Thomas Jefferys was one of the most important English map publishers of the 18th century. His work included prints and maps of locations around the world, but his most notable maps are of North America and the West Indies. He began his career in the map trade in the early 1730s, working as an engraver for a variety of London publishers, and eventually setting up his own shop. In 1746, he was appointed Geographer to the Prince of Wales, and in 1760 he became Geographer to the King. These titles granted access to manuscripts and cartographic information held by the government. In the early 1760s he embarked on an ambitious project to produce a series of English county maps based on new surveys, but ran out of money and filed for bankruptcy in 1766. He then partnered with London publisher Robert Sayer, who reissued many of Jefferys plates and continued to issue new editions after Jefferys' death in 1771. Jefferys' American Atlas and the accompanying West-India Atlas, published post posthumously, are considered his most important cartographic works.

This large-scale map is based on William Mayo's important survey of the island. Mayo's was the second systematic, and first large-scale survey and it fixed the legal bounds of the parishes. It was not until the Admiralty survey of 1873 that Mayo's map ceased to be the standard representation for maps of Barbados. The map shows the eleven parishes with their areas listed in a key below. It depicts the ports, settlements, forts, churches, roads, and sugar plantations with landowners' names. Relief is shown by hachures and two finely drawn landfall approach views for mariners are engraved between the title and compass rose.

References: Campbell (MCC-21) #38.

Condition: B+

Full contemporary color on a sheet with a "9 1808 J. Whatman" watermark, with light toning and a faint damp stain that enters several inches into map at left. There is a centerfold separation that enters 4.5" into map at left and an adjacent 1.5" tear that have both been archivally repaired. A large chip in left blank margin has been repaired with old paper, not affecting map.