Libraries to Preserve Cuban                                 Notary Protocols

University of Florida Launches Plan to Preserve
Historic Archive on Spain's Role in the New World

GAINESVILLE — The University of Florida is launching an effort to preserve and make accessible a
veritable gold mine of rare historic documents in Cuba’s National Archives that chronicle three centuries of
Spain’s colonization of the New World.

Known as the Notary Protocols, these archival holdings in Havana are bound in 6,658 tomes, each
containing an estimated 1,300 handwritten pages (the equivalent of about 40,000 volumes in a modern
library). They track the comings and goings of many ships that sailed and nearly every person who traveled
between Spain and the New World from the 16th through 19th centuries, said John Ingram, director of
library collections at UF’s George A. Smathers Libraries.

“We are about to embark on a unique opportunity that will benefit present and future generations of
scholars, students and the interested public,” Ingram said. “Beyond the preservation of the information
contained in this global heritage, this project aims to link three centuries from the past with our present and
future, and thereby help us better understand ourselves and our place in the rapidly changing world.”

The preservation effort will bring both microfilm and digital technology to bear on the archives’
deteriorated papers. When funding is secured, specialists will travel to Havana and begin a 12- to
18-month pilot program for the lengthy and painstaking process of transferring the entire collection to
microfilm and digital formats. Afterward, a guide to the materials will be posted on the Internet, and users
will be able to obtain copies of individual documents on compact disc.

The project is the result of an agreement signed in March by UF and the Cuban National Archives.
Ingram said the documents are especially relevant to Florida, where notary archives for the First Spanish
Period (1565-1764) were lost during the U.S. invasion of Florida in 1812. The notary protocols will likely
contain information on the outfitting of early expeditions to Florida, and underscore the great dependence
that Florida had on Cuba in almost all aspects of Spanish colonial life.

For more than 300 years, notaries in Havana recorded detailed information, dutifully registering
travelers’ wills, legal documents and the cargos they might be carrying. The result, Ingram said, is a
priceless archive of materials that many specialists regard as the single most important source of
information on the New World’s Colonial history.  Regarded as uniquely valuable to this history for more
than one hundred years, yet rarely consulted because of their location and a general lack of resources to
expose their value to scholars, the thousands of tomes will be a genuine treasure for research.

The cost of the project will be paid for with money raised from foundations and private donations,
Ingram said. No federal or state tax dollars will be used. With the completion of a successful pilot program,
and to make the larger effort possible, the UF library seeks to team up with U.S. and Spanish libraries and
institutions, in enlisting funding support for the entire project. Institutions whose support will be sought
include the Pan American Institute of Geography and History, the Cadiz Provincial Archives in Spain, the
libraries at the University of Texas, the University of North Carolina, and other institutions and universities in
Florida.

“Having personally used to advantage similar materials for the English speaking world that are
contained in England’s Public Records Office in London, I am convinced that the Protocolos Notariales in
Cuba’s archives will assume their rightful place of global importance for New World history and culture,”
Ingram said. “For my colleagues in Latin American studies, these records will truly open a window in time.”
 

© 1999 University of Florida George A. Smathers Libraries P. O. Box 117001  Gainesville, FL 32611-7001 Please read our disclaimer. Send comments and/or questions about this site to  Barbara Hood Last Updated April 2001