Miscellaneous

The Nineteenth-Century Colonial Cuban Documents Collection dates from 1639 to 1896. The majority of the items were produced by the Spanish Crown and government, Catholic Church clergy, and the Spanish Army during the Colonial period in Cuba. The collection also contains documents written by Cubans to Spanish authorities. The items of this collection include manuscripts, official documents, decrees, letters, reports and two illustrations. The collection covers topics such as the administration of hospitals, construction of schools in Havana, public health concerns, military wars and conflicts, the railroad, declarations regarding Spanish royalty, genealogy, and documents related to slavery. The collection is useful to researchers interested in colonialism in the Caribbean and the bureaucracy of royal government, as well as those interested in the development of Cuban society during the nineteenth century.

The collection is arranged into eight series:

Series 1: "Education" contains petitions to open primary schools, teacher license requests and detailed budgets to repair a school in Havana.

Series 2: "Hospitals and Public Health" contains documents and reports regarding public health concerns such as cholera, diphtheria, smallpox outbreaks and vaccinations, the administration of hospitals, and two illustrated plans for the construction and repairs of San Francisco de Paula hospital.

Series 3: "Military" contains documents related to wars such as the Ten Year’s War (1868-1878), the Little War (1879–1880), the insurrection of Sancti Spíritus region (1869), Cuban War of Independence (1895–1898), and the British invasion (1762-1763). This series also contains a request for transferring Spanish troops from Mexico to Guatemala and orders for the execution of a prisoner. Three of the documents are from important Cuban pro-independence figures such as General Antonio Maceo Grajales, Calixto García Íñiguez, and José Silverio Jorrín.

Series 4: "Miscellaneous" contains topics about tobacco factories, baptisms, economic relations and foreign trade, an accounting method, clergy salaries, a plantation sale, legal documents regarding adultery and bigamy, migration, death, marriage and a diary of a Cuban traveler to Constantinople.

Series 5: "Railroads" contains reports about public roads and railway companies, legislations and policies for Cuban railroads, and the extension of railway lines. One of the documents discusses the construction of the first railway in Cuba, which connected Havana and Bejucal passing through important sugar plantations in the municipality of Güines.

Series 6: "Royalty of Spain" contains decrees regarding King Ferdinand VII of Spain, Spanish Queen Isabelle II, King Alfonso XII, Alfonso the Prince of Asturias, and inmates’ sentence pardons.

Series 7: "United States" contains genealogy documents from Cubans born in the southeast of the U.S., a signed document and a biography of Luis Peñalver y Cárdenas Bishop of Louisiana, of the two Floridas and Archbishop of Guatemala. One genealogy document is written in French.

Series 8: "Slavery" contains documents related to indentured servants and a dispute between enslavers.