Hindoostan or British India / Map of Hindoostan, Farther India, China, and Tibet [Set of 2]

British India After the Mutiny: Two American Atlas Maps of Hindoostan and Farther India, c. 1860–64

a) Alvin Jewett Johnson, Hindoostan or British India, New York, circa 1864–1867
Steel engraving with original hand-colour on paper
13 x 17 in (33 x 43.1 cm)

Decorative strapwork border; inset plans of Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta; vignette of Government House, Calcutta.

Issued in Johnson’s Family Atlas, this map reflects India in the immediate aftermath of the Rebellion of 1857 and the transfer of sovereignty from the East India Company to the British Crown. The presidencies appear in their reorganised form; Oudh is shown under Crown administration; and princely states are delineated with increasing administrative clarity. The sheet exemplifies mid-Victorian American atlas production at a moment of imperial consolidation.

b) Samuel Augustus Mitchell Jr. (after), engraved by W. Williams, Map of Hindoostan, Farther India, China, and Tibet, London/New York, circa 1860
Steel engraving with original hand-colour on paper
13 x 17 in (33 x 43.1 cm)

Plate 80 from the 1864 issue of Mitchell’s New General Atlas.

Expanding the frame eastward, this map situates India within a broader Asian theatre extending across Burma, Siam, China, and Tibet. It reflects mid-nineteenth-century Western strategic and commercial awareness of Southeast Asia and the Bay of Bengal, presenting India not merely as an imperial possession but as a geographic hinge linking South and East Asia.

Together, these American-produced maps articulate complementary interpretations of India in the decade following the Mutiny: one emphasising administrative consolidation within British India, the other projecting the subcontinent into a wider Asian geopolitical continuum. As a combined lot, they offer a coherent study in the transatlantic circulation of imperial geographic knowledge during the mid-Victorian period.

(Set of two)

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