Archive chronicles Archives

NEP’s Archive Chronicles: Unexpected Archives. Exploring Student Notebooks at the Institut Fondamental d’Afrique Noire (IFAN) in Senegal

NEP’S Archive Chronicles explores the role archives play in historical research, offering insight into the process of conducting archival work and research. Each installment will offer a unique perspective on the treasures and challenges researchers encounter in archives around the world. NEP’s Archive Chronicles is intended to be both a practical guide and a space for reflection, showcasing contributors’ experiences with archival research. In ‘Unexpected Archives’ Michaela Feinberg writes about the Cahiers William Ponty, a collection of school book assignments produced by students in the early 20th century, through which she studies dance and performance art in Senegal.

I arrived at the Institut Fondamental d’Afrique Noire (IFAN) in Dakar, Senegal in December of 2023, six months into my dissertation research on the history of theater and dance in Senegal. My project explores theater and dance performance in Senegal under colonial rule and marks the ways that African artists creatively navigated and pushed the boundaries of a restrictive colonial system. I had spent my time in Senegal’s national archive tracing the development of dance and theater troupes in the 1950s and 60s. This line of inquiry brought me to an unexpected place – the École Normale William Ponty, which was a colonial all-boys school that educated a new African elite located in Sebikotane, Senegal. The school’s students would go on to become politicians, scholars, and artists; its alumni include Ivoirian president Félix Houphouet Boigny and renowned Guinean choreographer Keita Fodeba. Beginning in 1933, Ponty students began writing and performing plays that creatively rendered African histories and stories, combining dance, music, and dramaturgy. These early playwrights would coin a new genre of performance, théâtre africain d’expression française (African theater of French expression) whose influence would reach into the present.

The school was founded in 1903 in Senegal and aimed to prepare students for careers in colonial administration, teaching, or medicine. The school’s curriculum highlighted colonial anxieties about creating an elite class of Africans that was too alienated from their cultures to properly lead their communities and fulfill the colonial mission. To that end, Ponty students undertook assignmentsthat encouraged students to investigate their histories and cultures and discern values that could be developed in concert with the colonial project.

I visited IFAN to access one very specific collection in its library – the cahiers (or notebooks) that students produced each summer. When I began studying theater and dance, the last thing I expected to be doing was reading the summer assignments of the Ponty students. At the same time students began to write plays, they undertook a separate but (I suggest) interconnected assignment in the summer of their third year. As part of their final grade, they were asked to return home to their villages and produce cahiers (notebooks) on topics like cuisine, dreams, and music. These cahiers can be as long as 75 pages, all handwritten and beautifully illustrated. Students were clearly trained in ethnography and art and meticulously rendered images and descriptions of daily life. They were asked to be translators (often literally) of their cultures and experiences and make these things palatable and legible to their French instructors.

The library of IFAN holds hundreds of these cahiers in a discrete collection. The library collection doesn’t include other documents from the school which compelled me to spend all my time and energy into these assignments. When I arrived, I wasn’t sure if or how these cahiers would tie into my work on theater and dance. Was there a connection between the cahiers and the plays students were writing? What could I learn about dance and performance from these documents?

IFAN is located on Dakar’s scenic corniche in the Université Cheikh Anta Diop, just a 20 minute oceanside walk from my Fann Hock apartment. On its south facing wall is a large mural of renowned historian and politician Cheikh Anta Diop that looks as if it has been chiseled into the side of the building. The building houses three divisions – a library, the IFAN archive, and the audiovisual archive. I arrived there at a difficult moment – the university had been shut down for over a semester after political protests rocked the country in June 2023. Then-president Macky Sall had launched an increasingly desperate and violent bids for an unconstitutional third term, igniting protests throughout the country. IFAN was mostly empty when I arrived along with a colleague, and a sign on the library door read CLOSED in red marker. The archivist I met with initially was relieved we’d be in Dakar long term since receiving permission to access the archives could take weeks.

I wrote three letters each to the director of IFAN requesting access to each department and handed them in to the building’s mailroom when the director proved elusive. Unlike Senegal’s national archive which doesn’t require special permission, my letter had to make its way through IFAN’s bureaucracy before being approved and forwarded to myself and the archivists. Two weeks later, I received separate emails that put me in contact with archivists in each department and indicated I had permission to access the collections.

When I arrived at the library on the ground floor of IFAN, I was the only researcher there. I met with the archivist who quickly revealed himself to be a dance enthusiast, and I had many conversations in the next few months about my research and the documents I was looking at. Like me, he was unsure of how exactly the cahiers would be relevant to my project but brought me a finding aid and pointed me towards the notebooks on art and music. After signing up for a library card, I was given a thick stack of papers that listed every cahier by student name. The number of topics that students wrote on was overwhelming. I quickly decided that trying to read a large volume of cahiers was unrealistic and chose a smaller subset to home in on. The prompts of “musical instruments,” “African literature,” and “indigenous arts” seemed the most promising.

Picture of one of the cahiers held in the Senegal national archive — One of the few cahiers held in Senegal’s national archive (Keita Modibo, “L’enfant Saraholle,” 1935-1936, Série O: Education, 556(31) Devoirs d’élèves de Ponty, Archives Nationales du Sénégal). *Picture taken by the author*.

The first cahier I requested was titled Instruments de musique by Baba Male, a student from Koutiala, Mali (then French Soudan). The notebook was covered in newspaper with World War II headlines: The Allied air offensive; Allied raids on Austria; The total occupation of Cassino is only a matter of hours away! On the title page was a full color drawing of a jaunty chasseur (hunter) performing a hunting dance with a rifle in hand. He has a cigarette in his mouth and a small smile as he looks out at the reader. His yellow pointed shoe is poised to step forward and his blue boubou flows around him. He is accompanied by three drummers (whose drums Male will go on to diagram later) and a group of women clapping along. The scene is saturated in purples, oranges, blues, and yellows. Throughout the notebook, Male meticulously diagrams each musical instrument, allowing me to return to this illustration and recognize each drum.

Photography is not allowed at all in the archive, so the process of transcribing these documents is long and often difficult. But it feels fitting, like an acknowledgement of the work that these students put into their assignments. Attending to every word, image, and subheading rather than simply photographing the whole document and moving on is meditative. That first day, I was so captivated by the image of the dancer that I made a (poor) sketch in my own notes in the hopes of capturing the sense of movement and directionality the student was able to create. I wanted to remember the sense of motion and emotion of the image and be able to describe it accurately in my writing. Deciphering the looped cursive (which often became difficult to read towards the end of the cahiers) made me acutely aware of how much time and effort had gone into this assignment.

Drawing made by author of a doodle in one of the cahiers

“Reading” dance in the archive is a challenging task, especially since colonial descriptions fall into racist tropes, describing “frenetic” and “primitive” movement and flattening and distinction between different dance techniques. Male’s illustration gives us a very different and much more detailed rendition. However, this kind of diagramming and categorization is also fraught. As I accessed the collection, I became hyperaware of how these cahiers could be an often-disturbing window into how young students were asked to strategically devalue their cultures. Male praises the colonial project and lauds the French for their investment in “progressing” African art. This kind of evolutionist rhetoric permeates these documents. I found that there was a constant tension between the care students demonstrated when diagramming their cultures and the formulaic regurgitation of colonialist thinking. What are the possibilities and limits of these assignments? What did it mean for these young people to stand at the junction of colonial and African society and act as mediators of information? Are these documents simply performances of colonial ideologies? I am still thinking through these questions as I write my dissertation, but ultimately, I don’t think so. I think that the cahiers are intimate and creative evidence of students grappling with their new roles in the colonial order.

What started as an experimental foray into the archives of the Ponty school in the end completely changed the trajectory of my dissertation project. I returned to IFAN in February of this year to continue my work with this collection. The university is no longer deserted, and the library is full of students and researchers. It is easy to be overwhelmed by the scale of this archival collection. I hope that, by zooming into a small selection of cahiers, I can highlight the details and take seriously the ways that these students were proposing an enacting a new artistic practice, one that would reverberate for decades to come.

Michaela is a PhD candidate at Yale University. Her dissertation explores the politics of Senegalese dance and theater from the colonial period to independence. Her work synthesizes diverse archival sources, including plays, performance programs, and colonial administrative documents.

The views and opinions expressed in this article or video are those of the individual author(s) or presenter(s) and do not necessarily reflect the policy or views of the editors at Not Even Past, the UT Department of History, the University of Texas at Austin, or the UT System Board of Regents. Not Even Past is an online public history magazine rather than a peer-reviewed academic journal. While we make efforts to ensure that factual information in articles was obtained from reliable sources, Not Even Past is not responsible for any errors or omissions.

NEP’s Archive Chronicles: Pensar el archivo hasta no ver. Ceguera y redes afectivas

NEP’S Archive Chronicles explora el papel que desempeñan los archivos en la investigación histórica, ofreciendo una visión del proceso de trabajo e investigación archivística. Cada entrega ofrecerá una perspectiva única de los tesoros y retos que los investigadores encuentran en los archivos de todo el mundo. Crónicas de archivo de NEP pretende ser tanto una guía práctica como un espacio para la reflexión, mostrando las experiencias de los colaboradores con la investigación archivística. En esta entrega de las NEP’s Archive Chronicles, publicada en inglés y español, Juan David Osorio Vargas piensa el el archivo hasta no ver, así como la ceguera y las redes afectivas

Note: Click here to access the English version.
Nota: Haz click aquí para acceder a la versión en inglés.

Jacques Derrida nos dice que existen, fundamentalmente, dos tipos de experiencias que son muy diferentes entre sí.[1] Una de ellas se establece en el presente y se refiere a aquello que podemos neutralizar con nuestros ojos. En este caso, una de las funciones del ojo es ver venir, anticiparse ante lo desconocido o ante la presencia de lo otro. Esta constituye una de las dos experiencias posibles. La otra, que quiero profundizar a continuación, es la experiencia de la ceguera. Es aquella que traza un viaje inesperado, imprevisible y abierto hacia la heterogeneidad de lo otro, ese otro que está allí para sorprendernos. Se trata, precisamente, de un viaje no programable, una cartografía de lo indeterminado, carente de finalidad. Es la experiencia del presente que nos remite a la incertidumbre de un evento histórico.

Como historiador ciego, estoy convencido de que las formas de conocimiento organizadas por otros sentidos son valiosas en sí mismas. La pregunta de si el historiador ciego puede acceder a los materiales del mundo visual tiene una respuesta afirmativa. Podemos trazar un lenguaje con estas características si ampliamos significativamente el alcance democratizador del archivo, así como las preguntas que lo rodean, mediante tecnologías de compensación que aseguren que la traducción de un registro a otro no pierda su estatus de legitimidad.

