A Forgotten Kingdom: The Spanish Frontier in Colorado and New Mexico, 1540-1821
BLM Cultural Resources Series (Colorado: No. 29)
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BIBLIOGRAPHIC ESSAY

While considerable material dealing with New Mexico is found in that state, major sources of primary materials are also in Mexico and Spain. These include materials in the Archivo General de la Nacion (Mexico City), the Archivo General de las Indias (Seville), the Museo Nacional (Mexico City) and the Biblioteca Nacional (Mexico City). All of these sources are available in microcopies on on microfilm.

Many of these documents were collected and microfilmed by the late France V. Scholes, of the University of New Mexico, and other scholars like Lansing Bloom. While much of the collected material deals with the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, there are also considerable quantities of eighteenth century materials. The AGN archives provide excellent material from the Ramos of the Provincias Internas, Historia, Vinculos, and other branches. The AGI Legajos of the Inquisition, Guadalajara and limited other areas are of value for New Mexico. The Biblioteca Nacional's records include Franciscan documents for this period. The Museo Nacional also contains various documents of interest. Copies of these collections can be found in the Coronado Collection, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico.

A truly major depository for Spanish documents is the State Records Center at Santa Fe. Dr. Myra Ellen Jenkins catalogued the Spanish Archives of New Mexico. They are on microfilm and can also be used in the original. These documents are mainly legal, both civil and criminal and include reports of military actions, status reports, and correspondence. There are very few personal documents in the collection. Family collections in the Records Center provide limited Spanish documents. Also contained in the State Records Center is a microfilm copy of the Archives of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe. The originals were moved to Albuquerque and are not readily obtainable. However, Fray Angelico Chavez's catalog is vital for consulting the microfilm copy of these invaluable archives. They contain records of the missions of New Mexico, correspondence, orders, and accounts. Another microfilm copy of these documents is available at the Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

Other less valuable archives include those in Chihuahua City and Ciudad Juarez, available on microfilm at the University of Texas at El Paso. In both cases, the only documents of value are trade records. The Juarez Archives are poorly filmed and nearly illegible in most cases. The Parral Archives, available on microfilm from Fort Lewis College, Durango, Colorado, are of use only for limited military correspondence with Santa Fe. The Latin American Collection of the University of Texas at Austin contains little documentary material pertaining to New Mexico in the eighteenth century but it is an excellent source of secondary material. The Huntington Library's Ritch Collection contains a few eighteenth century documents that are found nowhere else.

The Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley, is most valuable for documents in the Pinart Collection. At this library manuscripts and hard to obtain original works can be found. These archives are also on microfilm at the University of New Mexico's Coronado Collection.



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Last Updated: 20-Nov-2008