The Map as Missed Cue: England’s Pacific Ambitions as Revealed by Narborough’s Draught of the Port of Baldavia in the Coast of Chile (1670)

Abstract

This study analyzes John Narborough’s cartographic chart A Draught of the Port of Baldavia in the Coast of Chile (1670) as a missed cue to a radical reimagining of England’s imperial course in the Pacific sphere. Produced for Charles II, this map placed an optimistic spin on Narborough’s failed attempt to gain a commercial foothold along the Pacific coastline of South America. Its contents provide new evidence that Narborough’s voyage maintained a covert military agenda, perhaps to be carried out in a future voyage, should Spain block English trade with local indigenous inhabitants. Yet, as the map also conveys, Narborough’s venture at Valdivia ended abruptly in a tense encounter with Spanish garrisons that spurred the renovation of the most extensive Spanish fort system in the Americas.