Quien se enfrenta al archivo atraviesa la experiencia de la ceguera. No todos los historiadores tienen ojos para ver venir por adelantado. El archivo nos enseña que, cada vez que entramos en él, se torna más incontenible y ajeno. Si partimos del segundo concepto de experiencia, podemos percatarnos que el archivo es un viaje sin horizonte aparente, con vista a lo que no está a la vista, una idea que se aproxima profundamente a la práctica del historiador.

El archivo es la experiencia de la ceguera porque no podemos anticiparlo. No sabemos con qué nos sorprenderá ni a través de qué nueva tecnología o pregunta nos responderá. Mucho se ha hablado del silencio de los archivos y de las borraduras que contiene, pero poco se ha reflexionado sobre la cualidad de la ceguera que habita en ellos y sobre la relación que establece con la visibilidad.

El verano pasado, mientras realizaba investigación de archivo en Colombia y Panamá, me encontré con esta realidad: no bastaba con ser ciego y vivir la doble experiencia de la ceguera para enfrentar el archivo, pues el habla también implica, estructuralmente, la no visión. Y es el habla mi primer acercamiento al archivo. Pareciera que aquellas voces familiares, que no se ven, son la realidad inmediata de su presencia. Percibo palabras que pueden interesarme. Hago una pregunta y me encuentro con el silencio. El archivo, otra vez, está mudo. Mi mamá se esfuerza por encontrar la palabra que busco en un documento que se está haciendo polvo, pero ella tampoco la ve. Nos quedamos a tientas. Estamos ciegos.

Reflexionaba sobre como esa materialidad podía actuar y hablarme para que yo pudiera interrogarla con mis indicios e intuiciones. Percibí el archivo como ese dispositivo irremediable que debemos transitar para llegar a algún lugar del pasado o del conocimiento histórico, de una manera similar a como concibo el bastón que, día a día, me permite tantear los espacios aún desconocidos que atravieso al caminar. La naturaleza de esta experiencia es la aprehensión: esa propiedad que habilita el desplazamiento entre la voz y el archivo, análoga al espaciamiento de la relación coordinada entre la mano y el bastón.

Considero que las múltiples mediaciones que permiten acceder al archivo son tecnologías que ayudan a comprender aquello que se revela. Representan una suerte de antropología muy antigua de la captura del mundo, cuya función es la de reducir la complejidad o familiarizar lo desconocido. Estas formas descargan el extrañamiento que produce la distancia temporal y la imposibilidad de leer un testimonio del pasado a través de la biología misma de los ojos. Estas tecnologías múltiples deben ser entendidas como partes constitutivas de las redes de lectura, interpretación y trabajo que ejecutan la práctica del historiador: voces que comunican sus trazos, grafos y huellas. Permitamos, entonces, que las tecnologías que circundan al archivo también hablen, rodeándolo críticamente. Son esas voces -como la de mi madre, mi padre y amigos- las que intentan hacer hablar al archivo en una red compleja de pregunta, respuesta e interpretación; un círculo hermenéutico que refuerza creativamente esta experiencia del no ver.

Más que cualquier técnica contemporánea relativa a la digitalización masiva o a la utilización de la inteligencia artificial, es la proximidad de la voz lo que pone en presencia al archivo y lo acerca a la vida tanto de quien lee como de quien escucha. La ausencia de estas mediaciones es palpable y dramáticamente evidente en nuestra arquitectura archivística. La hegemonía de la visualidad parece gobernar la práctica del historiador, reforzando de manera positiva los hechos del pasado: lo que se lee es lo que es, y lo que registra el archivo se percibe como verdad.

Para quienes no vemos, sabemos que el archivo aparece desde el momento en que se accede a cualquier institución que custodia materiales y lleva su nombre. El archivo es todo este circuito material que lo sostiene. Su inaccesibilidad es un testimonio tangible de un tiempo pasado, con sus escaleras diseñadas para ciertos cuerpos, con ubicaciones en lugares que filtran ruido, y su ambiente predominantemente visual, desde el catálogo hasta el material de consulta, en su mayoría ilegibles para quienes no están inmersos en la lógica visual.

El archivo se inspira en las afecciones que lo hacen decir algo tras la experiencia imprevisible de la ceguera. De ahí que prescindir de los ojos no impide interrogarlo y hacerlo visible. Recuperando a Derrida, esta experiencia se presenta como una paradoja de la mirada, donde emerge un desacuerdo radical. Derrida nos invita a pensar en la elección que hacemos al mirarnos al espejo: debemos elegir entre mirar el color de nuestros ojos o mirar el influjo de la mirada que vemos. Parece que el archivo nos invita a reflexionar sobre esta paradoja. Podemos limitarnos a ver lo que nos dice o trazar el influjo de su mirada para interrogarlo y juzgarlo críticamente a través de la perspectiva. En cualquiera de estas alternativas no hace falta empezar con los ojos. El archivo nos aparece desde el comienzo en completa oscuridad; solo después emerge la mirada, con toda la potencialidad del encuadre.

La paradoja de este proceso radica en que la mirada que usamos para examinar el archivo necesita, desde el principio, un punto ciego. Aquello que iluminamos debe estar rodeado de una zona de ceguera, un borde que excluye lo inteligible del resto. Esta zona de indeterminación es el desafío que enfrenta la perspectiva: la visión de la mirada que, al enmarcar, selecciona.

Lo interesante es que no se necesitan ojos para complicar y hacer hablar al archivo: la mirada es el punto de vista de la selección, un régimen sensible que organiza la relación entre el ver y el no ver, o, dicho de otro modo, la teoría que ilumina las zonas de ceguera del pasado histórico.

La historia intelectual nos ha mostrado que el pensamiento se ha construido en torno a la metáfora de la visión.[2] Estamos permeados por su carga semántica y translaticia. Lo que yo propongo, siguiendo a Derrida, es pensar en el no ver, y creo que el archivo nos permite explorar esta singularidad. La ceguera plantea un conjunto de preguntas sobre la indeterminación de la historia. Son aquellos caminos de investigación que debemos emprender sin una carta de navegación. Por eso, la brújula de nuestra configuración antropológica nos impulsa a valorar la naturaleza de la pregunta y la respuesta tentativa.

Considero que emplear la ceguera como metáfora metodológica del archivo no solo tiene implicaciones interpretativas, sino que anima una agenda de investigación que puede ser fructífera para los estudiosos del archivo. En primer lugar, nos muestra las posibilidades sensoriales de los materiales del pasado, en una suerte de interdependencia de los sentidos como formas de conocimiento: tacto, visión, escucha, olfato; en segundo lugar, nos amplía la noción de accesibilidad y los públicos destinatarios del mismo, de acuerdo a una perspectiva democratizadora; y en tercer lugar, nos permite abordar las opacidades del archivo a través de una lectura enriquecida, planteando preguntas a tientas, respuestas provisionales, e interpretaciones nuevas.

Para cualquier desciframiento del archivo debemos enfrentarnos a la paradoja de la visión y la ceguera. Precisamente, el desafío al ocularcentrismo radica en esta paradoja: vemos sin mirar, y miramos seleccionando. Lo que propongo aquí es asumir el archivo como una experiencia de ceguera. Cubrámonos los ojos para recibirlo como un evento desconocido y singular, algo que no puede anticiparse ni percibirse por adelantado. Dejemos que la experiencia de la ceguera nos brinde la posibilidad de abordar el archivo en toda su complejidad, interrogándolo con todos los sentidos a nuestra disposición. Veámoslo desde el principio como un evento impredecible, imposible de agotar de una vez y para siempre.

Juan David Osorio Vargas es politólogo e historiador. Cursa una maestría en Estudios Latinoamericanos en UT Austin. Sus intereses de investigación incluyen las historias intelectuales de América Latina, las historias de la discapacidad y la política del cuerpo.

Los puntos de vista y opiniones expresados en este artículo o vídeo son los de su autor o presentador y no reflejan necesariamente la política o los puntos de vista de los editores de Not Even Past, el Departamento de Historia de la Universidad de Texas, la Universidad de Texas en Austin o la Junta de Regentes del Sistema de la Universidad de Texas. Not Even Past es una revista de historia pública en línea y no una revista académica revisada por pares. Aunque nos esforzamos por garantizar que la información de los artículos procede de fuentes fidedignas, Not Even Past no se hace responsable de errores u omisiones.

[1] Jacques Derrida, Thinking out of Sight. Writings on the Arts of Visible. The university Chicago Press, 2021, 35-36.

[2] Martin Hay, Downcast eyes. The Denigration of Vision in Twentieth-Century Thought French. University of California Press, 1993, 33.

NEP’s Archive Chronicles: Archives & Blindness

NEP’S Archive Chronicles explores the role archives play in historical research, offering insight into the process of conducting archival work and research. Each installment will offer a unique perspective on the treasures and challenges researchers encounter in archives around the world. NEP’s Archive Chronicles is intended to be both a practical guide and a space for reflection, showcasing contributors’ experiences with archival research. In this installment of NEP’s Archive Chronicles, published in English and Spanish, Juan David Osorio Vargas explores the connection between archives and blindness.

Nota: Haz click aquí para acceder a la versión en español.
Note: Click here to access Spanish version.

Jacques Derrida tells us that fundamentally there are two types of experiences.[1] One of them is anchored in the present and refers to what we can balance with our eyes. In this case, one of the functions of the eye is to foresee, to anticipate the unknown or the presence of the other. This constitutes one of the two possible experiences. The other, which I wish to explore in this article, is the experience of blindness. It is the one that charts an unexpected, unpredictable, and open journey toward the heterogeneity of the other—the other that is there to surprise us. It is, precisely, a journey that cannot be programmed, a cartography of the indeterminate, devoid of purpose. It is the experience of the present that connects us to the uncertainty of a historical event.

As a blind historian, I am convinced that forms of knowledge organized through other senses are valuable in themselves. The question of whether a blind historian can access materials from the visual world is met with a clear yes. We can develop a language with these characteristics if we significantly expand the democratizing reach of the archive, as well as the questions surrounding it, through compensatory technologies that ensure the translation from one record to another does not lose its legitimacy.

To engage with the archive is to undergo the metaphorical experience of blindness. Not all historians possess the vision to anticipate what lies ahead, for some navigate the past without sight. The archive teaches us that every time we enter it, it becomes more uncontrollable and unfamiliar. If we consider the Derrida’s second concept of experience, we can recognize that the archive is a journey without an apparent horizon, directed toward what is not visible—an idea that closely aligns with the practice of being a historian.

I say that the archive is the experience of blindness because we cannot anticipate it. We do not know what will surprise us or through what new technology or which questions it will respond. Much has been said about the silence of archives and the erasures they contain, but little thought has been given to the quality of blindness that resides within them and the relationship it establishes with visibility.

