Finding Aid to the Bancroft Reference Notes for Central America, circa
1870s-1890s
Processed by Carola DeRooy and Iris Donovan
The Bancroft Library
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720-6000
Phone: (510) 642-6481
Fax: (510) 642-7589
Email: bancref@library.berkeley.edu
URL: http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/
© 1999
The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
Finding Aid to the Bancroft Reference Notes for Central America, circa
1870s-1890s
Collection number: BANC MSS B-C 9
The Bancroft Library
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720-6000
Phone: (510) 642-6481
Fax: (510) 642-7589
Email: bancref@library.berkeley.edu
URL: http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/
- Finding Aid Author(s):
- Processed by Carola DeRooy and Iris Donovan
- Finding Aid Encoded By:
- GenX
© 2010 The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
Collection Summary
Collection Title: Bancroft reference notes for Central America
Date (inclusive): circa 1870s-1890s
Collection Number: BANC MSS B-C 9
Collector:
Bancroft, Hubert Howe,
1832-1918
Extent:
Number of containers: 10 cartons
Linear feet: 12.5
Repository: The Bancroft Library.
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720-6000
Phone: (510) 642-6481
Fax: (510) 642-7589
Email: bancref@library.berkeley.edu
URL: http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/
Abstract: Consists of bibliographic and reference notes pertaining to and
used in preparation of v. 6-8 of Hubert Howe Bancroft's History of the Pacific states of
North America. His research notes track the initial contact by Europeans with the land and
native people of Darien (Panama), Belize, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, the Mosquito
Coast, Salvador, Yucatan, and Peru, including various political, social, religious, and
economic upheavals, changes, and developments in each country or region between the 1490s
and the 1880s. The references draw heavily on the Alphonse Pinart collection of books and
manuscripts purchased by Bancroft and cataloged into his collection in 1883. The variation
in scripts found in these handwritten notes provide evidence of the team of researchers
employed by H.H. Bancroft.
Languages Represented: Collection materials are in English
Physical Location: Many of the Bancroft Library collections are stored offsite
and advance notice may be required for use. For current information on the location of these
materials, please consult the library's online catalog.
Information for Researchers
Access
Collection is open for research.
Publication Rights
Materials in this collection may be protected by the U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17,
U.S.C.). In addition, the reproduction of some materials may be restricted by terms of
University of California gift or purchase agreements, donor restrictions, privacy and
publicity rights, licensing and trademarks. Transmission or reproduction of materials
protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of
the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be commercially exploited
without permission of the copyright owner. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively
with the user.
All requests to reproduce, publish, quote from, or otherwise use collection materials
must be submitted in writing to the Head of Public Services, The Bancroft Library,
University of California, Berkeley 94720-6000. See:
http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/reference/permissions.html .
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], Bancroft Reference Notes for Central America, BANC MSS B-C 9,
The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley
Related Collections
Library
Hubert Howe Bancroft, Records of the Library and Publishing Companies, BANC MSS B-C 7
Hofmann & Curtis Architects, Specifications … in the erection of a … library building for H. H. Bancroft, 1881, BANC MSS 73/122
c: [no.] 64
Catalogue of the Bancroft Library of Pacific Coast Books, Maps, and Manuscripts, BANC MSS B-C 4
William Henry Knight, Bancroft Library MS Scrapbooks, 1860-64, BANC MSS C-E 200
San Francisco Bulletin index, 1855-1872, BANC MSS B-C 2
Publishing Companies
Hubert Howe Bancroft,
In these Latter Days, BANC MSS B-A 1
John S. Hittell,
A History of the City of San Francisco, 1878, BANC MSS 90/19 c
History Company.
