Mexican Records Collection, 1586-approximately 1857

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Summary

Abstract:
This collection contains 92 legal, military, religious, and genealogical records (often incomplete fragments) related to colonial and national Mexico and Guatemala, dating from 1586 to 1857. The bulk of the records are legal and contractual, including wills, testimonies, inheritance cases, power of attorney contracts, and financial agreements between individuals and/or institutions.
Extent:
92 items in 5 boxes + oversize envelope
Language:
Spanish.

Background

Scope and content:

The chronologically-arranged documents demonstrate the range of legal, administrative, ecclesiastical, military, and genealogical records initiated by government representatives, lawyers, litigants, clerics, and laypersons from the late sixteenth century to the middle of the nineteenth century. The bulk of the records are legal and contractual, including wills, testimonies, inheritance cases, power of attorney contracts, and financial agreements between individuals and/or institutions. Administrative and ecclesiastical records mostly include appointments to secular and religious offices as well as some Inquisition and genealogical documents. Military records document pensions, compensations, and other payments made by the Royal Treasury to former military officers.

Prominent persons and places of colonial and national Mexico and Guatemala are represented in the collection, such as:

  • The Franciscan Province of San Diego de Mexico, the religious community that was the subject of Baltazar de Medina’s 1682 Chronica de la Santa Provincia de San Diego.
  • Juan Francisco de Güemes y Horcasitas, first count of Revillagigedo and viceroy of New Spain from 1746–1755.
  • Juan Nazario Peimbert, lawyer who proposed the formation of an Indian army in the event of a French invasion in 1809; founder of the “Mexican Seat of News Important to the Public” in 1803; and later member of the Guadalupes.
  • Seventeenth-century Regina Coeli, San Lorenzo, Santa Clara de Jesús of Queretaro, and Santa Isabel Convents, which functioned as banking institutions, evident in the depositos and censos contained in this collection.
  • Juan Antonio de Vizarrón, Archbishop of Mexico and Viceroy of New Spain from 1734- 1740.

An alphabetical listing of names (“Name Index”) is also included in this finding aid to assist researchers in finding specific persons.

Note: Originally part of the Mexican Inquisition Papers, this collection contains documents that are highly mutilated, fragmented, and incomplete. When possible, dates, participants, and contents were derived based upon available information and placed in brackets.

Acquisition information:

Gifts of W. F. Stuart-Menteth, 1932 and Walter Douglas, 1944.

The collection was a part of two gifts that constitute the Huntington’s Mexican Inquisition Papers, 1525-1822. Note: in the Finding Aid for the Huntington’s Mexican Inquisition Papers, Stuart-Menteth is occasionally referred to as “W.E. Stuart-Menteth.” Also, the same document cites the years of Walter Douglas’s gift to the Huntington as 1944 and 1946.

Processing information:

Arrangement:

Arranged chronologically.

Rules or conventions:
Finding aid prepared using Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Access and use

Restrictions:

Open to qualified researchers by prior application through the Reader Services Department. For more information, contact Reader Services.

Location of this collection:
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108, US
Contact:
(626) 405-2191
reference@huntington.org
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