The map in question. It shows how Europeans viewed the world at the time, by splitting the world up into four categories; Civilized, Half-Civilized, Barbarous, and Savage.
1.) What is the difference between Barbarous and Savage?
2.) Why is Latin America considered mostly civilized at this time while Asia, the Middle East, and even parts of Eastern Europe are considered Half-Civilized or Barbarous?
EDIT: I actually have a third question.
3.) What exactly does "Pagan" mean in this context? The map only labels things Christian, Muslim (Mahometan), or Pagan. Is it just anything that isn't Abrahamic? It appears that areas that are mostly Hindu or Buddhist are labeled Pagan.
To understand this map, you have to understand that it is from a specifically Western European and Christian context. All other cultures are going to be measured to that standard. You'll note that the only "civilized" areas outside Europe are where white Christian Europeans have settled and colonized. "The half-civilized" areas are where Europeans have some degree of trade relations, and where the social structures are familiar enough to Europeans that they can see analogues to their own experience. These areas are mostly under some degree of central cultural or governmental unity over relatively large regions (more on this in #1 below). "Half-civilized" also reflects a certain level of technological development, as well as a religious culture that is distinct from animism (more on this in #3 below).
1.) "Barbarous" initially referred to non-Hellenic peoples, and then to peoples outside the Roman empire. In 1827, as European empires were really getting going, "barbarous" had a similar meaning--peoples outside the "civilizing" influence of imperial control (European or no), but which had some sort of local social unity. "Barbarians" could produce art and culture, could even build impressive buildings and develop complicated governing systems, but they were limited in scope from the European perspective, which by this time saw civilization as going hand in hand with imperialism and colonialism.
2.) The short answer is Christianity. Latin America was largely colonized by Catholic Europeans by this point, and thus counted as "civilized." A "Half-civilized" culture in Asia could outdo a "Civilized" culture in South America by every other measure, but to this mapmaker, the Asian culture could never reach full civilization until Christianity held sway there.
3.) To a European in 1827, "religion" would mean Christianity, plus Judaism, plus Islam to a lesser extent, and maybe to some, Buddhism and Hinduism. At this time, the idea of "World religions" was not a category as it is now. Tomoko Masuzawa's "The Invention of World Religions" details the development of this category as a Eurocentric worldview. But very generally speaking, in the early 19th century, "pagan" denoted anything outside of monotheism. So Muslims, according to this mapmaker, were not pagans because they had a recognizable religion, while Hindus and Buddhists were basically pagans by default because their religious practices were so poorly understood. In 1827, "Hinduism" wasn't even thought of as a religion per se until later in the century. It should be noted that if you asked two people about what makes a religion, you'd get two different answers, but that's also true today.
That's a really interesting map. I have some follow-up questions.
In the box in the upper left, the religious categories are Christian (various subcategories), Mahometan, and Pagan. Where would Jews have been counted in this?
The population of "America" (same box) clearly combines North and South America into one box for tallying purposes. 120K of the population is "Mongolian" -- to whom would they have been referring? My best guess would be that people at the time lumped the Inuit/Aleuts/Eskimos in with the Mongolian racial group?
Population figures. Are these at all accurate or pretty much just made-up in some cases? Did Western mapmakers actually have an understanding of, say, the population of China? Or Western North America?