Last summer, while conducting archival research in Colombia and Panama, I encountered this reality: being blind and experiencing blindness in a dual sense was not enough to navigate the archive, as speech itself structurally implies non-vision. And speech is my first point of contact with the archive. It seems that those familiar voices, unseen, are the immediate reality of their presence. I perceive words that might interest me. I ask a question and am met with silence. Once again, the archive is mute. My mother strains to find the word I am looking for in a document crumbling to dust, but she cannot see it either. We are left groping in the dark. We are blind.

I reflected on how that materiality could act and speak to me so that I could question it with my clues and intuitions. I perceived the archive as that inescapable device we must navigate to reach a place in the past or historical knowledge, much like I conceive of my cane, which allows me to feel out the unknown spaces I traverse each day. The nature of this experience is apprehension—the quality that enables movement between voice and archive, analogous to the coordinated relationship between hand and cane.

I consider the negotiations that grant access to the archive as technologies that help us comprehend what it reveals. They represent a kind of ancient anthropology of capturing the world, serving to reduce complexity or make the unfamiliar more accessible. These forms alleviate the estrangement caused by temporal distance and the impossibility of reading a testimony from the past through the biology of our eyes alone. These multiple technologies must be understood as constitutive parts of the networks of reading, interpretation, and labor that underpin the historian’s practice: voices that communicate traces, graphs, and imprints. We should allow the technologies surrounding the archive to speak as well, critically engaging with it. It is these voices—which remind me of those of my mother, my father, and my friends—that strive to make the archive speak within a complex network of questioning, response, and interpretation; a hermeneutic circle that creatively reinforces this experience of not seeing.

More than any contemporary technique related to mass digitization or the use of artificial intelligence, it is the proximity of the voice that brings the archive into presence and draws it closer to the life of both the reader and the listener. The absence of these mediations is palpable and dramatically evident in our archival architecture. The dominance of visuality seems to govern the historian’s practice, positively reinforcing the facts of the past: what is read is, and what the archive records is perceived as truth.

For those of us who cannot see, the archive appears the moment we access any institution that houses materials and bears its name. The archive is the entire material circuit that sustains it. Its inaccessibility is a tangible testimony of a past time, with its stairs designed for certain bodies, its locations in spaces that filter sound, and its predominantly visual environment—from the catalog to the reference materials, most of which are illegible to those who, like me, are not immersed in the visual logic.

The archive is inspired by the affections that make it speak after the unpredictable experience of blindness. Hence, to be without sight does not prevent us from questioning it and making it visible. Drawing on Derrida, this experience is a paradox of sight, where a radical disagreement emerges. Derrida invites us to think about the choice we make when we look at ourselves in the mirror: we must choose between looking at the color of our eyes or looking at the influence of the gaze we see. The archive also invites us to reflect on this paradox. We can limit ourselves to seeing what it tells us or trace the influence of its gaze in order to question and judge it critically through perspective. In either case, we do not need to begin with the eyes. The archive initially presents itself in total darkness; it is only later that the gaze emerges, carrying with it the full potential of the frame.

The paradox of this process lies in the fact that the gaze we use to examine the archive inherently requires a blind spot from the very beginning. What we illuminate must be surrounded by a zone of blindness, a boundary that excludes the intelligible from the rest. This zone of indeterminacy is the challenge faced by perspective: the vision of the gaze that, in framing, selects.

It is striking is that eyes are not necessary to complicate and give voice to the archive. The gaze is the point of view of selection—a sensory regime that organizes the relationship between seeing and not seeing, or, in other words, the theory that illuminates the blind spots of historical memory.

Intellectual history has taught us that ideas have been constructed around metaphors of vision.[2] We are permeated by their semantic and metaphorical weight. What I propose, inspired by Derrida, is to think about the act of not seeing, and I believe the archive allows us to explore this singularity. Blindness raises profound questions about the indeterminacy of history, guiding us toward research paths that must be navigated without a predefined map. For this reason, the compass of our anthropological framework urges us to value the nature of the question and the tentative response.

I believe that framing blindness as a methodological metaphor for the archive not only carries interpretative significance but also fosters a research agenda with transformative potential for archival scholarship. First, it reveals the sensory possibilities of materials from the past, reflecting an interdependence of the senses as forms of knowledge: touch, vision, hearing, and smell. Second, it broadens the notion of accessibility and the intended audiences of the archive, aligning with a democratizing perspective. And finally, it enables us to address the archive’s opacities through a more nuanced reading, formulating tentative questions, provisional answers, and new interpretations.

Deciphering the archive requires us to confront the paradox of vision and blindness. The challenge to ocularcentrism lies precisely in this paradox: we see without looking, and we look by selecting. What I propose here is to embrace the archive as an experience of blindness. Let us cover our eyes and receive it as an unknown and singular event—something that cannot be anticipated or perceived in advance. Let the experience of blindness offer us the possibility of engaging with the archive in all its complexity, interrogating it with every sense at our disposal. Let us approach it from the start as an unpredictable event, one that can never be fully exhausted or definitively grasped.

Juan David Osorio Vargas is a political scientist and historian pursuing a master’s degree in Latin American Studies at UT Austin. His research focuses on Latin American intellectual histories, disability histories, and body politics.

[1] Jacques Derrida, Thinking out of Sight. Writings on the Arts of Visible. The university Chicago Press, 2021, 35-36.

[2] Martin Hay, Downcast eyes. The Denigration of Vision in Twentieth-Century Thought French. University of California Press, 1993, 33.

NEP’s Archive Chronicles: Tips for using PARES (Portal de Archivos Estatales)

NEP’S Archive Chronicles explores the role archives play in historical research, offering insight into the process of conducting archival work and research. Each installment will offer a unique perspective on the treasures and challenges researchers encounter in archives around the world. NEP’s Archive Chronicles is intended to be both a practical guide and a space for reflection, showcasing contributors’ experiences with archival research. This article, part of a two-part series by Diana, focuses on three tips for using PARES, the digital platform of the Archive of the Indies in Spain.

In the first part of this archive chronicle, “”An experiential approach to the Archive of the Indies”, I discussed why PARES is the AGI’s front façade for virtually every researcher nowadays. Even though PARES is an online tool, my user experience changed significantly once I was in the reading room. After months of searching for references and organizing them, I thought I had mastered PARES through Scott Cave’s helpful guide. But I was humbled during the first week at the archive when it became obvious that PARES does not reflect the entire holdings or archival organization of the AGI. This is certainly true for any archive or collection. Still, I did learn a few tricks along the way that changed how I approached the archive and its online catalog. This piece has three how-to’s in PARES to help make the research experience easier for researchers.

1) How to explore the AGI’s numerous subsections or how to use PARES like a print catalog

Most of the search results I initially got from PARES were located in the section of Contratación. However, this is the archive’s largest section with close to six thousand legajos and fifty-one sections. When I finally started consulting some of these references, I wondered why most of them came from “Autos entre partes” (litigation between private parties). Did this mean that this subsection was described in greater detail than others? What else was out there in this immense section?

Two PARES features make it easier to answer these questions:

Clicking on “Location in the Archive Classification Scheme” shows where a document or section is located within the archive.

If we click on any of the hierarchical locations, it will open a new tab or window where we can see how many units a section has and a broad description of its contents.

In this case, the subsection of “Autos entre Partes” has 207 legajos, but the Content and Structure section does not provide a substantial description. For many other archival sections, there might be a finding aid on the index file that lists references to print catalogs which you can consult at the AGI’s reading room. Identifying these broader archival sections along with the legajo range they cover is quite handy when consulting microfilmed portions of the AGI. While now considered an almost defunct technology, it is important to remember that several libraries across the Americas have AGI microfilms such as the Benson Latin American Collection, the Bancroft Library, or the Eusebio Dávalos Library at Mexico’s National Anthropology Museum.

Once we click on “207 units more”, I recommend sorting the Description Unit by Reference number. This places the oldest legajo on top of the list and allows you to systematically review the section. I also like to use the “text filter” to make targeted searches within a single description unit.

2) How to find digitized files that do not look like they have been digitized

One of the best tips an AGI archivist shared with me was how to find apparently non-digitized documents from bound volumes known as libros. For example a reference with a geographical marker (e.g. Lima, Guatemala, Charcas, Indiferente) and an L such as MEXICO,1064,L.2,f.283r-283v indicates it comes from libros on the Gobierno section (including Indiferente). While the description and digitization of these books is almost complete, they are not always subdivided by individual files in PARES.

Here’s an example of a book that is clearly subdivided and can be easily accessed by clicking on “View Images”.

The reference below, however, looks like it has not been digitized because it does not have the camera icon. But since it has an “L”, we can almost be sure it has been digitized. Expanding the “Location in the Archive Classification Scheme”, shows that its containing section has a fully colored camera icon (when a camera is gray, it means the section has been partially digitized).

Once we click on this location, it will open a new tab where we can access the fully digitized libro.

Now it is only a matter of clicking on “view images” and finding the folios from the original reference. Since the PARES viewer operates by image number, this means we have to multiply the folio number by two if it’s a verso folio and subtract 1 if it’s a recto folio. Our reference number (283r-283v) suggests the image number should be 565.

Sometimes this might not work precisely so you might need to skim through a few pages to find the specific page numbers.

3) How to start identifying relevant documents for your research

Compared to its earlier version, PARES 2.0 has two new tools that are a good starting point to explore a new topic: the Authorities Search and MetaPARES.

The Authorities Search works similarly to a subject search in a library catalog. The main difference is that the results will lead you to a virtual index file that lists at the end a list of the Spanish Archives where you can find your topic and the number of documents previously identified by archivists. This search is by no means comprehensive, but it is a good starting point. For instance, to know more about the bison found in New Mexico, an authorities search would be useful to identify the jurisdiction and place names used for this region during colonial times.

Screenshot of the AGI documents associated with the subject of New Mexico

Another tool that connects published and unpublished academic work to the holdings of the Spanish State Archives is MetaPARES. The goal of this portal is to refer researchers to secondary literature that cites Spanish Archives. The tool is still in development, but it is a good way to quickly become acquainted with Spanish scholarship and document collections.

The MetaPARES search for New Mexico lists four results. They are not many, but they are more targeted than your typical Google Scholar search and will likely be in Spanish.

It also goes without saying that learning Spanish paleography and early modern Spanish vocabulary is key to identifying relevant documents. There are many online tools and software such as the Dominican Studies Institute Paleography Tool, the Diccionario de Abreviaturas Novohispanas, or Transkribus that make this endeavor easier nowadays. Additionally, reading transcribed document collections and getting acquainted with the structure of Spanish bureaucratic documents will improve your own reading and comprehension of the materials you collect. Navigating the archives and documents of Colonial Latin America demands practice and patience, but this experience can be slowly built throughout the years and from afar. For me, it took about seven years, but it was worth the wait.