The History Company periodical index, BANC MSS B-C 3
Hubert Howe Bancroft, Letters and papers from Mexico, 1886-91, BANC MSS M-M 384
Porfirio Diaz Collection of Papers, 1881-93, BANC MSS M-M 392
Hubert Howe Bancroft, Authorities quoted in the
History of California, BANC MSS B-C 1
Thomas Savage, Report of labors in archives and procuring material for the
History of California, 1876-79, BANC MSS C-E 191
Hubert Howe Bancroft, Preliminary notes and plans for the
Pioneer Register, BANC MSS C-E 170
Hubert Howe Bancroft, Correspondence relating to the
History of Oregon, 1863-1889, BANC MSS P-A 169
Hubert Howe Bancroft, Correspondence, BANC MSS C-B 362
Bancroft Reference Notes for the Western States, excluding California, BANC MSS B-C 8
Bancroft Reference notes for Mexico, BANC MSS B-C 10
Bancroft Reference notes for British Columbia and Alaska, BANC MSS B-C 11
Bancroft Reference notes for California, BANC MSS B-C 12
Bancroft Reference notes--Bibliography, BANC MSS B-C 13
Bancroft Reference notes on the conquest of Mexico, BANC MSS B-M 1
Bancroft Reference notes, BANC MSS 97/31 c
Bancroft Miscellaneous Newspaper Clippings, 1860-1890, BANC MSS B-C 14
Henry Cerruti, Sketches of the California Pioneers, BANC MSS C-E 65
Ivan Petroff, Journal of Trip to Alaska in Search of Information for the Bancroft Library, 1878, BANC MSS P-K 62
Harry Bishop Hambly, Information for the Bancroft Library, 1936, BANC MSS C-D 5081
Henry Lebbeus Oak, Correspondence and papers, BANC MSS C-B 387
Henry Lebbeus Oak, Letters from H.H. Bancroft and diary, 1874-87, BANC MSS 67/153
Frances Fuller Victor, Correspondence and notes relating to the History of Oregon, 1865-[ca. 1886], BANC MSS P-A 170
A.L. Bancroft & Co., Account of stock, Jan. 1, 1879, BANC MSS C-E 195
A.L. Bancroft & Co., Resolutions for the year 1890, BANC MSS C-E 196
Bancroft family
Albert Little Bancroft,
My Brother Hubert Howe Bancroft, 1907, BANC MSS 73/122 c:109
Hubert Howe Bancroft family papers, BANC MSS 73/64 c
Bancroft family, Family genealogical data, 1886-1907, BANC MSS 89/91 c
Hubert Howe Bancroft letters to his family, 1882-1918, BANC MSS 77/169 c
Indexing Terms
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the
library's online public access catalog
Belize--History
Central America--History
Costa Rica--History
El Salvador--History
Guatemala--History
Honduras--History
Mosquito Coast--History
Nicaragua--History
Panama--History
Peru--History
South America--History
West Indies--History
Yucatán (Mexico :
State)--History
Notes
Administrative Information
Acquisition Information
The Bancroft Reference Notes for Central America were part of the Bancroft Collection,
purchased by the University of Califoria in 1905.
Biographical Information
Hubert Howe Bancroft was born in Granville, Ohio on May 5, 1832. After working for some
time in the Buffalo, N.Y. book store owned by his brother-in-law, George H. Derby, Bancroft
came to California in 1852 to establish a West Coast outlet for the shop. In 1855, after
selling the initial stock, he went east and returned with sufficient books and stationery to
open a San Francisco store the following year. Within two years, his firm on Montgomery
Street began to grow into a publishing house, issuing such items as law books and legal
stationery, texts and maps for schools, and music and piano sales.
In 1860, as an outgrowth of assembling research materials for publication of a Pacific
Coast handbook, Bancroft began to collect regional writings: this was the beginning of his
unparalleled collection of books and manuscripts on the West. Within a decade he had 16,000
volumes, encompassing not only California and the Pacific Coast as the central focus, but
also British Columbia and Alaska to the north, the Rocky Mountains to the east, and Mexico
and Central American to the south, extending back in time from the native Indian cultures of
all these regions and the subsequent era of Spanish control. The collection continued to
grow as a result of collecting trips to the east and Europe, as well as through extensive
purchases at a number of major auctions. Eventually it included not only books and
manuscripts, but pamphlets, maps, newspapers and other periodicals, and transcriptions of
manuscripts made by his corps of copyists from originals still in private hands or in
government and church archives. Bancroft and his staff also created original materials by
interviewing pioneers whose recollections might not otherwise have been preserved, resulting
in hundreds of early oral histories termed "dictations".
