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Title: Course of the River Mississipi
- Author: Robert Sayer
- Date: 1775
- Medium: Hand-colored copperplate engraving
- Condition: Very Good Plus - light age toning, horizontal creasing, areas of discoloration
- Inches: 21.25 x 46 [Image]
- Centimeters: 53.9 x 116.8 [Image]
- Product ID: 233109
Map of the Mississippi River stretching from just south of present-day St. Louis, MO to the Gulf of Mexico. Sayer includes many annotations indicating the region's terrain and climate ("very good Land," "Good Quarries of Stone"), military forts, historical events of note ("Here Ferdinand de Soto first discovered the Mississipi in 1541"), and the locations and characteristics of Native peoples. Tribes listed include the 'Chaktaws or Flathead Indians,' the 'Chikasaws,' the Natchez ('destroy'd by the French in 1730'), the Osogoulas ('now removed to the Tunicas'), and the Arkansas ('or the Handsome Men'), among others. Along the Gulf Coast near the map's bottom margin, Sayer marks the Mississippi's depth at various points. In the lower right corner, he notes that there is "Shallow water Covered with many Small Islands which are but very Little Known." Interestingly, he includes as a point of reference the "Meridian of New Orleans 72 Degrees 20 Minutes West from the Isle of Ferro." The map encompasses the present-day cities of New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Vicksburg, and Memphis.