Diana Heredia-López is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at the University of Texas at Austin. Originally trained as a biologist in Mexico, she has specialized in the history of science and colonialism since 2012. Her current research examines dye cultivation and commerce as a framework to investigate early modern Hispanic extractivism, knowledge production, and material culture.

NEP’s Archive Chronicles: An experiential approach to the Archive of the Indies

NEP’S Archive Chronicles explores the role archives play in historical research, offering insight into the process of conducting archival work and research. Each installment will offer a unique perspective on the treasures and challenges researchers encounter in archives around the world. NEP’s Archive Chronicles is intended to be both a practical guide and a space for reflection, showcasing contributors’ experiences with archival research. This two-part installment explores the Archive of Indies in Spain and shares research tips on how to navigate its digital platform, PARES.

For nearly a decade, I experienced the largest imperial archive of the Americas from afar. In Mexico City, Guadalajara, and Austin I logged countless times onto a website called PARES (Portal de Archivos Estatales), a clunky but essential tool for those in need to peruse the Spanish State Archives. The most recent iteration of the PARES website allows you to create an account called a “Notepad” where you can save archival references and digitized documents. Below a selection of documents that I vowed to myself I would look in person one day:

Dibujo de un bisonte
Plano, elevación y perfil de una casa para habitación del Catedrático de Botánica
Alojanieve, pulperías, salinas y solimán
Consulta del Consejo de Indias
Ensalada de los Navegantes: Disertación phisicobotánico-médica

I have yet to see these documents.

Even though PARES contains the online catalog and millions of digitized documents from twelve archives, most of the items I have collected over the years come from a single repository, the Archivo General de Indias, known to most scholars as the AGI. In 2013, I did not understand what kind of archive the AGI was, let alone grasp the magnitude of its holdings. All I knew is that I had to visit someday if I wanted to become a respected Historian (una historiadora consagrada). Why such a visit was necessary truly escaped me. Up to that point, I had learned that historians of science worked mostly with print material and archives of renowned scientists and scientific institutions. As I tried to piece together the dispersal and loss of the visual culture produced in the Royal Botanical Expedition to New Spain, I longed to visit the Royal Botanical Garden of Madrid and its archive. This kind of repository was closer to the natural history collections I had known as an undergraduate while I worked at Mexico’s National Herbarium. And yet, I continued filling my PARES notepad with items from the Archive of the Indies and collecting archival references from the secondary literature I consulted.

It would take me at least another five years to learn why this archive was relevant to those studying the history of science and knowledge in the early modern Iberian world and beyond. Important books and scholars (including my own advisor and fellow colleagues) helped me understand that the Spanish Empire was held together by a large bureaucratic apparatus that was capacious enough to collect information about almost anything and anywhere. From taxes and commercial disputes to the number of trees planted in Chapultepec, the bundles of documents or legajos at the Archive of the Indies are a true unknown to the researcher, each carrying in their pages a unique blend of calamity, confusion, hope, excitement, and occasional boredom. However, finding what you need is rarely a straightforward journey. The AGI’s vast holdings are spread across seventeen main archival sections, including a relatively new addition listed in PARES as ADAGI (Archive of the Archive of the Indies). How then, does one determine where your archival journey should begin at the AGI?

Picture of boxes of Casa de Contratación for NEP's Archive Chronicles — *Figure 1. These boxes at the original building of the AGI, La Casa de Lonja, emulate the classic cover of a legajo. The archive’s reading room is now located at the Cilla del Cabildo building.* *Image taken by the author.*

The easiest and most practical answer lies, of course, in PARES. In principle, it should simply be a matter of compiling the archival references saved in one’s notepad and then tallying the sections that appear most frequently. For this purpose, one could use the thorough guides made by Scott Cave or recent ones posted on H-Net by William Cohoon and Grant Kleiser. Indeed, this is the method I initially followed in preparation for my dissertation research on the commerce and cultivation of New World dyes in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. My numerous PARES searches indicated that the section of the archive that dwelled on dyes was Contratación (commercial affairs, very broadly understood). Based on these references, I realized my time at the AGI would largely involve examining commercial disputes over dye shipments. To be honest, I was not thrilled by this prospect and thus decided to prioritize a different archival thread that drew me to the history of cochineal some years earlier.

Hailed as one of the largest exports from Colonial Mexico, cochineal is a red dye obtained from parasitic insect females that sap nutrients from its plant host, the prickly pear cactus or nopal. Archival materials about this dye are quite scattered but there are a few illustrated documents (Fig. 3) that explain how Indigenous laborers in Central and Southern Mexico aptly managed parasites, plants, and the landscape to produce a highly specialized dye at a large scale. Like other scholars before me, I was interested in this striking visual culture. This led me to pursue a distinct archival journey from the one charted by the results I had collected in PARES.

I. Through the archival weeds

Among historians, the Spanish State archives are notorious for their cumbersome and restricted approach to digitization. Until only recently, researchers were strictly forbidden from taking photos at the AGI and therefore had to request the archivists to digitize sections of the archive, a process that could take many months if not years. Yet, it would be surprising for many to hear that the AGI and other Spanish state archives were pioneers in digitization, launching PARES online fourteen years ago. From then on, researchers and accidental historians like me have been able to use this archive at a scale, speed, and distance unimaginable three decades ago. For better or for worse, virtually every scholar of Colonial Latin America now begins their archival journey with digitized documents from PARES, which account at best for about 10% of their holdings. The AGI has now fully digitized diverse subsections such as Listas de Pasajeros (located in Contratación), Patronato, most of the bound books in the Gobierno Section (see Part 2), and a good portion of illustrations, maps, and material culture contained in Mapas, Planos y Estampas (MP-Estampas).

Drawing of Bison found in documents of AGI - for NEP's Archive Chronicles — Figure 2. “Dibujo de un Bisonte”, MP-Estampas-1, Archivo General de Indias, ca. 1598. This bison, originally described as a “cow from Cíbola” was originally part of the 389 folio digitized file on Juan de Oñate’s exploits in New Mexico (Patronato,22,R.13), *shown below.*

Screenshot of PARES system for NEP's Archive Chronicles

It is in MP-Estampas where one can find a charming drawing of a bison originally sighted in the Zuni town of Hawikuh. This drawing brings into view something I completely missed when I first read an illustrated report on cochineal production in Yucatán located in this same section. The cropped version of the bison drawing suggests it was taken from a larger document. To fully understand its purpose, it is crucial to refer to its original location in Patronato. In contrast, the seventeenth-century dye production report, featuring an image of a prickly pear, appeared self-contained. I initially only verified that its associated documents in Guatemala’s section were fully digitized. However, many months later, when I took the time to look more carefully at the documents in the original location of the report, I finally asked the most important question about the prickly pear image: Why was a document referring to prickly pears in Yucatán deposited in the papers of Guatemala?

Image of text describing the process of cultivation of the grana or cochineal

17th century drawing of the process of cultivating the grana or cochineal

Figure 3. “Dibujo de la obtención de la grana o cochinilla”, MP-Estampas, 70, Archivo General de Indias, 1620. The illustration of the prickly pear cactus (nopal) is part of a brief report detailing how to cultivate these plants so they could sustain cochineal, an insect parasite that bore one of the most valuable red dyes in the early modern world.

Through this archival discovery I learned that I should not take digitized items from PARES for granted. Our time as researchers at the AGI seems so precious that we tend to prioritize legajos (bundles of documents)that are only available to consult in situ. Yet, it is also important to read in tandem relevant digitized documents for they might lead us to different sections of the archive. This is especially relevant for sections at the AGI that archivists curated long after the documents came to the archive such as MP-Estampas or Patronato. When documents are plucked out of the original trail that brought them to the archive, it is easy to miss what was their original purpose and the creators behind them.

My lack of diligence in reading digitized documents was compensated by my stubbornness to find out more about prickly pears in the Yucatán Peninsula. Since the report was one of the first documents that caught my attention when I first articulated my dissertation project, I was determined to find more about it. Yet, when I looked for traces about prickly pears or dyes in Yucatán, my PARES search results were disappointing. This is not entirely surprising as Yucatán was considered a remotely communicated region during Spanish colonial rule. But my inability to find relevant documents about my inquiry was rooted in the heterogeneous cataloging of the archive, not its remoteness. That is, the level of description of each legajo varies greatly across sections. There are legajos that archivists have thoroughly, or at least decently described, thus allowing for easy identification of relevant documents amidst hundreds of folios. Others, like many legajos from the infamous miscellaneous section of Indiferente General, have just a broad identification label with a range of years, sometimes without any geographic attribution.

Figure 4. Comparison between two legajos with contrasting levels of description: The left one lists correspondence from different viceroys in New Spain and has been fully digitized and organized by year. The right one is only available to consult in situ and covers over two-hundred years of Council and Board reports.

I decided to immerse myself into the world of scantily described legajos and started to look for anything remotely related to Yucatán. To navigate the heterogeneous cataloging of the AGI, I established the main coordinates of my search in terms of geography –any jurisdiction related to colonial Yucatán; people: any colonial bureaucrat related to prickly pears and cochineal; time frame: three decades before or after 1620, the year of the report. I also relied on three strategies: 1) use print catalogs to understand the organization of different archival sections; 2) look for archival clues and references on expert literature; 3) ask for help from the authors or readers of expert literature.

These somewhat obvious strategies allowed me to find numerous fragments scattered across various legajos in the sections of Gobierno and Escribanía. While there were many days when I poured over dozens of pages thinking I had not found a single thread, I came to realize that I needed this time to get acquainted with the archive and the voices spread across its sections. It taught me how to ask the archive better questions and start using PARES not as a fishing net to simply see “what’s out there”, but as a navigational chart.

II. Labyrinth shortcuts

My weeks-long search for Yucatán’s prickly pears was mostly successful because the AGI has an extraordinary scholarly community that extends beyond its walls at the Cilla del Cabildo building. The famous 11 am coffee break that AGI users take every day certainly captures the enthusiasm and collaborative spirit surrounding the archive. Even if one does not partake in this ritual every day, it is incredibly easy to meet local and international scholars working on a wide array of topics related to the Spanish Empire and the early Americas. I was lucky enough to meet two researchers working on Yucatán that pointed me to key legajos and kept an eye for anything related to my dissertation. Additionally, the in-site archive’s library, the Hispanic American School Library, and the unmatched expertise of local scholars became the best way to learn about other Spanish archives and become acquainted with new historiographies.

