The Zuniga Map, 1608

A Manuscript 

Rediscovered in Spanish archives at Simancas in the 19th century, Smith’s authorship is uncertain though widely supposed. It is of primary importance in reconstructing Smith’s capture route. The name derives from that of the Spanish ambassador to London, Pedro de Zuniga, who sent it in a diplomatic dispatch to the Spanish court.

If the Velasco map shows some skill and attention to detail, beside it the Zuniga map, our principal source for the capture route, is hasty and crude. Even so, in parts it repays close attention, such as the careful outlining of the curl of Penniman Spit on the York River, the topography of the lower Pamunkey River, and the precise shape of James Fort. The North Carolina portion, apparently ignorant of outer banks, borrows nothing from John White’s excellent map of Roanoke, c. 1587 or de Bry’s 1590 published and widely circulated engraving of it, either in labeling or topography. Instead it appears to be based on information returned from an expedition by two unidentified Englishmen sent south from Jamestown to Panawick “beyond Roanoke” in February 1608, and possibly the expedition of Powell and Todkill the following December beside the label Mangoags.

This makes up the left side of the map. In the center, James and York River portions are fully developed (the Rappahannock much less so) with reasonably accurate topography and place names, as well as the crucial detail of the capture route. North of that, which is the right side of the map, topographic ignorance returns with a sprinkling of Smith’s summer-of-1608 place names from the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay written along a single large estuary that combines to represent both.

The Zuniga map shows permanent Powhatan settlements and labels two hunting camps. The symbol is graphic, being a cluster of dots either strung along the riverside for a mile or more or concentrated, often with a principal house among them. Several place names appear on the map that have no settlement symbol. Unfortunately, two of these are Youghtanund and Toppahanock, important capture-route stopovers.

Who Drew the Zuniga Map? 

The drafter of the Zuniga map is regularly assumed to be Smith. In fact, opinion in general is that the Zuniga map, so called, was drawn by Smith to illustrate the events described in his letter published as A True Relation. There are two problems with this. First, the majority of place names differ from the spelling in Smith’s works, as varied as his are in themselves. Second, it assigns the date of the map to no later than June 1, 1608, when Smith’s letter left aboard the Phoenix for England but Smith himself remained in Virginia. However, the map contains bits of geographic information from a later date and lacks one significant feature from a prior date, namely Smith’s visit to the Nansemond River in April, shown as hardly more than a cove in the riverbank. Perhaps we should do a handwriting comparison with Smith’s letter to the cordwainers.

Foremost of later date features is the careful and highly accurate rendering of the lower courses of Skimino Creek, directly across from and just south of Werococomoco on the York River. The first Englishmen we know of at all likely to have gone that way would be Smith and four others on the way to a rendezvous with Newport, who was coming by water to stage the so-called coronation of Powhatan. That was in the autumn of 1608.

Other details would be the names of Indian king’s houses Smith did not visit prior to the summer of the same year. It is true that in A True Relation he claims to have been taken to the Potomac River on his capture march, but some of the Zuniga names—Pawtuxunt, Kuskarawaock, Moyoonch—too far up the Bay and the Potomac to have conceivably been reached by Opechancanough or Kekataugh escorting their captive. He does not repeat the claim in The Generall Historie. Thus we may have a map drawn by someone late in 1608, collecting information at Jamestown, one of his sources being Smith.

Other Candidates

If we eliminate Smith, we might consider one of the four who went with him to Skimino Creek, who are Captain Richard Waldo, Edward Brinton, Samuel Collier, and Master Andrew Buckler.

Waldo was a gentleman and member of the council, having arrived that fall in the second supply. But he accompanied Newport’s Monacan expedition, so his knowledge of the upper James excludes him. He drowned in early January 1609 in the James River off Hog Island along with ten others when their boat capsized. Smith wrote that he knew him to be “sure in time of need.”

Brinton was a mason who arrived as a member of the first voyage and is listed as a soldier in January 1609.

Collier, listed as a boy on the first voyage roster, was to be left at Werowocomoco to be Powhatan’s “page, to learn the language.”

That leaves Master Andrew Buckler. The name appears in the record here and nowhere else. He is not in any supply roster. He is not on the roster of the January 1609 expedition to Pamunkey. Perhaps he came and went with Newport’s second supply, which left in November. Hence his name never clears at Jamestown. Master was a title of address indicating accomplishment, either of social or professional rank. However, in immediate proximity with Waldo’s name, it very likely denoted the former.

Was the Zuniga map drawn by Buckler? Isn’t this just the sort of busy project a curious newcomer would jump on? Or was he a spy for the Spanish? or for the earl of Salisbury? Buckler could be our man and still not be a spy but a tool of spies. Nevertheless, the appearance of the map suggests something roughed out in Virginia and hastily done up in London.

It is only fair to mention another possibility, an anonymous one, someone who, before returning to England, initially acted as an overseer or spokesman (translator?) for the German carpenters who arrived with the first supply and in time sought to betray the colonists to the Indians. But that is pure conjecture.

Zuniga Map Place Names