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Sources for the Study of Puerto Rican History: A Challenge to the Historian's Imagination

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2022

Blanca Silvestrini-Pacheco  and
María de los Angeles Castro Arroyo
Blanca Silvestrini-Pacheco
Affiliation:
Universidad de Puerto Rico
María de los Angeles Castro Arroyo
Affiliation:
Universidad de Puerto Rico
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The 1970s were particularly fruitful for the field of Puerto Rican historiography. A number of works were published, not only on the Island but abroad, which showed the trend of current and future research. New topics were being dealt with from a variety of updated viewpoints and methodologies, and previously studied problems were revised in the light of newly available sources, as was the case, for example, with slavery. Various factors have contributed notably to this situation: the assiduous exchange of ideas among Puerto Rican, Latin American, North American, and European researchers, a process which, although slow, has served to involve Puerto Rico in recent historiographical trends; the involvement of the Island in international affairs; the opening of new collections of valuable historical materials; the institutionalization at the university level of graduate study in the field of history; and, in general, a greater emphasis on Puerto Rican cultural identity.

Type
Research Reports and Notes
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , 1981 , pp. 156 - 171
Copyright
Copyright © 1981 by the University of Texas Press

Footnotes

*

A preliminary version of this study was presented at the XI Congress of the Association of Caribbean Historians, Curaçao, April 1979. The collaboration of Marshall Morris of the Translation Program at the Universidad de Puerto Rico is gratefully acknowledged. The authors also appreciate the assistance of the Oficina de Publicaciones e Investigaciones de la Facultad de Humanidades, Universidad de Puerto Rico, Río Piedras, and of the personnel at the Archivo General de Puerto Rico.

References

Notes

1. The Fondo de Obras Públicas is the most extensive part of the holdings which made up the Archivo Histórico of the Universidad de Puerto Rico (AHUPR). An executive order in 1956 directed the transfer of the latter to the newly created AGPR, where it was reorganized and reclassified. The documents belonging to the now-defunct AHUPR are identified in the AGPR as Tarea 58-A1. The Fondo de los Gobernadores Españoles has kept its name in English: “Records of the Spanish Governors of Puerto Rico.” Both the holdings of Obras Públicas and those of Gobernadores continue to be the most consulted, probably due to the fact that they combine the wealth of their contents with convenient cataloging. These collections have been used extensively in studies on public works, urbanism, slavery, immigration, etc. Among the most recent books that have drawn from these sources are the two-volume work entitled El proceso abolicionista en Puerto Rico (San Juan: Centro de Investigaciones Históricas, 1974, 1978) and that of María de los Angeles Castro, Arquitectura en San Juan de Puerto Rico (Río Piedras: Editorial de la Universidad de Puerto Rico, 1980).

2. See the brochure on the Centro de Investigaciones Históricas published by the Facultad de Humanidades in celebration of the 75th anniversary of the Universidad de Puerto Rico, Río Piedras, 1978. It offers a complete description of the center and its different projects. Also see Aída R. Caro Costas, “Los fondos documentales del Centro de Investigaciones Históricas,” Anales de Investigación Histórica (Universidad de Puerto Rico, Río Piedras) 4, nums. 1–2 (1977):36–41. The CIH stands out as an important depository for microfilm and photocopies gathered in foreign archives, thereby making possible in Puerto Rico consultation of documents which would otherwise have remained inaccessible to a large majority of researchers.

3. Archivo Histórico Nacional. Sección de Ultramar. Vol. 1, Inventario de la Serie de fomento de Puerto Rico; vol. 2, Inventario de la Serie Gobierno de Puerto Rico; vol. 3, Inventario de la Serie Gracia y Justicia de Puerto Rico, under the direction of María Teresa de la Peña Marazuela (Madrid: Servicio de Publicaciones del Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia, n.d., 1972, 1975). Volume 4 of the Serie de la Real Hacienda de Puerto Rico has gone to press.