*Figure 5. Entrance of the Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos in Seville. Wikimedia Commons*

To venture into the archival weeds of the AGI, more than patience or resourcefulness, one needs time and money. A prolonged stay in Seville is cost- and time-prohibitive for most scholars. Thus, making the most of each archival visit is vital. Over the past decade, the Spanish State Archives have made substantial changes that have increased their accessibility: longer operating hours, self-digitizing initiatives, an online system to book appointments, and the use of WeTransfer to send digitized files. And while their implementation at the AGI has been slow, I cannot stress enough how transformative some of these have been. They allow for better planning and use of time in the reading room. There is still plenty to improve especially on the cataloging front. In the second part of this piece, I will share a few tips that helped me improve my use of PARES and understand better their cataloging and organization.

Now that the AGI has loosened its strict policies about digitization, scholars will not need to spend as much time in Seville as older generations of historians did. Those of us who had the privilege of making a long research stay at the AGI might fear that the increase of short visits and indiscriminate use of cameras will erode the archive’s strong community. I do not know the AGI well enough to predict whether this will happen or not, but I do know that my colleagues’ love for coffee, gossip, and archival adventures is as timeless as the cover design of an AGI legajo. I do not expect to see a shortage of researchers sharing over coffee their grievances and archival finds any time soon.

NEP’s Archive Chronicles: Procesados e interrogados. Encontrando las voces de los Yaqui en los archivos judiciales de Sonora

Banner for Encontrando las voces de los Yaqui

NEP’S Archive Chronicles explora el papel que desempeñan los archivos en la investigación histórica, ofreciendo una visión del proceso de realización del trabajo archivístico y de investigación. Cada entrega ofrecerá una perspectiva única de los tesoros y retos que los investigadores encuentran en los archivos de todo el mundo. NEP’s Archive Chronicles pretende ser tanto una guía práctica como un espacio de reflexión, en el que se expongan las experiencias de los colaboradores con la investigación archivística. En esta pieza, Raquel Torúa Padilla escribe de su experiencia encontrando las voces de los Yaqui a través de los archivos judiciales de Sonora.

Note: Click here to access English version
Nota: Haz click aquí para acceder a la versión en inglés

En mi búsqueda por entender la historia de los pueblos indígenas de Sonora, me he enfrentado a constantes desafíos para acceder a fuentes que reflejen auténticamente sus experiencias y perspectivas. Los registros históricos escritos por las poblaciones indígenas en el noroeste de México son escasos y difíciles de encontrar, particularmente aquellos anteriores al siglo XX. Para ese periodo, la mayoría de los individuos indígenas eran analfabetas, no hablaban el idioma de los colonizadores y carecían de recursos y medios para documentar sus pensamientos y sentimientos. Como resultado, nuestra comprensión de la historia indígena depende en gran medida de relatos escritos por personajes no indígenas, como misioneros, exploradores, figuras políticas o militares. Aunque en ocasiones podemos tropezar con valiosos documentos escritos por los propios nativos, como cartas de personas letradas, estos hallazgos tienden a ser excepcionalmente raros.

Me he interesado particularmente en la historia del pueblo Yoeme, mayormente conocido como Yaqui. Los yaquis conforman uno de los grupos indígenas más numerosos de lo que ahora se conoce como el estado de Sonora, en el noroeste de México. A lo largo de los siglos, han tenido que enfrentarse a diferentes autoridades y gobiernos que han buscado despojarlos de sus tierras, autonomía e identidad. A pesar de los esfuerzos por exterminarlos durante el Porfiriato (1876 – 1911), los yaquis persisten y resisten hasta el día de hoy.

*Loreto Villa, Juan Maldonado, Hilario Amarillas, interprete yaqui. Ortiz, Sonora. Fuente: Memórica*

Como una solución al problema sobre las fuentes históricas, recientemente he recurrido a los archivos judiciales como una valiosa fuente alternativa para acceder a los testimonios indígenas. Hermosillo, la capital del estado de Sonora en el noroeste de México, alberga dos archivos públicos que contienen documentos jurídicos: el Archivo General del Poder Judicial del Estado de Sonora y el Archivo de la Casa de la Cultura Jurídica de la Suprema Corte de Justicia. Ambos archivos dividen sus colecciones en dos categorías: el archivo histórico, que contiene documentos creados antes de 1950, y el archivo de concentración, que incluye documentos producidos después de 1950.[1] Ambos fueron creados en el siglo XIX y se mantienen y financian hoy en día a través de fondos asignados por el gobierno estatal y el gobierno federal, respectivamente.

En los últimos años, me he dedicado a buscar en archivos históricos las voces del pueblo yaqui, especialmente del período conocido como la Guerra secular del Yaqui. Esta violenta etapa inició en 1824 bajo el liderazgo de Juan Banderas, un líder yaqui que se alzó contra el gobierno mexicano para defender su autonomía. El conflicto se agravó tras los proyectos liberales que buscaban privatizar las tierras comunales indígenas y, sobre todo, durante el Porfiriato, cuando se convirtió en una guerra de exterminio. Aunque apenas sobrevivieron a esos años, los yaquis continuaron su rebelión contra el gobierno hasta la década de 1930, cuando finalmente se rindieron tras ser ferozmente debilitados por las autoridades revolucionarias.

Aunque el contenido de ambos repositorios comparte similitudes, también hay diferencias notables emanadas de sus diferentes funciones y objetivos. Estas variaciones se manifiestan no solo en su contenido, sino también en la preservación, catalogación y facilidad de acceso a los documentos históricos. En este artículo, presento brevemente la historia de estos archivos y comparto mi experiencia de hacer investigación en ellos, y los resultados que podemos obtener.

*Grupo de indios yaqui. Ortiz, Sonora. Fuente: Memórica*

Pero antes de entrar a los archivos, es necesario que explique cómo funciona el sistema judicial en México y cómo el expediente de un caso particular puede terminar en un archivo u otro. Desde la Constitución de 1824 y la creación de los Códigos Penales, los delitos en México se han clasificado como de fuero común o de fuero federal. Los casos de derecho común se procesan en los tribunales locales o estatales, mientras que los delitos de derecho federal van a los juzgados de distrito. Si una persona acusada (por cualquier tipo de delito) siente que ha sido sentenciada de manera injusta, tiene dos opciones a su disposición. Primero, pueden presentar una apelación para una revisión de la sentencia en una segunda instancia. Si esto no tiene éxito, pueden buscar ampararse ante la ley, lo cual se lleva a cabo en tribunales colegiados o, si es necesario, en la Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nación.[2] Los delitos de fuero común son aquellos que afectan directamente a las personas, como el abigeato, el estupro, el robo, o infligir lesiones. Los expedientes de esos delitos (y de sus apelaciones, si se promovieron) se pueden encontrar en el Archivo General del Poder Judicial del Estado de Sonora (AGPJ). Los delitos de fuero federal, por otro lado, se definen como aquellos “que afectan el bienestar, la economía, el patrimonio y la seguridad de la nación”, como la sedición, el contrabando o delitos de inmigración.[3] La documentación relacionada con los delitos federales, así como cualquier proceso de amparo, se puede encontrar en el Archivo de la Casa de la Cultura Jurídica de la Suprema Corte de Justicia (ACCJ).

Columna de la antigua penitenciaría estatal. — *Antigua penitenciaría estatal. Edificio construido en su mayor parte por yaquis, que también serían encarcelados allí. Fotos tomadas por la autora.*

Armazón y escalera de la antigua penitenciaría estatal. — Detalle de la Penitenciaría Estatal.
Fotos tomadas por la autora

El archivo del Poder Judicial

El AGPJ, como todos los archivos, tiene su propia historia. Desde 1833, cuando el Estado de Occidente se dividió en Sonora y Sinaloa y se estableció la primera Constitución local en el estado, el decreto número 13 garantizó la permanencia de los Poderes Supremos, incluido el Supremo Tribunal de Justicia, en Hermosillo, junto con sus respectivos archivos. Más de un siglo después, en 1957, un nuevo decreto estableció un archivo especializado bajo la jurisdicción del Tribunal Supremo de Justicia para organizar y salvaguardar la documentación exclusiva del Poder Judicial del estado. La ley más reciente, de 1996, designó al AGPJ como un órgano auxiliar del Supremo Tribunal de Justicia, con el objetivo de profesionalizar y agilizar las operaciones del poder judicial.[4] Sin embargo los esfuerzos para identificar, catalogar y organizar la documentación no se han completado por cuestiones administrativas y de recursos.

Durante muchos años, la documentación de este archivo se mantuvo resguardada en el Archivo General del Estado de Sonora (AGHES), en la calle Garmendia, en el Centro Histórico de Hermosillo. Desde el año 2000, el archivo se trasladó a un nuevo edificio justo al lado de la Prisión de Hermosillo, en el Blvd. de los Ganaderos. El interior del archivo es todo lo que podrías esperar de un edificio burocrático, y aún peor, de uno judicial. La falta de ventanas, el espacio reducido y la decoración minimalista y utilitaria de la sala de consulta te invitan a ponerte en el lugar de las personas encarceladas cuyos expedientes encuentras frente a ti. Afortunadamente, puedes encontrar brillo y calidez en los archivistas, historiadores, y empleados del AGPJ.

Indios yaquis, alistados en el ejército mexicano, transportados en vagones de carga — *México – Sonora, indios yaquis, alistados en el ejército mexicano, transportados en vagones de carga. Fuente: Library of Congress*

Para tener éxito en la consulta de este archivo, es esencial establecer buenas relaciones con los archivistas, pues la consulta de la documentación presenta un desafío importante: no hay un catálogo ni una guía de referencia. Así que, o llegas al archivo ya con las referencias anotadas que viste citadas en el trabajo de alguien más (y a veces, incluso en ese caso, han sido modificadas), o es tu día de suerte y lo que buscas ya ha sido identificado por los archivistas. Dicho esto, debo reconocer los esfuerzos recientes del Poder Judicial del estado de Sonora por contratar historiadores y archivistas para trabajar en la preservación y catalogación de los 3036 legajos.

Yo llegué con una lista de referencias de los documentos que quería consultar, porque un amigo mío había estado ya consultando ahí y me guió hacía un expediente interesante. Después de llenar un formulario especificando la referencia, me solicitaron una identificación con foto y a continuación fueron a buscar los documentos. Me pidieron que usara guantes de látex, una mascarilla y que manejara los documentos con cuidado. Desafortunadamente, después de horas de pasar una página tras otra, no pude encontrar el caso que estaba buscando. Pero como siempre ocurre con el trabajo de archivo, encontré muchos otros documentos interesantes y relevantes para mi tema de investigación.

