Paper short abstract:

This paper will examine the influence of José Ferrer, a Spanish merchant-cum-geographer, on the methodology of the first coastal survey of the United States of America. The conceptualization of surveying knowledge as craft, or skilled labor, will be explored.

Paper long abstract:

At the dawn of the nineteenth century, figures within the American Philosophical Society (APS) recognized the need to develop a methodology to accurately and quickly survey the coastline of the United States. Knowledge of the coastline, they believed, was vital both for its contributions to national defense and for its assessment of port cities, hubs of the national economy. A month after Albert Gallatin wrote to Robert Patterson, president of the APS, suggesting the need for developing such a methodology, there had been no response. Indeed, the call fell on deaf ears. Was there no one, prominent figures wondered, qualified to assist in this project? While many skilled surveyors could be found in the newly independent nation, the coastal survey seemed a prodigious undertaking fundamentally distinct from cadastral surveying or the exploration of western territories. A response was eventually solicited from José Ferrer, a Spanish merchant familiar to many within the society through mercantile transactions. The proposal forwarded by Ferrer appears derivative of Spanish surveying methodologies taught to naval cadets at the Naval Academy in Cádiz, an institution with which Ferrer also may be associated. Derivative of early modern pilotage, such hydrographical methodology combined practical mathematics with navigational assessment of coastal inlets. In providing a concrete vision of the eastern seaboard of the United States, Ferrer helped to define that space. Indeed, American actors utilized his methodology, interpreting their own coastline much like Spanish naval cadets across the Atlantic were taught to chart the Iberian coasts.

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