By 1868, a move became necessary to relieve overcrowding in Bancroft's expanding
and prosperous Montgomery Street headquarters. He bought property on Market Street near
Third, and began to build in 1869. In April 1870, the completed five-story building boasted
a modernized steam engine in the basement to provide power for the printing presses. The
first four floors accommodated nine departments, including wholesale and retail books, and
stationary, music, law, and education sales; a subscription department; and a printing,
bindery, and blank book production division. The fifth floor of the new Bancroft Building
was a literary workshop, completely divorced from the business, where Bancroft's
collections could be put to use. He engaged Librarian, Henry Lebbeus Oak, to catalog the
works he had acquired.
Bancroft continued to collect materials as he planned a vast publication project of a
series of histories of western North American, which in the end numbered 39 volumes:
the History of the Pacific States of North America, also known as
Bancroft's
Works. First were five volumes on The Native Races
(1874-1875), then three volumes on the History of Central America and six more on the
History of Mexico, followed by two volumes on the Northern Mexican States and Texas, and one
treating Arizona and New Mexico. All of these preceded his central topic, a seven-volume
History of California (1886-1890), which were followed by nine more volumes on other parts
of the west, and a number of more informal works, including
Literary Industries,
the author's biography.
Bancroft's ten year marriage to his beloved wife, Emily Ketchum Bancroft, ended
upon her death in 1869. Left alone to raise their daughter, Kate, born in 1860, Bancroft
devoted his energies to family and literary productions. He placed the full responsibility
of managing the business interests of the firm with his younger brother, A. L. (Albert
Little) Bancroft, creating a new partnership in 1860 under the title, A. L. Bancroft and
Company. The business expanded and prospered under A. L. Bancroft's direction until
a fire destroyed the Bancroft Building and its contents in 1886. Old resentments and
quarrels erupted following the traumatic event which eventually severed the brothers
personal and professional relationships.
Fortunately, the library (referred to as both the Bancroft Library and the Pacific Library)
was spared. In 1881, it had been moved from the fifth floor of the Market Street location to
a specially constructed fire-proofed brick building on Valencia Street. Following the fire
and dissolution of his partnership with A. L. Bancroft in 1886, Hubert Howe Bancroft formed
two new companies: The History Company, and the Bancroft Company. In August 1887, under
these new imprints, the production, publication, and marketing of Bancroft's
Works resumed in the rebuilt quarters at 723 Market Street, known
thereafter as the History Building.
Throughout the West, Bancroft's numerous sales agents continued to sell
subscriptions to his
Works and the seven-volume
Chronicles of the
Builders.
Following a successful marketing campaign which secured orders for more
than 6,000 sets of volumes during the 1870's and 80's, the canvassing
effort was abandoned in 1892. In the late 1880's, Bancroft's methods for
writing and marketing his
works came under attack by literary critics and
several of his former employees, including Mr. Henry Oak and Mrs. Francis Fuller Victor. Oak
and Victor claimed authorship for major portions of the Works that were credited solely to
Bancroft, calling the historian's methods and reputation into question. The retail
book and stationary store finally closed its doors in 1894, after a long and bitter price
war had made the business unprofitable.
In 1905, Bancroft's accomplishments as an historian and collector were recognized
by the University of California. The institution purchased the book and manuscript
collections of the eminent historian, numbering over sixty-thousand items, for $250,000.
Although the collector contributed $100,000 of the purchase price, the contents of the
library had been appraised at twice the net cost to the University.
The History of
the Pacific States
won recognition as an indispensable work for students of
western history. The collection as a whole remains a distinguished primary source of unique
books, maps, pamphlets, and documents on the early history of the West, from Alaska to
Central America.