Archivo judicial federal de Sonora

Título de Casa de la Cultura Jurídica del Tribunal Supremo de Justicia — *Casa de la Cultura Jurídica del Tribunal Supremo de Justicia. Fotografía de la autora.*

Visitar la Casa de la Cultura Jurídica es una experiencia diferente. El edificio del archivo, antes una vivienda, fue construido en 1945 y está ubicado en la colonia Casa Blanca en Hermosillo, frente al icónico Parque Madero. En 1998, la Suprema Corte de Justicia adquirió la propiedad para utilizarla como la Casa de la Cultura Jurídica en Hermosillo, que es mucho más que solo un archivo. Nombrada en honor al “Ministro José María Ortiz Tirado,” esta Casa es una de las 36 en todo el país que sirve como un espacio público para “promover la cultura jurídica, favorecer el acceso a la justicia y el fortalecimiento del Estado de Derecho.”[5]

Se requiere que los visitantes firmen una carta comprometiéndose al uso responsable de los materiales documentales y a compartir cualquier publicación con el Archivo. Para solicitar archivos específicos, los visitantes deben proporcionar detalles como el fondo (“Amparo” o “Penal”), el año, la referencia numérica, y los nombres de las personas procesadas. Curiosamente, a pesar de ser necesario presentar esta información para la consulta, el archivo no tiene un catálogo propio.

Para la colección Amparo, tuve que visitar primero la biblioteca de la División de Ciencias Sociales de la Universidad de Sonora para revisar dos catálogos. Estos fueron producidos por Hans Ildefonso Leyva Meneses (que cubrió los años de 1900-1917) y Mayel Barboza Enciso Ulloa (de 1918-1928) como parte de los requisitos para obtener su título de licenciatura.[6] Afortunadamente, un catálogo digital completo de la colección Penal, aunque escrito de forma anónima, ha estado circulando entre los historiadores locales durante años (¡un agradecimiento al autor!).

La sala de consulta es completamente distinta a la del archvio estatal. Está bien equipada, es espaciosa y cómoda, y ofrece a los investigadores una vista a un jardín con árboles y cactus, así como a una hermosa familia de felina (entendible, pueso que las instituciones federales suelen tener más recursos). En este archivo también se requiere usar guantes de látex y una mascarilla. Desafortunadamente, debido a las medidas de protección de identidad pues los fallecidos también tienen derecho a la privacidad, no se permite fotografiar los documentos. Como resultado, una consulta exhaustiva puede llevar tiempo y esfuerzo, pero vale la pena.

Gatos en el archivo rodeados de plantas. — *Fotos tomadas por la autora*

Los documentos y las voces que podemos encontrar

Respecto a los documentos, existen parecidos en cuanto a formato, secuencia, propósito y contenido. La extensión de cada expediente dependerá de la gravedad del delito, el número de personas involucradas, la complejidad de la investigación y el volumen de pruebas. El vocabulario y la estructura de los documentos de finales del siglo diecinueve son rígidos y formales, y muestran la ideología positivista de la época. La estructura del documento típicamente consiste en tres partes principales: descripción del crimen y de los involucrados, testimonios y pruebas, y la sentencia o veredicto. Aunque analizar todo el caso puede arrojar luz sobre las sutilezas del sistema judicial, generalmente suelo concentrarme en analizar las declaraciones y relatos, porque es aquí donde comienzas a encontrar las voces de los indígenas. Afortunadamente, debido a la burocracia del sistema judicial, los documentos incluyen la información biográfica de los involucrados, como nombre, edad, estado civil, ocupación y lugar de nacimiento y residencia, seguida de descripciones físicas de los acusados. Además de lo anterior, los documentos también suelen indicar si alguno de los involucrados era una persona indígena. Sin embargo, las autoridades no solían ser explícitos en cuanto al grupo étnico. Es decir, solo sabemos que la persona era indígena.

Para determinar si el individuo en cuestión pertenecia a la etnia yaqui, los indicadores más importante suelen ser el nombre y apellido—como Bacasegua, Buitimea o Matus, apellidos comunes dentro de la etnia. Además de esto, la ubicación de los eventos puede ser un indicador importante, particularmente si se mencionan locaciones dentro o cerca al territorio yaqui, como Guaymas, Vicam o Potam. Si bien este método es efectivo, es importante señalar algunos posibles problemas. En primer lugar, es fácil confundir erróneamente a los yaquis y a los mayos (otro grupo indígena de Sonora) debido a sus similitudes culturales y lingüísticas. Asimismo, a lo largo del tiempo, los yaquis han mostrado una movilidad significativa por todo el estado e incluso más allá de las fronteras políticas, por lo que no era raro encontrarlos desde Álamos hasta Cananea.

Mapa de Sonora - Sinaloa. — *Lizars Mexico & Guatimala 1831 UTA (Detail Sonora Sinaloa). Fuente: Wikimedia Commons*

Aunque los expedientes judiciales son una importante fuente histórica para el estudio de los pueblos indígenas, es importante aclarar que sus prespectivas y cosmovisiones no están intactas en el archivo. Para esto, es crucial entender cómo se recogieron sus testimonios durante el proceso. Por lo general, en los procedimientos regulares, respondían a preguntas específicas hechas por las autoridades, en lugar de poder testificar de manera espontánea y libre. Por otro lado, si el individuo o individuos buscaban promover un amparo, se presentaba su testimonio por escrito ante la Suprema Corte. También es importante enfatizar que las declaraciones en los documentos de procedimiento civil o penal no son transcripciones literales. En cambio, fueron transcritas por los escribanos en un formato abreviado y pulido a través de una narración indirecta.

En este sentido, podríamos pensar que los expedientes de amparo serían un testimonio menos manipulado, ya que eran los mismos afectados quienes presentaban el testimonio. Sin embargo, considerando el contexto histórico y los casos de amparo que he consultado, los yaquis que promovían el amparo rara vez estaban alfabetizados. En muchas ocasiones, otras partes interesadas asistieron en el caso, a menudo con intereses personales en juego. Por lo tanto, además de los testimonios judiciales orales y escritos, se pueden encontrar esporádicamente otros tipos de evidencia, como cartas, recibos, contratos e incluso evidencia material. Pero si lo que tenemos a nuestra disposición es un testimonio de los indígenas filtrado y manipulado por terceros ¿cómo podemos encontrar sus voces y cosmovisiones? Tener una comprensión profunda del contexto histórico y de cómo se llevó a cabo el proceso judicial sugiere el mejor punto de partida.

Analizar cuidadosamente las declaraciones, contrastarlas y compararlas con otras fuentes (tanto primarias como secundarias) nos permite identificar posibles sesgos, malentendidos, distorsiones o supresiones. Interpretar las fuentes a partir de enfoque indígena también puede ayudarnos a obtener información sobre el significado, el vocabulario, las sutilezas, las implicaciones e incluso los silencios de los testimonios. Con un análisis exhaustivo, los documentos judiciales pueden ofrecernos un vistazo, y a veces incluso más, de las perspectivas, valores y cosmovisiones de los yaquis. Estos archivos son una ventana para observar cómo los yaquis navegaron e interactuaron con el sistema legal mexicano en un momento en que el gobierno los perseguía y buscaba exterminarlos, y cómo fueron representados o mal representados en los procesos judiciales.

Los documentos judiciales muestran cómo los yaquis fueron blanco no solo de las depredaciones del gobierno, sino también de la población sonorense, y cómo también fueron perpetradores de crímenes de fuero común y federal durante el periodo de guerra. Estos expedientes proporcionan detalles y testimonios sobre revueltas, “actividades sediciosas” y la desobediencia en general al gobierno, mientras nos ofrecen también un vistazo a sus vidas cotidianas y las distintas maneras de resistir a la guerra.

Las colecciones del Archivo del Poder Judicial del estado de Sonora y del Archivo de la Casa de la Cultura Jurídica ofrecen valiosas perspectivas sobre la historia del pueblo yaqui en el siglo XIX y principios del siglo XX. Espero que mi experiencia, enfoque y metodología puedan ser un modelo para aquellos interesados en profundizar en documentos legales en otras partes de México, ya que cada entidad federal tiene sus propias sucursales de estos archivos. A pesar de los desafíos que cada uno de ellos presenta, estos arcervos son una fuente rica y a menudo infrautilizada de información para los historiadores que investigan no solo sobre asuntos legales, sino también sobre la historia más amplia de Sonora y sus poblaciones indígena y no indígena.

Quiero expresar un agradecimiento especial a todos los archivistas del Archivo del Poder Judicial del Estado de Sonora, en particular a Bennya Román Flores, cuya generosidad y dedicación han sido fundamentales para la realización de este trabajo. También agradezco a los colaboradores de la Casa de la Cultura Jurídica en Hermosillo, en especial a Adrián Pérez, por su paciencia y constante apoyo mientras consultaba múltiples cajas de documentos.

Raquel Torua Padilla es doctoranda en el Departamento de Historia de la Universidad de Texas en Austin. Es licenciada en Historia por la Universidad de Sonora y actualmente es becaria de CONTEX. Su investigación se centra en la historia de los pueblos indígenas en el noroeste de México y el suroeste de EE.UU., con especial énfasis en el pueblo yaqui. Sus proyectos actuales examinan las milicias yaquis y su diáspora durante los siglos XIX y XX.

Los puntos de vista y opiniones expresados en este artículo o vídeo son los de su(s) autor(es) o presentador(es) y no reflejan necesariamente la política o los puntos de vista de los editores de Not Even Past, el Departamento de Historia de la Universidad de Texas, la Universidad de Texas en Austin o la Junta de Regentes del Sistema de la Universidad de Texas. Not Even Past es una revista de historia pública en línea y no una revista académica revisada por pares. Aunque nos esforzamos por garantizar que la información de los artículos procede de fuentes fidedignas, Not Even Past no se hace responsable de errores u omisiones.

[1] Los procedimientos para consultar el archivo de concentración son distintos. En el presente, sólo me dedicaré a explicar lo referente al archivo histórico.

[2] García Ramírez, Sergio. 1998. Panorama del derecho penal mexicano. Derecho penal. México: UNAM, McGraw-Hill.

[3] Pérez Moreno Colmenero, Silvia. 2001. Valores para la democracia. Delitos e infracciones administrativas. México: Instituto Nacional para la Educación de los Adultos. 09/13/2024 http://www.oas.org/udse/cd_educacion/cd/Materiales_conevyt/VPLD/delitos.PDF

[4] “Archivo General del Poder Judicial del Estado”. 09/13/2024: https://www.stjsonora.gob.mx/ArchivoPJE/#:~:text=Dentro%20de%20nuestros%20archivos%20se,Estado%20de%20Sonora%20y%20Sinaloa.

