John Mitchell (geographer)

For other people named John Mitchell, see John Mitchell (disambiguation).

John Mitchell (1711–1768) was a colonial American doctor and botanist. He created the most comprehensive and perhaps largest 18th-century map of eastern North America, known today as the Mitchell Map. First published in 1755, in conjunction with the imminent Seven Years' War, the Mitchell Map was subsequently used during the Treaty of Paris (1783) to define the boundaries of the newly independent United States and remains important today for resolving border disputes.

Life

John Mitchell was born in 1711 in Lancaster County, Virginia to a relatively well off merchant and planting family. He went to Scotland to study at the University of Edinburgh, earning the M.A. in 1729, then studying medicine until 1731 but without receiving the M.D. He then returned to Virginia to practice medicine; by 1735 he had set up his practice at Urbanna. In his spare time he studied natural history and became known as a botanist. In 1745 Mitchell argued that a series of epidemics occurring in Virginia were due to unsanitary troop ships from Britain.

Mitchell and his wife, Helen (about whom almost nothing is known, including her maiden name), suffered themselves from ill health. So in 1746 they moved to Britain's milder climate. En route, their ship was captured by a French privateer; although they were released, their belongings (and Mitchell's botanical samples) were confiscated and they arrived in London with only Mitchell's small fund of investments to their name. Mitchell did not try to compete with the metropolitan doctors; instead, he established himself as an expert on exotic botany. He was elected as a fellow of the Royal Society in November 1748. He continued to live in London, often touring the country estates of his aristocratic friends/patrons, occasionally writing articles and pamphlets, and living the life of a gentleman of modest means. His wife probably died soon after they reached London; Mitchell himself died in 1768.

Mitchell's Map of the British and French Dominions in North America (1755)

Mitchell's main claim to historical fame is his large map of the North American colonies that was first published in London in 1755. This map is described in detail in the entry, Mitchell Map.

Racial Studies

Mitchell wrote a book in 1744 called An Essay upon the Causes of the Different Colours of People in Different Climates in the book he claimed that the first race on earth had been a brown and reddish colour, he said "that an intermediate tawny colour found amongst Asiatics and Native Amerindians" had been the “original complexion of mankind” and that others races came about by the original race spending generations in different climates.^[1]

References

Mitchell's principal publications

• Mitchell, John; Collinson, P. (1744). "An Essay upon the Causes of the Different Colours of People in Different Climates; By John Mitchell, M.D. Communicated to the Royal Society by Mr. Peter Collinson, F.R.S.". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 43 (474): 102–50. doi:10.1098/rstl.1744.0033. 
• Mitchell, John (1748). "An Account of the Preparation and Uses of the Various Kinds of Pot-Ash; by John Mitchell M.D. & F.R.S. Read Nov. 17 and 24. 1748". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 45 (489): 541–63. doi:10.1098/rstl.1748.0064. 
• Mitchell, John (1748). "Dissertatio brevis de principiis botanicorum et zoologorum deque novo stabiliendo naturæ rerum congruo". Acta physico-medica academiæ caesareæ Leopoldino-Franciscanae naturæ curiosorum exhibentia ephemerides sive observationes historias et experimenta. 8. Nuremberg: B. W. M. Endteri Consortium. pp. appendix 187–202. 
• Mitchell, John (1748). "Appendix: Nova plantarum genera". Acta physico-medica academiæ caesareæ Leopoldino-Franciscanae naturæ curiosorum exhibentia ephemerides sive observationes historias et experimenta. 8. Nuremberg: B. W. M. Endteri Consortium. pp. appendix 203–24. 
• Mitchell, John [attrib.] (1757). The Contest in America Between Great Britain and France, With Its Consequences and Importance; Giving an Account of the Views and Designs of the French, with the Interests of Great Britain, and the Situation of the British and French Colonies, in all parts of America: In which A proper Barrier between the two Nations in North America is pointed out, with a Method to Prosecute the War, so as to obtain that necessary security for our Colonies. London: Andrew Millar. 
• Mitchell, John [attrib.] (1767). The Present State of Great Britain and North America, with regard to Agriculture, Population, Trade, and Manufacture, impartially considered: Containing a particular Account of The dearth and scarcity of the necessaries of life in England; the want of staple commodities in the Colonies; the decline of their trade; increase of people; and necessity of manufactures, as well as of a trade in them hereafter. In which The causes and consequences of these growing evils, and methods of preventing them, are suggested; The proper Regulations for the Colonies, and the taxes imposed upon them, are considered, and compared with their condition and circumstances. London: T. Becket and P. A. de Hondt. 

Secondary sources

• Berkeley, Edmund; Berkeley, Dorothy Smith (1974). Dr. John Mitchell: The Man Who Made the Map of North America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. 
• Edney, Matthew H. (2007). "A Publishing History of John Mitchell’s 1755 Map of North America". Cartographic Perspectives no.58: 4–27. 
• Edney, Matthew H. (2008). "John Mitchell’s Map of North America (1755): A Study of the Use and Publication of Official Maps in Eighteenth-Century Britain". Imago Mundi 60 (1): 63–85. doi:10.1080/03085690701669327. 

External links

• Library of Congress, Mitchell Map, Second impression of 1st Edition
• Purdy Foundation biography

Persondata
Name	Mitchell, John
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1711
Place of birth
Date of death	1768
Place of death

1. ^ Colin Kidd, The forging of races: race and scripture in the Protestant Atlantic world, 1600 - 2000, 2006, p. 30