In his later years, Bancroft wrote several volumes
(Retrospection, The New Pacific,
In These Latter Days)
expressing his political, moral, economic, and social
concerns for a modernizing world. On March 3, 1918, at the age of 86, Hubert Howe Bancroft
died at his home, having been struck by a street car several days earlier. He was survived
by his daughter, Kate, and his four children (Paul, Philip, Griffing, and Lucy Bancroft) by
his second wife, Matilida Griffing Bancroft. They were married in 1876 and she predeceased
him in 1910.
Sources
-
Harry Clark,
A Venture in History: The Production, Publication, and Sale of
the Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft.
University of California Press,
1973.
-
John Walton Caughey,
Hubert Howe Bancroft, Historian of the West.
University of California Press, 1946.
-
The Bancroft Library, University of California,
The Bancroft Collection of
Western and Latin Americana
, June 4, 1998,
http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/collections/bancroft.html .
Scope and Contentof Collection
The Bancroft Reference Notes for Central America, ca. 1870s-1890s, consist of bibliographic
and research notes pertaining to and used in the
History of Central America,
volumes 6-8, of Hubert Howe Bancroft's,
History of the Pacific
States of North America.
The research notes as a whole track the initial contact
by Europeans with the land and native people of Darien (Panama), Belize, Costa Rica,
Guatemala, Honduras, the Mosquito Coast, Salvador, Yucatan, and Peru. The notes follow in a
chronological manner various political, social, religious, and economic upheavals, changes,
and developments in each country or region between the 1490s and the 1880s.
The Central American notes draw heavily on the Alphonse Pinart collection of books and
manuscripts purchased by Bancroft and cataloged into his collection in1883. These notes
reflect many primary sources, such as ship logs and church correspondence. Secondary source
notes, focus on the relationship between sixteenth century European monarchs, the explorers
they financed, and their impact on and interactions with rebellious and subdued natives of
various regions. These notes include sources of correspondence, biographical materials, and
histories of conquistadores such as Cortez, Drake, and Pizzaro and other Europeans as well
as the economic developments made possible by their establishment of ports, regular shipping
and mail routes, and later railroads throughout Central America. A body of notes document
sources and information concerning the politics and construction of the Panama Canal.
Notably, the variation in scripts found in these handwritten notes provide evidence of the
team of researchers employed by H.H. Bancroft. While the assistants compiled notes using a
systematic method of topic research, Bancroft himself collated and edited the notes, often
in a literal cut-and-paste fashion. In this manner, he carefully documented the sources he
intended to draw upon and quote as authorities while constructing chapter outlines and
textual drafts for the
History of Central America volumes.
Series 1:
Bibliographic and Research Notes
circa 1870s-1890s
Physical Description:
Cartons 1-10
Arrangement
Arranged alphabetically by country, and then chronologically, except for Inter-ocean
communications, which follows at the end.
Content/Description
The majority of notes were taken from manuscripts and books which were part of
Bancroft's collection during the years 1870 to 1890. Bibliographic notes
include title, author, volume, and page citations. Many notes are simple, 1- to 4-line
summaries of a specific region, with the date noted in the left hand margin. Research
notes of one to ten pages are transcriptions or summaries relating to historical events
or persons. Inter-ocean communication notes deal with the exchange of information
between explorers and the Spanish Crown concerning sea-routes and maps, and also include
notes on shipping developments, mail, the establishment of ports, and the developments
leading to the building of the Panama Canal.
"Paper bag files" refer to samples of the flat, brown paper bags
which Bancroft used as a systematic method of organizing and storing his volumnious
research notes.
carton 1, folder 24
Early discoveries.
undated
carton 1, folder 27
Christopher Columbus.
1491
undated
carton 1, folder 29
Laws of the Indians.
undated
carton 2, folder 16
Ecclesiastical.
1500-1600
carton 8, folder 13-14
Drake's expeditions.
1572-1596
carton 9, folder 2
Early explorations.
ca. 1500s
carton 9, folder 3
Political disruptions.
1544-47
Inter-Ocean Communications
carton 10, folder 6-8
Nicaraguan Route.
1551-1885
carton 10, folder 19
Miscellaneous.
1884
undated