[5] “Casa de la Cultura Jurídica en Hermosillo. Ministro José María Ortiz Tirado”. 09/13/2024: https://www.sitios.scjn.gob.mx/casascultura/casas-cultura-juridica/hermosillo-sonora

[6] Leyva Meneses, Hans Ildefonso. 2004. Catálogo para las fuentes documentales de la Casa de la Cultura Jurídica en el estado de Sonora, serie juicios de amparo, 1900-1917. Tesis de licenciatura. Hermosillo: Universidad de Sonora. And Barboza Enciso Ulloa, Mayel. 2004. Catálogo del archivo de la Casa de la Cultura Jurídica en el Estado de Sonora del Poder Judicial de la Federación, sección juzgado quinto de distrito del quinto circuito, serie juicios de amparo, 1918-1928. Tesis de licenciatura. Hermosillo: Universidad de Sonora

NEP’s Archive Chronicles: Prosecuted and interrogated. Finding the voices of the Yaqui in the judicial archives of Sonora

Banner for Prosecuted and interrogated. Finding the voices of the Yaqui in the judicial archives of Sonora

NEP’S Archive Chronicles explores the role archives play in historical research, offering insight into the process of conducting archival work and research. Each installment will offer a unique perspective on the treasures and challenges researchers encounter in archives around the world. NEP’s Archive Chronicles is intended to be both a practical guide and a space for reflection, showcasing contributors’ experiences with archival research. This installment explores the complexities of finding the voices of the Yaqui people in the archives of Sonora.

Nota: Haz click aquí para acceder a la versión en español.
Note: Click here to access Spanish version.

In my scholarly quest to understand the history of Indigenous peoples, I have confronted persistent challenges in accessing sources that authentically reflect their experiences and perspectives. These sources are often rare, obscure, and challenging to interpret. The historical records written and left by the Indigenous populations in northwestern Mexico are scant, particularly those predating the twentieth-century. Most Indigenous individuals were not literate, lacked knowledge of the colonizers’ language, and had limited means to document their thoughts and feelings. As a result, our understanding of Indigenous history relies heavily on accounts written by outsiders such as missionaries, explorers, political figures, and military personnel. While we may occasionally stumble upon valuable firsthand documents, such as letters from literate individuals, these discoveries are exceptionally rare.

I have been particularly interested in the history of the Yoemem or Yaquis. They are one of the largest Indigenous groups in what is now known as the state of Sonora, in northwest Mexico. Over the past centuries, they have had to confront different governments that have tried to dispossess them of their lands, autonomy, and identity. Despite constant efforts to subdue them and even exterminate them, they persist and resist to this day.

Yaqui men: Loreto Villa, Juan Maldonado, Hilario Amarillas, interprete yaqui. — *Loreto Villa, Juan Maldonado, Hilario Amarillas, interprete yaqui. Ortiz, Sonora. Fuente: Memórica*

To address the challenge of finding their voices in the primary documents, recently I have turned to judicial archives as a valuable alternative source for accessing Indigenous testimonies. Hermosillo, the capital city of Sonora in northwest Mexico, is home to two public archives that house juridical documents: the General Archive of the Judicial Branch of the State of Sonora (Archivo General del Poder Judicial del Estado de Sonora) and the Archive of the House of Legal Culture of the Supreme Court of Justice (Archivo de la Casa de la Cultura Jurídica). Both archives divide their collections into two categories: the historical, which contains documents created prior to 1950, and the concentration collection, which includes documents produced after 1950.[1] The archives were created in the nineteenth-century and are maintained and funded today through funds allocated by the state government, and the federal government, respectively.

Over the past few years, I have extensively researched both historical archives in pursuit of the voices of the Yaqui people, especially from the Yaqui War period. This violent era started in 1824 under the leadership of Juan Banderas, a Yaqui chief who upraised against the Mexican government to defend their autonomy. The conflict only worsened after the Liberal projects that sought to privatize indigenous communal lands and, especially, during the Porfiriato period, when it turned into an extermination war. Although they barely survived those years, the Yaquis continued revolting against the government until the 1930s when they finally surrendered after being ferociously attacked by the revolutionary authorities.

While the content of both repositories shares similarities, there are also notable differences arising from different duties and objectives, both historical and current day. These variances manifest not only in their content but also in the preservation, cataloging, and accessibility of the historical documents. In this article, I introduce the history of these archives, the experience of researching there, and what we can discover.

Group of Yaqui men — *Grupo de indios yaqui. Ortiz, Sonora. Fuente: Memórica*

Before I do that, let me briefly explain how the judicial system works in Mexico and how a case’s file might end up in one archive or the other, Since the 1824 Constitution and the creation of Penal Codes,[2] crimes in Mexico have been classified as common law (fuero común) or federal law (fuero federal). Common law cases are processed in state courts, while federal law crimes go to district courts (juzgados de distrito). If an accused individual (of either common or federal law crimes) feels they were unfairly sentenced, they have two options at their disposal. First, they can file an appeal for a second instance review. If this is unsuccessful, they can seek recourse through the “amparo” or legal protection process, which is carried out in collegiate courts or, if necessary, in the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nación).[3]

Common law crimes are those that directly affect individuals, such as cattle rustling, rape, robbery, or inflicting injuries. The files of those crimes (and of their appeals, if promoted) can be found at the General Archive of the Judicial Branch of the State of Sonora (AGPJ). Federal law crimes, on the other hand, defined as those “that affect the well-being, economy, heritage, and security of the nation”, such as sedition, smuggling, or immigration violations.[4] Documentation related to federal law crimes, as well as any amparo processes, canbe found at the Archive of the House of Legal Culture of the Supreme Court of Justice (ACCJ).

Column of former state penitentiary. — Former state penitentiary. Building built mostly by Yaquis, who would also be imprisoned there. Pictures taken by author.

Frame and staircase of former state penitentiary. — Detail of State Penitentiary.
Pictures taken by author.

The state’s judicial archive

The AGPJ, like all archives, has its own history. Since 1833, when the Mexican State of Occidente (Estado de Occidente) split into Sonora and Sinaloa and the first local Constitution was established in the state, decree number 13 ensured the permanence of the Supreme Powers, including the Supreme Tribunal of Justice, in Hermosillo, along with their respective archives. Over a century later, in 1957, a new decree established a dedicated archive under the jurisdiction of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice to organize and safeguard documentation exclusive to the Judicial Branch of the state. The most recent law affecting this archive, dated 1996, designated the AGPJ as an auxiliary body of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice, aiming to professionalize and streamline the judicial branch’s operations.[5] However, because of its new nature and likely limited resources, efforts to identify, catalog, and organize the documentation have not been completed.

For many years, the documentation of this archive was kept in the General Archive of the State of Sonora (AGHES), on Garmendia Street in the Historic Center of Hermosillo. However, since 2000, the archive relocated to a new building right next to the Hermosillo Prison, on Blvd. de los Ganaderos. The interior of the archive is everything you would expect from a bureaucratic building, and even worse, a judicial one. The lack of windows, the small space, and the minimalist and utilitarian decoration of the consultation room invite you to put yourself in the shoes of the imprisoned individuals whose files you find in front of you. Fortunately, you can find brightness and warmth in the archivists and employees of the AGPJ.

*Mexico – Sonora, Yaqui Indians, enlisted in the Mexican Army, being transported by box cars. Source: Library of Congress*

To consult this archive, it is essential to establish good relations with the archivists since consulting the documentation presents a unique challenge as there is no catalog or reference guide. So, you either already know the references to the files you want to consult because you saw them cited in someone else’s work (and sometimes even then, they have been changed), or it is your lucky day and what you are looking for has already been identified by the archivists. This said, I must recognize recent efforts by Sonora’s Judiciary Branch to hire historians and archivists to work on the preservation and cataloging of the 3036 files (legajos).

I actually knew (or thought I knew) the references to the files I wanted to consult because a friend of mine had been to the archive before and directed me to a very interesting case. After filling out a form specifying the reference, the archivists asked me for a photo ID and went to get the files for me. They asked me to wear latex gloves, a face mask, and to handle the documents carefully. Unfortunately, after hours of turning one page after another, I was not able to locate case I was looking for. But as is always the case with archival work, I found many other interesting and pertaining documents.

Sonora’s federal judicial archive

House of Legal Culture of the Supreme Court of Justice banner — House of Legal Culture of the Supreme Court of Justice. Picture by author.

Visiting the House of Legal Culture of the Supreme Court of Justice is a different experience. The archive is housed in a building constructed in 1945 (it was a literal house before), located in the Razo neighborhood in Hermosillo, across from the iconic Madero Park. In 1998, the Supreme Court acquired the property to establish the House of Legal Culture in Hermosillo which is much more than just an archive. Named after “Minister José María Ortiz Tirado,” this House is one of 36 across the country that serves as a public venue “to promote legal culture, facilitate access to justice, and reinforce the Rule of Law (Estado de Derecho).”[6]

Visitors are required to sign a letter pledging responsible use of the documentary materials and a commitment to share any publications with the Archive. To request specific files, visitors must provide details such as the collection (“Amparo” or “Penal”), the year, file number, and the names of the processed individuals. But –strikingly—they ask for all of these reference details when they do not have a catalog of their own.

For the Amparo collection, I had to visit the library at the University of Sonora to check out their catalogs for the archive. They were produced by Hans Ildefonso Leyva Meneses (covering 1900-1917) and Mayel Barboza Enciso Ulloa (1918-1928) as part of their bachelor’s degree requirements.[7] Fortunately, a complete digital catalog for the Penal collection, although authored anonymously, has been in circulation among local historians for years now (shout out to the unknown author!).

The consultation room is nothing like the aforementioned archive. It is well-equipped, spacious, and comfortable, and offers the researchers a view of the garden trees and cacti, as well as a beautiful feline family (federal institutions tend to have bigger budgets). Here, too, you are required to wear latex gloves and a face mask. And, unfortunately, due to identity protection measures (the dead have a right to privacy too), photographing the documents is not allowed in this archive. As a result, thorough consultation can be time-consuming, but worth it.

Cats in the archive surrounded by plants.

The documents and the “voices” we can find.

Due to the similar nature of the documents found in these two archives, they exhibit clear similarities in format, sequence, purpose, and content. The length of the file will depend on the severity of the crime, the number of individuals involved, the complexity of the investigation, and the volume of evidence. The vocabulary and structure of the documents are rigid, and formal, and showcase the positivist ideology of the time.

