‘A Vast Sea of Fresh Water’: Locke Scouts Canada
摘要
This chapter explores John Locke’s investigative curiosity about Canada between 1678 and 1680—especially the spring of 1679. Canada was a place of great importance in the geopolitics of early colonial America; and Locke was curious, to say the least, about its people, places, and territorial reach. The centerpieces of Locke’s scouting at that time were two ethnographic volumes on the Huron by Gabriel Sagard; a map of the lower great lakes by René de Bréhant de Galinée; and—it will be suggested—a series of maps of all the great lakes and environs by Claude Bernou. The chapter hopes to shed further light on the vast reach and political motivations of Locke’s intrigue with the travel writing and charted geography of the new world. It emerges that Locke’s notes on the maps of Canada are a crucial if belated source confirming the dates of Bernou’s maps.