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Archives and Research Centres: investigating Cuban History
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 April 2010
Extract
It is a well known fact that informational exchange between Cuba and the Western world is poor and, to the extent that it exists, highly polemic. This characterization of non-communication unfortunately, also applies to the field of historical research. In Western Europe, at least, there is not much scholarly interest in pre-Revolutionary Cuban history. There is no framework for historical contact either. I would say that this neglect of Cuban history is regrettable not only from an academic point of view, but also because we cannot possibly understand the Cuban Revolution without a more thorough understanding of its historical roots. Apart from being regrettable, this is also unnecessary, as I found out in the course of my particular investigation, entitled The Cuban railways, 1830–1868. Infrastructure and economic decision-making in a Caribbean plantation-economy.
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- Copyright © Research Institute for History, Leiden University 1982
References
References to ‘Investigating Cuban History’
1 The results of this investigation will be published in the Dutch language and. are intended as the thesis for a master's degree in the ‘Economic and social history of the non-Western world’ at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. It was a result of my tacking part in a seminar on the plantation-economies of Surinam and Cuba in the period 1750–1850, under the guidance of Peter Boomgaard. I would like to thank Poeter Boomgaard for his time-consuming and most valuable help and advice in this undertaking.
A grant from the Dutch Ministry of Education made my research on Cuba possible.
2 For general information on Archives and Libraries for research on Latin American history, see for instance: Lino Gómez Canedo, Los Archivos de la Historia de América, Mexico D.F. 1961.And Bartley, Russell H./Wagner, Stuart A., Latin America in basic historical collections; a working guide, Stanford 1972Google Scholar.
3 Apart from the current guides of these Archives, there exists a more detailed guide about Cuban sources in the Archivo General de Indias, compiled by Cuban historians. Cesar Garcia del Pino/Alicia Melis Cappa, Catálogo parcial de los fondos de la Sección XI (Cuba) del Archivo General de Indias, La Habana 1978. Unfortunately this guide isn't at all complete. It covers only one of the Sections on Cuba, leaving out, e.g., the important sections V (Gobierno; contains Audiencia de Santo Domingo (1512–1858), dealing with economic and political items on Cuba) and X (Ultramar; containing 404 legajos (boxes) about Cuba (1745-1864), both secular and ecclestical matters). The materials in Madrid cover mostly the nineteenth century, as will be explained further on.
Apart from this, there exist materials on Cuba in the Archivo de Simancas, in the Archivo Historico Militar in Madrid and in various regional Archives. 1 did not have the opportunity to consult these.
4 See Guìa de Fuentes para la Historia de Ibero-América, Fasciculo IV, 1+2, España, Madrid 1966 and 1969. In this publication the Dirección General de Archivos y Bibliotecas offers detailed information on Spanish Archives and Libraries concerning Ibero-American history.
5 Mörner, Magnus, Historische Forschung auf Kuba, in Jahrbuch für Geschichte von Staat, Wirtschaft und Ge-sellschaft Lateinamerikas 7 (1970); see pages 444–446.Google Scholar
6 For Great Britain, see Guide to manuscript sources for the history of Latin America and the Caribbean in the British Isles, edited by Walne, Peter, London 1973.Google Scholar
7 My stay in Cuba took place in the autumn of 1981. I did my research almost exclusively in Havana.
8 Guía del Archivo Nacional, La Habana 1967; see p.3.Google Scholar
9 The one I saw was approximately 8 meters broad, 15 meters long and 5 meters high (the shelves not reaching higher than 2½). I was told, however, that other naves are somewhat smaller.
10 There are printed inventories of some collections, for instance Catálogo de los Fondos del Real Consulado de Agricultura, Industria y comercio y de la Junta de Fomento, La Habana 1943, and Catálogo de los Fondos del Consejode de Administracion de la Isla de Cuba, La Habana 1948.
11 The same applies to the archives of North-American Sugar Companies (for example, the Manati Sugar Company) that I saw in the Archive of Santiago de Cuba.
12 Information was given to me by present researchers, by the Management of the Archivo Nacional and by the Archive's paleographer, Luís Alpizar. The latter published two articles on this matter lately: La clasificación y catalogación en el Archivo Naciona land La paleografia en el Archivo Nacional, both in the Revista de la Biblioteca Nacional ‘Jose Marti’ año 72, en./ abr. 1981, no. 1, pages 35–44 and 44–48 respectively.
13 Guía del Archivo Nacional, La Habana 1967, p. 18.Google Scholar
14 This cooperation, by the way, is actually used for the restauration of the colonial part of Havana, La Habana Vieja.
15 This Library is presently called the Biblioteca del Instituto de Literatura y Linguistica, which however is housed in the former Library of the Sociedad Economica. The Memorias were published in discontinuous series, with all the time slightly differing denominations.
16 Part of this information was gathered in conversations with Júlio LeRiverend Brusone, well known historian, former director of the Archivo Nacional,former embassador with the UNESCO, present director of the Biblioteca Nacional. Further with the professors Manuel Moreno Fraginals, author of the famous El Ingenio, and Oscar Zanetti, co-author of extensive studies on the United Fruit Company in Cuba and (forthcoming) the Cuban railways; and with Violeta Serrano Rubio, historian in the Academia de Ciencias. For a recent ‘Western’ evaluation of Cuban historiography since the Revolution, see Louis, A. jr, Pérez., In the service of the Revolution: Two decades of Cuban historiography, 1959–1979, in Hispanic-American Historical Review 60 (1) (1980), pages 79–89Google Scholar.
17 The Cuba/DDR group under the guidance of LeRiverend and Jüirgen Kuczynski, mentioned by Mörner in 1970, doesn't exist any longer - LeRiverend stated that this project did stimulate further research on North-American monopolies in Cuba. Mörner, o.c, p. 441.
18 Alpízar, La clasificación … p. 43.
19 Hortensia Pichardo, Documentos para la Historia de Cuba, various volumes, La Habana 1971-. Manuel Mencilia, La prision fecunda, recently published.
20 Fraginals, Manuel Moreno, El Ingenio. Complejo econó-mico social cubano del azúcar, 3 volumes, La Habana 1978.Google Scholar
21 Ramiro Guerra y Sánchez, Azúcar y población en las Antillas. Various editions in Spanish, and in English as Sugar and Society in the Caribbean. Brusone, Julio LeRiverend, Historia Económica de Cuba, La Habana 1974 4;Google Scholarthis book contains his chapters in the Historia de la Nación Cubana, published La Habana 1952. Further a summary edition, Historia Económica de Cuba, La Habana 1965, translated as Economic History of Cuba, Havana 1967Google Scholar.
22 A more recent example is the emphasis laid presently on the tradition of Cuban ‘internationalism’. During my stay, I frequently saw articles published on Cuban participation in the Spanish Civil War, of course on the Republican side. Veterans were honored with distinctions; at that same time there also appeared a book on this subject.
23 Mörner stated that the influence of the French Annales was by far the most important. I am convinced that this cannot be said of the present situation. LeRiverend denied the correctness of this statement even for the preceding period. Mörner, o.c. p. 436.
24 The Academia de Ciencias is housed in the Capitolio, Havana. One should direct the request to its Departamento de Relaciones Internacionales. Though this is the overall organisation of academic institutions, one could write for bibliographical information etc. to the Biblioteca Nacional ‘Jose Marti’, Plaza de la Revolución, or the Archivo Nacional, Calle Compostela 906, Esquina San Isidro, both in Havana.
It is indispensable, applying for a permit to do research in Cuba, to ask for accomodation too. The hotel accomodation in Havana is not abundant and quite expensive; it is necessary to settle these matters in advance.