Exploration and Discovery in the Heartland of America
1650 - 1700 Map Intensive

Weber's Critique of Buisseret

For page citations for tabled critiqueitems below, see Buisseret and Kupfer's "Validating the 1673 Marquette Map" in the Journal of Illinois History. See Weber's 31 page critique of Buisseret at "Invalidating the Jacques Marquette Map". Also see "The Jacques Marquette Map hoax" on Facebook.

 

A

01

Marquette's... "maps, journals, and reports made their way to authorities in Quebéc." p. 261.

Again, p. 263, "His papers were reteived by his followers and taken back to Quebéc."

There are no records of "maps" that made their way back to anywhere.

 

 

 

 

 
02

Of the Marquette Map, "...others, more recently, have attempted to discredit a map...." p. 261.

There were, recently, no "others." There was only Weber, in 2005.

03

"... in the 1920s... Steck began a series of publications tending to show that the documents retrieved from the nuns in 1844 were hoaxes." p. 263.

In the 1920s, Steck's doubts were not about 1844 retrieved documents. No one having read Steck's 1928 work could arrive at that conclusion. In 1928, his doubts were about a 1673 Mississippi expedition published in Thevenot, in 1681.
04

"... from 1670 or so onward we read in numerous documents of Marquette's desire to take part in an expedition to the "Mer du Sud" (Gulf of Mexico) and of his connection with Jolliet." p. 264.

There was nothing that could be characterized as "numerous documents." The "Mer du Sud" was not the Gulf of Mexico. It was the Pacific Ocean. (That would fall under history of cartography 101.)
05

Buisseret says Steck's "fatal flaw" was that in his 1928 work, he did not know of the Paris Documents known as the fonds Brotier. p.264.

On the contrary, Steck did in fact know of them. Buisseret did not know that the fonds Brotier is also known under the names Marquette-5 and Roman Manuscript.
 

 

 

 

 

Carl J. Weber contact