Saturday, November 24, 2012

Guide to the Sources in the Netherlands for the History of Latin America

Roessingh, M.P.H., Guide to the Sources in the Netherlands for the History of Latin America, The Hague: Government Pub. Office, 1968.

Reviewed in The Hispanic American Historical Review © 1969.

This guide provides a survey of the sources (documents, manuscripts, maps and topographical reproductions) in the Netherlands for the history of Latin America. The area dealt with covers all of Central and South America together with the islands belonging to the relative countries, the southern states of the United States up to the time they joined the Union, and the Philippines. The period dealt with is from the discovery of America up to 1914, or, as regards the Philippines and Puerto Rico, to 1898. In certain cases the terminus ante quem has been shifted nearer the present day, for example, if an archive or collections contains important documents from both before and after 1914 or a consecutive series of correspondence, etc, continues beyond 1914 and 1898 respectively.
The guide is subdivided according to the organization of the Dutch archives. This means that the most important repository for the purposes of the guide, the General State Archives, is dealt with first of all. The logical consequence is, therefore, that a number of archives deposited there are dealt with in the sequence laid down in the Survey 1953 (bibl. 23). The sequence of repositories of state archives is also in accordance with this Survey. Thereafter the municipal archives are dealt with in alphabetical order according to place-name. Chapter I also contains a list of certain departmental archives that have not been transferred. Chapter II deals with the archives of non-governmental institutions, which have been grouped systematically as far as possible. In Chapter III the libraries, museums and institutions which contain records relevant to this guide are dealt with alphabetically according to their location. Collections of maps of institutions already dealt with and of others are given in Chapter IV. Chapter V contains a brief communication on family archives and privately owned collections.

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