4. For a detailed description of the different Spanish archives of interest to Puerto Rican matters, see the Guía de fuentes para la historia de Ibero-América. Fascículo IV, 1 y 2, 2 vols. (Madrid: Dirección de Archivos y Bibliotecas, published under the auspices of UNESCO and the International Council on Archives, 1966 and 1969).

5. Currently there is a Guía al Archivo General de Puerto Rico, published by the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña in 1964. Also of assistance is the work by Lino Gómez Canedo, Los archivos históricos de Puerto Rico; apuntes de una visita (San Juan: Archivo General de Puerto Rico e Instituto de Cultura, 1964). This gives special attention to the parochial archives. The article by Luis de la Rosa Martínez, “Los fondos documentales en el Archivo General de Puerto Rico” (Anales de Investigación Histórica 4, nums. 1–2 [1979]:1-19), describes the holdings of the AGPR useful for twentieth-century Puerto Rican municipal history.

6. The Colecciones Particulares Completas in the AGPR have catalogs and indexes. They are as follows: Rafael W. Ramírez, Gabriel Ferrer Amador, Domingo Sepúlveda, Conrado F. Asenjo, José de Diego, Monserrate Deliz, Dr. Manuel Guzmán Rodríguez, Rodulfo Hernández López, Hugo Margenat, Dr. José Monserrate Marxuach, Ramón Méndez Quiñones, Pablo Morales Otero, Luis Muñoz Rivera, Familia Negrón Muñoz, Antonio Otero, Jorge Ramos Lorenzi, Mariano Riera Palmer, Elisa Tavarez, José S. Alegría, Dr. José Antonio Franquis, Francisco Moreno Marrero, José Limón de Arce, Antonio Mirabal, José Enamorado Cuesta, Luis Muñoz Marín, Raúl Roig, Luis Llorens Torres, Carmelo Filardi, Libros de Cuentos de la Central Rufina radicada en Guayanilla (1913-66) Juano Hernández, Ernesto Ramos Antonini, Samuel R. Quiñones, Robert A. Junghanns, Fernando Callejo y Ferrer. The last five are not available to the public at the present.

7. The photographic archive basically is composed of private collections, although it also receives materials from other sources of the AGPR and the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña. It is made up of unbound photographs, albums such as those of López Cepero (circa 1892), Alonso (?), and Hartzeel (1904), or complete collections such as the so-called “Archivo de Instrucción Pública,” which contains prints from 1940 on. There is a breakdown by subject matter and a private inventory for the use of researchers. In addition, the photographs are identified in the catalog collection of origin.

8. The content of each archive is different and some are more complete than others. None of them has specific guides, but the work of Lino Gómez Canedo, Los archivos históricos de Puerto Rico, can serve as a preliminary model. In order to appreciate the usefulness of the parish archives, see the article by Isabel Gutiérrez de Arroyo, “Los libros parroquiales como fuentes de la historia social,” Anales de Investigación Histórica 4, nums 1–2 (1977): 20–35.

9. The Guía al Archivo General de Puerto Rico describes these collections in detail.

10. The following might prove useful: Kenneth Munden and Milton Greenbaum (comp.), Records of the Bureau of Insular Affairs Relating to Puerto Rico, 1898–1934: A List of Selected Files (Washington, D.C., 1943); Richard S. Maxwell and Evans Walker, Records of the Office of Territories: Preliminary Inventory (Washington, D.C., 1963); Thomas Mathews, “Documentación sobre Puerto Rico en la Biblioteca del Congreso,” Revista Histórica 6, num. 2 (1956): 89–124; “Puerto Rican Memorial Collection, Alice Gould Materials, Informe del Dr. Arturo Morales Carrión,” ibid., pp. 125–42.

11. There is presently a continuing project, under the auspices of the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña and the National Endowment for the Humanities, to describe in one volume the documentary sources on Puerto Rican history to be found in the United States.

12. The Archivo del Ateneo Puertorriqueño has, in addition to newspapers, materials of interest to cultural and educational history.