In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Note on the Sources The great bulk of the documentation for this book came from two places, the Archivo Historico Nacional in Bogota and the Archivo General de Indias in Seville. It is no exaggeration to affirm that the history of the Comuneros cannot be written without long periods of investigation in those two famed depositories. The greatest single treasure of the Archivo Historico Nacional is eighteen bound volumes of manuscripts entitled "Los Comuneros." It is particularly rich in the documentation of events in New Granada, especially the correspondence exchanged among the Comunero chieftains themselves and with the authorities in Bogota. The other extensive holdings of the national archives only fill in important details about the crisis of 1781. This solid core of documentation was bound thanks to the foresight of German Arciniegas when he served as minister of education in the government of President Eduardo Santos. The second richest depository in Colombia, although more restricted in scope than the Comunero collection in Bogota, is the Archivo de la Notaria housed in the Casa de la Cultura in Socorro. That institution was founded with the enthusiastic sponsorship of Horacio Rodriguez Plata. This collection, consisting of some twenty-eight thick volumes covering the period from 1691 until 1802, contains many of the primary sources for the history of that community, notably dowries, wills, land sales, and sales of slaves. What it does not contain are the records of commercial transactions. The archive of the town of Socorro has not survived. The Academia Colombiana de Historia, the private collection of Jose Manuel Restrepo, the Lilly Library at Indiana University, and the British Museum also contain valuable documents, but most of them are duplicates that can be found in the Archivo Histdrico Nacional in Bogota or the Archivo General de Indias in Seville. In view of the dangers of piracy or the possibility of ships being captured in wartime, standard practice was to make duplicates of all correspondence exchanged between Bogota and Madrid, and one copy usually remained in either place. The documentation in Seville usually supplements the holdings in Bogota. Seville's treasure consists of the voluminous reports of the viceroys, the audiencia, and the regent visitor general dispatched to the central authorities in Spain. Many of these accounts also contain as appendices copies of correspondence exchanged in New Granada, many of which also exist in Bogota. Among the most useful sources are the following: Audiencia de Santa Fe 658-61, 696-700, 590-93, 573, 662, 663-A, 577-B, 594, 663-64. 249 ...

Share