Native American & Indigenous Mapping
This page highlights cartography produced by and for Native American or Indigenous peoples. There may be more materials available, whether here in the Northwestern University Libraries' collection or in other libraries, but this is the beginning of an effort to raise awareness and use of these materials. In addition to these materials the collections include many maps and atlases about Native American and Indigenous peoples that are not listed here representing territories, reservations, histories, cultures, languages, and more that have been published by primarily non-Native scholarly and commercial publishers.
To view these maps, please email govinfo@northwestern.edu and make an appointment. The map cases are locked and located in an unstaffed area of the University Library (Lower Level, Room B190).
Maps
Carapella, Aaron. Aboriginal First Nations : Our Own Names & Locations. Aaron Carapella, 2013. Government Info Map Collection Lower Level Room B190 G3401.E1 2013 .C37
Carapella, Aaron. Native American Nations : Our Own Names & Locations. Aaron Carapella, 2013. Government Info Map Collection Lower Level Room B190 G3701.E1 2013 .C38
Carapella, Aaron. Proposed Pipelines in Tribal Homelands. Tribal Nations Maps, 2016. Government Info Map Collection Lower Level Room B190 G3301.P4 2016 .C37
Myles, Marlena, and Dawí. Dakhóta Thamákhočhe : Bde Óta Othúnwe & Imnížaska Othúnwe = Minneapolis & Saint Paul. [Marlena Myles], 2019. Government Info Map Collection Lower Level Room B190 G4144.M5E1 2019 .M95
- Coming Home to Indigenous Place Names in CanadaCartographer Margaret Pearce created this map that honors Indigenous place names in Canada and the assertion of Indigenous authority through place names.
- Indigenous Chicago: Past, Present, FutureAn interactive story map that centers the experience of Chicago's Indigenous people.
- Native Land DigitalGlobal in scope, these interactive maps illustrate Native American, First Nations, and Indigenous territories, the history of colonialism, Indigenous ways of knowing, and settler-Indigenous relations.
Atlases
A: Shiwi A: Wan Ulohnanne = The Zuni World by Call Number: Main Library E99.Z9 A23 2011Publication Date: 2011"Framed as a response to Western mapping and topographic naming practices that historically appropriated and sought to erase the identity of Zuni lands, the Map Art Project is an active movement that confronts Western cartography head on. The exhibit, A:shiwi A:wan Ulohnanne—The Zuni World, and the catalogue bearing the same name, document this movement for the visual and artistic reclamation of Zuni landscape heritage." from Andrew Darling, J. “A:shiwi A:wan Ulohnanne-The Zuni World. JimEnote and JenniferMcLerran, Eds. Flagstaff: A:Shiwi A:Wan Museum and Heritage Center and The Museum of Northern Arizona, 2011. 88 Pp.” Museum Anthropology, vol. 35, no. 2, 2012, pp. 189–92
The Navajo Atlas by Call Number: Main Library Large Section Large 912.79137 G563n AND EBookPublication Date: 1982
Wisdom Sits in Places by Call Number: Main Library Stacks 497.2 B322wi AND EbookPublication Date: 1996Explores the connections of place, language, wisdom, and morality among the Western Apache.
A Zuni Atlas by Call Number: Oak Grove Library Center 912.79 F353zPublication Date: 1990Request delivery using link above.
Drawing on the information they amassed for their federal Zuni land claim testimony, archaeologist Ferguson and historian Hart have compiled this atlas of 44 land use topics, each with a map and accompanying text.
Books About Native American & Indigenous Cartography
Another America: Native American maps and the history of our land by Call Number: Oak Grove Library Center 970.00497 W275a (request online)Publication Date: 1997"... present rare and seldom-seen maps made by Native Americans. These maps, which lay little known and little studied for the last three hundred years, open a window on the North American continent as it was understood and experienced by its original inhabitants."
Cartographic Encounters : indigenous peoples and the exploration of the New World by Call Number: Main Library Stacks 978.02 S559cPublication Date: 2009Both e-book and print copy available
Cartographic Encounters: perspectives on Native American mapmaking and map use by Call Number: Main Library Government Info Map Collection Lower Level Room B190 912.7 C328Publication Date: 1998This book examines native maps and mapmaking from the pre- and post-contact periods.
