Portulano de la Ameririca Setentrional construido en la direccion de tabajos.

In the early 1790s, José Joaquín Ferrer y Cafranga resided in Cadiz, the headquarters of the Armada Real. While he still worked as a merchant, he became attached to the Armada's San Fernando Observatory. Ferrer became closely acquainted with the leading Spanish explorers and cartographers of the era, including Dionisio Alcalá Galiano and Cosme Damián de Churruca y Elorza. He also gained the notice of Admiral Jose de Mazarredo y Salazar, who in addition to being a legendary battle commander was one of Spain's greatest Hydrographers.

Ferrer was recruited by Mazarredo and the explorer Vicente Tofiño de San Miguel to play a key role in creating a sea atlas of important New World harbors. Up to this time, due to Spain's official policies of cartographic secrecy, very few hydrographic surveys of Spanish colonial ports were ever published. The Armada relied on foreign and often very outdated maps, and Spain's participation in the American Revolution highlighted the urgency of acquiring accurate geographical and hydrographical intelligence.

In 1792, Mazarredo and Tofiño dispatched two scientific mapping expeditions to the Americas to gain the required intelligence necessary to realize the project. First, Churrucca was charged with mapping the coastlines of various islands and harbors between Trinidad and Cuba. Second, Joaquín Francisco Fidalgo was charted by surveying the coast of the Spanish Main and Central America from Trinidad to Coast Rica.

As Churrucca and Fidalgo made progress on their endeavors, they regularly sent manuscript charts to Cadiz. Ferrer helped to supervise the publication of many of these charts as separately issued 'Cartas Esfericas' until he left Spain for exile abroad in 1799. Amazingly, despite the turmoil caused by the ongoing Napoleonic Wars, the surveyors completed their respective missions by 1805.

The Portulano de la America Setentrional was printed in Madrid by the Dirección de Hidrografía in 1809 and featured 106 charts of ports in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. It was re-issued in Madrid in 1818, and another edition was printed in Mexico City in 1825. The content of the 1818 Madrid edition is identical to the 1809 edition, save for the addition of the line "Aumentado y corre-gido [sic] en 1818" to the title page. The Mexico City edition was entirely re-engraved on new plates and each chart featured altered titles.

José Joaquín Ferrer y Cafranga (1763-1818)
José Joaquín de Ferrer y Cafranga was a Spanish Basque cartographer and astronomer, and was one of the last great figures of the Ilustración Borbonica, or the Spanish Enlightenment. He was born into an affluent and well-connected family in Pasajes de San Pedro, in the Basque Country. He was the older brother of the politician Joaquín María de Ferrer y Cafranga (1777-1861), who served as Prime Minster of Spain and Mayor of Madrid. 

Encouraged to seek his fortune as a merchant in the colonial trade, in 1780, he joined the Real Compañía Guipuzcoana, and set sail for Venezuela. While en route, his vessel was intercepted by Admiral Rodney's British naval squadron, and Ferrer was taken to England. He was paroled, and while in London, he had the opportunity to gain formal training in astronomy and surveying, as well as gaining a fluent command of the English language. Ferrer subsequently returned to Spain and reconnected with the mercantile communities.

In 1787, Ferrer sailed for Lima, Peru, and not long after his arrival, met with considerable success as a commercial trader. He took advantage of his extensive business travel to refine his skills in astronomy and surveying. While on a trip to Mexico, he notably calculated the precise geographic position and heights of several of the region's highest peaks, including Mounts Jalapa, Perote and Orizaba.

As already mentioned, Ferrer spent most of the 1790s in Cadiz assisting the Armada Real in their endeavors leading to the production of the Portulano de la America Setentrional. However, Ferrer, who held distinctly liberal beliefs, became disaffected with the political situation in Spain, and set sail for America in 1799.
For the next 14 years, Ferrer was based in New York, and while earning a lucrative living as a merchant, found ample time to pursue his passions in astronomy and geography, traveling widely through America and the Caribbean. In 1809, several of his papers were published in the prestigious Transactions of the American Philosophical Society.

In 1813, Ferrer traveled to London to study at the Greenwich Observatory, where he became acquainted with some of Britain's leading intellectuals. The following year he studied at the Institute de France in Paris. Shortly after that, Ferrer returned to Spain, where he commenced work on the Portulano de los Estados Unidos.

While the Portulano was in production in Madrid, Ferrer dedicated himself full-time to the pursuit of academic projects. He became a fellow of the Real Academia de la Historia and the Real Sociedad Vascongada (Royal Basque Society). 

Ferrer retired to Bilbao in 1817, and died on May 18, 1818.