This is a partial response to the questions raised  by Robert Spiegelman.
 
    The name Hudson's River appears on a number of  English maps published in 
the seventeenth century, but on very few Dutch  maps.  The best source for 
information on this is Philip Burden's Mapping  of North America (1996).  
Stokes, Iconography of Manhattan is also  useful.  One example of an early map with 
the name "Hudsons R." is Henry  Brigg's "The North Part of America" (1625?).  
Burden and Stokes argue that  the appearance of this name on an earlier map 
published in Amsterdam by  Goos indicates a common (English) source.  I believe 
Burden mentions that  there was an earlier English map which used Hudson's 
name to designate the  river.  On the general subject of Dutch and English 
cartographic rivalry  see Benjamin Schmidt, "Mapping an Empire: Cartographic and 
Colonial Rivalry in  Seventeenth-Century Dutch and English North America," 
William and Mary Quarterly  54 (1997), 549-78.
 
    Hudson was, of course, English, but he sailed to  "his" river under the 
Dutch flag.  There is a whole body of literature  dealing with such subjects as 
whether Hudson was a traitor, or if his discovery  should be considered Dutch 
or English.  As good an introduction as any is  Donald Johnson's recent 
Charting the Sea of Darkness: The Four Voyages of Henry  Hudson.  I think this 
whole discussion is beside the point.  In my  view Hudson was basically an 
opportunist who wanted to discover a route to  China, and was not concerned about the 
implications of his voyage for future  Dutch and English claim to North 
America.  What matters is the uses that  Dutch and English propagandists made of 
his "discovery" to back up their  claims.
 
David Allen
Encinitas, CA
(Formerly Map Librarian, Stony Brook University)



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