Is the 1673 Marquette map a Jesuit fake?
- June 11. < http://www.pjstar.com/stories/061106/REG_BA246ESI.062.shtml > 'History professor says Marquette map a fraud. Believes sketch couldn't have been made before 1813' (by Michael Smothers in the Peoria Journal Star).
Carl Weber, professor of history and the humanities at DeVry Institute in Chicago, claims that the hand-drawn Marquette map of 1673, which accurately details the Illinois' curving course, is "a historical fraud". His findings, announced at the Newberry Library last September, are based on the fact that the "is too accurate" and contains information about the Illinois that didn't appear on other early exploration maps until decades later. "The likelihood of Marquette going up the (Illinois) river with Joliet is very slim." He believes that the map "supposedly discovered in 1844 among documents stored and virtually forgotten in a Jesuit mission in Canada - was created and forged with Marquette's signature by the Jesuit Order to strengthen its political position in France and The Vatican."
Further on the claims that the 1673 Marquette map is a hoax
October 16. 'The Jacques Marquette Autograph Map Hoax'
A message to the MapHist list from Carl J. Weber draws attention to a range of articles on his website and to the response to his revisionism. See Archive entry under 11 June 2006.-
MARQUETTE. 'The Jacques Marquette Map Hoax' (a series of papers by Carl J. Weber, exploring the thesis that 'the map is too accurate for its time') {November, 2006}