The Anglophone Toponyms Associated with John Smith's Description and Map of New England

Abstract

Abstract This article clarifies a well-known but hitherto unexamined phenomenon: the Anglophone toponyms imposed on Captain John Smith's map, New England ([1617]). It explains names that are otherwise obscure to modern historians and geographers, it considers the pattern of the new toponyms, and it allocates responsibility for the names not only to the future Charles I but also to Smith himself. It also lists the indigenous place and polity names recorded by Smith in his Description of New England (1616). It concludes with a cautionary tale concerning historiographic presumptions about the map's efficacy in shaping the adoption of toponyms by subsequent English colonists.