Danish politics and commerce were involved, purchased the Caribbean island of St. Croix. The Company was for a surprising time unable to marshall the cartographic and organizational expertise and resources needed to make satisfactory maps of its important new colonial acquisition. One result was a drastic discrepancy between the actual area of the island and calculated returns from land revenues. The communication between colony and metropolis reached a cartographic impasse when the Danish colonial authorities ordered the superimposition of the emerging cadastral pattern on a quite materially inaccurate 17th-century base map - an impossible undertaking.