Digital Mapping and Indigenous America by Call Number: On OrderPublication Date: 2021"...foregrounding the voices of Indigenous scholars, this text examines digital projects currently underway, and includes alternative modes of "mapping" Native American, Alaskan Native, Indigenous Hawaiian and First Nations land."
An Empire of Small Places by Call Number: Main Library Stacks 976.00497 P326aISBN: 9780820343464Publication Date: 2012Paulett examines the interaction among Europeans, Africans, and Indians over the course of the eighteenth century. Focusing especially on the Anglo-Creek-Chickasaw route that ran from the coast through Augusta to present-day Mississippi and Tennessee, Paulett finds that the deerskin trade produced a sense of spatial and human relationships that did not easily fit into Britain's imperial ideas and thus forced the British to consciously articulate what made for a proper realm
The Mapping of New Spain : indigenous cartography and the maps of the relaciones geográficas by Call Number: Main Library Core - 2 North 912.72 M965mPublication Date: 1996"... illuminates both the Amerindian (Aztec, Mixtec, and Zapotec) and the Spanish traditions represented in these maps and traces the reshaping of indigene world views in the wake of colonization."
Mapping the Americas by Call Number: Main Library Stacks 323.1197 H898mPublication Date: 2009Huhndorf examines the ways in which transnational indigenous politics have reshaped Native culture (especially novels, films, photography, and performance) in the United States and Canada since the 1980s. Mapping the Americas thus broadens the political paradigms that have dominated recent critical work in Native studies as well as the geographies that provide its focus, particularly through its engagement with the Arctic.
Painting a Map of Sixteenth-Century Mexico City by Call Number: Art Library Large Section 912.7253 P148Publication Date: 2013The essays in this volume discuss a mid-16th century map of Mexico City held at Yale's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library that shows land holdings and indigenous rulers. The essays also explore the situation of the indigenous people of Mexico City in the 16th century and their interactions with Europeans.
Tribal GIS by Call Number: Main Library Stacks G70.215.U6 T75 2017Publication Date: 2017Supporting tribes with an all new chapter on ArcGIS Pro, written by tribal leaders who successfully use GIS. In Tribal GIS: Supporting Native American Decision-Making, tribal leaders tell their stories about implementing and using geographic information systems (GIS) to address their unique challenges as sovereign Nations.
Weaponizing Maps by Call Number: Main Library Stacks E59.C25 B78 2015Publication Date: 2015Through a series of historical and contemporary examples from Nicaragua, Canada, and Mexico, this book explores the tension between military applications of participatory mapping and its use for political mobilization and advocacy. The authors analyze the emergence of indigenous territories as spaces defined by a collective way of life--and as a particular kind of battleground.
- History of Cartography: Cartography in the Traditional African, American, Arctic, Australian, and Pacific Societies. Editors David Woodward and G. Malcolm Lewis.One of 7 volumes (and counting) of this massive history of cartography that has helped redefine the way maps are studied and understood by scholars in a number of disciplines. Available online and in print (see below).
History of Cartography (multi-volume set) by Call Number: Main Library 1 East - Reference Section 526.09 H673ISBN: 0226316335Publication Date: 1987 -- v. 1. Cartography in prehistoric, ancient, and medieval Europe and the Mediterranean
- v. 2. bk 1. Cartography in the traditional Islamic and South Asian societies
- v. 2. bk 2. Cartography in the traditional east and southeast Asian societies
- v. 2. book 3. Cartography in the traditional Africa, American, Arctic, Australian, and Pacific societies (this volume also available in Core 2 North)
- v. 3. Cartography in the European Renaissance
- v. 4. Cartography in the European Enlightenment
- v. 5. Cartography in the nineteenth century
- v. 6. Cartography in the twentieth century
- v. 1. Cartography in prehistoric, ancient, and medieval Europe and the Mediterranean
- Gazetteers of Native American Place NamesThis listing of gazetteers held at the Library of Congress includes only those that identify geographic features with Native American place names, or features associated with North American Indians. Because Native American place names currently apply or have applied to geographic features used throughout the coterminous United States and Alaska, their numbers are legion and occur throughout North America. The gazetteers below fall into two broad categories: gazetteers at the national and regional levels, and those at the state and local levels.