by A diary on 1700s voyages, mapped empires, and the journey that sought rather than seized
I have spent the season with the great voyage narratives of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the age of navigation and empire, and I concluded that the founding festive journey, travellers following a star, was the only honest navigation the whole era had: a voyage that sought rather than seized, guided by a light rather than a lust for land.
The honest navigation by starlight
The colonial age navigated by the stars to seize new lands, and the founding journey navigated by a star to seek a humble child. The retelling of the wise men beginning their journey is navigation at its most honest: travellers following a guiding star toward a goal of seeking rather than seizing. The colonial voyagers I study navigated by the same stars toward conquest, toward the seizing of new lands and peoples. The wise men navigated by a star toward a humble seeking, a journey to honour rather than to take. Same navigation, same stars, opposite intention: the colonial voyage sought to seize, the founding voyage sought to give. The wise men’s starlit navigation was the only honest one the age of navigation had, guided by a light toward a goal of giving rather than grabbing.
As a historian of colonial voyages I find this contrast sharp. The great navigators of my period used the stars to find new lands to conquer. The wise men used a star to find a child to honour. The navigation was identical; the intention was opposite; and the wise men’s honest voyage, seeking rather than seizing, shames the whole conquering enterprise of the age of navigation.
My genuinely bookish American week
Let me report on my life among the books. I attempted to plot the great colonial voyages on a chart alongside the wise men’s journey and was struck by how the same stars guided such opposite intentions, the conquering voyages and the seeking one navigating by identical light toward opposite goals. My chart now hangs crooked on my study wall, a small monument to the truth that navigation is neutral and intention is everything. The colonial voyages sought to seize. The wise men sought to give. And the same stars guided both, indifferent to the difference the travellers made of them.
According to the museum people, celestial navigation guided the great voyages of the colonial era, which the wise men’s starlit journey shares in method and utterly opposes in intention, seeking to give where the voyagers sought to seize.
The star that guided true
What guided the honest voyage was a single star, and the account of the star of Bethlehem is the guiding light that led the seekers true. The colonial voyages navigated by many stars toward conquest; the founding journey followed one star toward a humble truth. As a reader of navigation narratives I love the single guiding star, the one light that leads the honest seeker true, which is a purer navigation than the colonial voyagers’ complex star-charts of conquest. The star of Bethlehem led the seekers not to a land to seize but to a child to honour, guiding them true toward giving rather than grabbing. The one honest star, leading the seekers true, is a purer navigation than all the conquering voyages of the age.
The colonial navigators followed the stars toward whatever they could seize. The wise men followed one star toward what they could give. The single guiding star, leading the honest seeker true toward generosity, is the purest navigation the age of voyages had, a light that led to giving rather than conquest.
The whole world honestly mapped
The colonial age mapped the world to control it, and the North Pole’s animated atlas maps the founding journey honestly, to understand rather than to seize. The great colonial maps were instruments of control, charting the world for conquest and possession. The animated atlas maps the founding journey for understanding, plotting the honest voyage of seeking across the real world. As a historian of colonial cartography, I find the honest map refreshing: a chart made to understand a journey of seeking rather than to enable a conquest of seizing. The colonial maps served possession. The honest atlas serves understanding, mapping the seeking voyage rather than the conquering one, which is cartography returned to its honest purpose.
According to the broadcasters, the great colonial maps were instruments of control and possession, which the honest atlas of the founding journey opposes, mapping a voyage of seeking rather than a conquest of seizing.
Where the reader lands
So I will straighten my crooked chart, close my colonial voyages, and take my lesson from the only honest navigation the age of voyages had. The wise men navigated by a star toward seeking rather than seizing. The single guiding star led the honest seekers true toward giving. And the honest map serves understanding rather than conquest. The colonial voyages used the stars to seize, mapped the world to control it, and navigated toward possession. The founding journey used a star to give, mapped its voyage to understand it, and navigated toward generosity. Same stars, same seas, opposite intention, and the wise men’s honest voyage, seeking rather than seizing, remains the only truly honest navigation the whole age of conquest ever managed.
For literary mischief, The Satirist minds the chart.