The structure of the document typically consists of three main parts: a description of the crime and those involved; testimonies and evidence; and the sentence or verdict.[1] Although analyzing the whole case can shed light on the nuances of the judicial system, I am usually drawn to the depositions and accounts, because it is here where you begin to find the voices of the indigenous peoples. Moreover, the bureaucracy of judicial cases presents us with the biographical information of those involved such as name, age, marital status, occupation, and place of birth and residence, followed by physical descriptions of the accused. The document also indicates if any of the persons involved were indigenous (indígena). However, specifics about their ethnic group are rare

To determine if the individual in question was Yaqui, key indicators include their name and surname—such as Bacasegua, Buitimea, or Matus, which are traditionally Yaqui. Additionally, the location of events, particularly in or near Yaqui territories like Vicam, Torim, or Guaymas, can provide further confirmation. While this method is effective, it is important to note some potential pitfalls. Firstly, it’s easy to mistakenly confuse Yaquis and Mayos (also native to Sonora and Sinaloa) due to their cultural and linguistic similarities. Additionally, throughout time, Yaquis have exhibited significant mobility throughout the whole state and even beyond political borders, so it was not rare to find them in Álamos or in Cananea.

Map of Sonora - Sinaloa. — *Lizars Mexico & Guatimala 1831 UTA (Detail Sonora Sinaloa). Source: Wikimedia Commons*

Although these sources are revealing, the voices and worldviews of the Yaquis are not intact in the archive. And it is crucial to understand how their testimonies were collected in any given case. Usually, in regular proceedings, they responded to specific questions rather than were allowed to speak spontaneously and freely. If, on the other hand, the individual or individuals were looking to get legal protection (amparo), they presented their testimony in written form before the Supreme Court.

It is also important to emphasize that statements in civil or criminal procedure documents are not verbatim transcriptions. Instead, they are presented by the scribes in an abridged and polished (again, very positivist) format through indirect narration. In this sense, we might think that the legal protection cases present a less manipulated testimony since they could write them themselves. However, considering the historical context and supported by the amparo cases that I have consulted, the Yaquis who sought legal protection were rarely literate. In many instances, other interested parties assisted in the case, often with personal interests at stake. In addition to oral and written testimonies, one can sporadically find other types of evidence, such as letters, receipts, contracts, and even material records.

So, if we are presented with a filtered and mediated testimony of the indigenous peoples, how can we find their voices and worldviews? Having a deep understanding of the historical context and the way the judicial process took place provides the best starting point. Carefully analyzing the declarations and contrasting and comparing them with other sources (both primary and secondary) allows us to identify potential biases, misunderstandings, distortions, or erasures. Interpreting the sources with an Indigenous framework can also help us gain insights into the meaning, vocabulary, nuances, implications, and even silences of the testimonies. With a thorough analysis, judicial documents can give us a glimpse, and sometimes even more, to Yaquis’ perspectives, values, and worldviews.

These archives are a window to observe how the Yaquis navigated and interacted with the Mexican legal system at a time when the government persecuted and aimed to exterminate them, and how they were represented or misrepresented in judicial processes. Judicial documents showcase how the Yaquis were being targeted not only by the government, but the Sonoran population as well, and how the Yaquis were also the perpetrators of common and federal law cases during the time of war. They provide details and testimonies on revolts, “seditious activities”, and overall disobedience to the government, and they also give us a glimpse into their quotidian lives and how they resisted the war.

The collections of the Archive of the Judicial Branch of the state of Sonora, and the Archive of the House of Legal Culture offer valuable insights into the history of the Yaqui people in the 19th and early 20th centuries. I hope my approach and methodology can be a model for those interested in delving into legal documents in other parts of Mexico, as each federal entity has its own branches of these archives. Despite the challenges each of them presents, these archives are a rich and often underutilized source of information for historians researching not only legal matters but also the broader history of Sonora and its Indigenous and non-indigenous populations.

I would like to express special thanks to all the archivists at the Archives of the Judicial Branch of the State of Sonora, in particular to Bennya Román Flores, whose generosity and dedication have been fundamental for the completion of this work. I also thank the collaborators of the Casa de la Cultura Jurídica in Hermosillo, especially Adrián Pérez, for his patience and constant support while consulting multiple boxes of documents.

Raquel Torua Padilla is a doctoral candidate in the Department of History at the University of Texas at Austin. She holds a B.A. in History from the Universidad de Sonora and is currently a CONTEX Fellow. Her research focuses on the history of Indigenous peoples in the Northwest of Mexico and the U.S. Southwest, with a particular emphasis on the Yaqui people. Her current projects examine Yaqui militias and their diaspora during the 19th and 20th centuries.

[1] The procedures for consulting the Concentration archives are different from those of the historical part of the archive. In this piece, I will only discuss the historical collections of both archives.

[2] Throughout the 19^th and 20th centuries, penal codes for each state continued to be created and adapted.

[3] García Ramírez, Sergio. 1998. Panorama del derecho penal mexicano. Derecho penal. Mexico: UNAM, McGraw-Hill.

[4] Pérez Moreno Colmenero, Silvia. 2001. Valores para la democracia. Delitos e infracciones administrativas. México: Instituto Nacional para la Educación de los Adultos. 09/13/2024 http://www.oas.org/udse/cd_educacion/cd/Materiales_conevyt/VPLD/delitos.PDF

[5] “Archivo General del Poder Judicial del Estado”. 09/13/2024: https://www.stjsonora.gob.mx/ArchivoPJE/#:~:text=Dentro%20de%20nuestros%20archivos%20se,Estado%20de%20Sonora%20y%20Sinaloa.

[6] “Casa de la Cultura Jurídica en Hermosillo. Ministro José María Ortiz Tirado”. 09/13/2024: https://www.sitios.scjn.gob.mx/casascultura/casas-cultura-juridica/hermosillo-sonora

[7] Leyva Meneses, Hans Ildefonso. 2004. Catálogo para las fuentes documentales de la Casa de la Cultura Jurídica en el estado de Sonora, serie juicios de amparo, 1900-1917. Tesis de licenciatura. Hermosillo: Universidad de Sonora. And Barboza Enciso, Ulloa. 2004. Catálogo del archive de la Casa de la Cultura Jurídica en el Estado de Sonora del Poder Judicial de la Federación, sección juzgado quinto de distrito del quinto circuito, serie juicios de amparo, 1918-1928. Tesis de licenciatura. Hermosillo: Universidad de Sonora

[8] Presented either by writing, in legal seeking cases, or by interrogation, in civil and criminal proceedings.

[9] In this case, information on whether the informant speaks Spanish or not, and whether an interpreter was used, is also available.

NEP’S Archive Chronicles: El Archivo General de la Nación (AGN, Ciudad de México): Procesos afectivos, paisajes urbanos y la escritura de la historia

Note: Click here to access English version
Nota: Haz click aquí para acceder a la versión en inglés

Es un lugar común empezar por decir que estaba leyendo La atracción de archivo de Arlette Farge el primer día que fui a hacer investigación al Archivo General de la Nación (AGN) en la Ciudad de México, pero es verdad. No lo hice a propósito, llevaba tiempo queriendo leer el texto y acababa de comprar un ejemplar usado cuando empecé a investigar sobre la historia del Archivo General de México a lo largo del siglo XIX.

Esto ocurrió hace tres años, pero lo recuerdo claramente. Tiendo a olvidar las cosas, pero allí donde falla mi memoria social, mi memoria bibliográfica es casi impecable. Puedo recordar todos los libros que he leído. Sé cómo es la portada, qué tamaño tiene el libro, y dónde y cuándo lo leí. Recuerdo cómo se siente un libro dentro de mí, y puedo reconstruir lo que dice o por qué es importante. Sobre el clásico de Farge, recuerdo que el libro es romántico, que ella narra cómo recorría los pasillos de los Archivos Judiciales de París buscando mujeres en las fuentes, reflexionando sobre la afectividad del espacio, y recuerdo que lo estaba leyendo ese día.

Era pleno verano, un día sombrío y lluvioso en la ciudad. También estábamos en plena pandemia de COVID. Por lo tanto, el AGN estaba abierto, pero su horario de atención al público era restringido, así como el material que podían consultar los investigadores. Había agendado una cita una semana antes para asistir y ver si realmente podía encontrar algo. Nunca había oído hablar de la colección que buscaba, pero estaba segura de que existía. Un archivo debe tener una colección sobre sus operaciones institucionales internas, ¿no?

Salí temprano de casa, me subí en el metro y eventualmente llegué a San Lázaro, en el centro-este de la ciudad. La estación de metro debe su nombre a la antigua terminal ferroviaria del mismo nombre, que solía ser parte importante del sistema ferroviario interoceánico en la ruta México-Puebla-Veracruz. San Lázaro siempre es caótico. No sólo hay dos líneas distintas de metro tienen parada ahí, pero el espacio también se comparte con la Terminal de Autobuses de Pasajeros de Oriente, la TAPO, haciéndola una de las estaciones más concurridas de la ciudad, con más de 44.000 usuarios que la cruzan al día. Me costó trabajo encontrar dónde abordar la línea 5 del Metrobus, pero eventualmente lo logré. Una parada después, llegué a la estación Archivo General de la Nación.¹

Imágenes de la estación de metrobús de Ciudad de México. — *Fotografías tomadas por la autora.*

El AGN se encuentra actualmente ubicado en el Palacio de Lecumberri. Inaugurado originalmente en 1900 por el presidente Porfirio Díaz, este edificio fue diseñado como una moderna penitenciaría panóptica, propósito con el cual cumplió hasta 1972, cuando fue clausurado debido a una serie de irregularidades, corrupción y falta de espacio para sostener el creciente número de reclusos. Una vez cerrado y abandonado, estalló un debate en la prensa mexicana sobre su destino. Su demolición privaría a los antiguos reclusos como a las familias de las víctimas de un importante lugar de memoria. Además, quienes se oponían a su demolición subrayaron la importancia de conservar el edificio como un lugar crucial para estudiar y comprender la historia de la arquitectura disciplinaria durante en México en el siglo XX. Pero ¿qué hacer con él?

En los medios de comunicación estalló un debate sobre los posibles usos del edificio. La polémica de «los historiadores», representados por Edmundo O’Gorman, Eduardo Blanquel, Jorge Alberto Manrique y el arquitecto Flavio Salamanca, fue decisiva para que Lecumberri pasara de ser una cárcel a un archivo. El argumento principal de los historiadores se centró sobre todo en la cuestión del espacio, conscientes de que una de las características fundamentales de los archivos es que nunca dejan de crecer. En ese momento, el AGN, originalmente alojado en el Palacio Nacional desde su inauguración en 1823, hacía tiempo que se había quedado sin espacio y sus fondos se encontraban dispersos por diversos lugares de la ciudad, como el Palacio Nacional, el Templo de Guadalupe en Tacubaya o la Casa Amarilla, la Ciudadela y el antiguo Palacio de Comunicaciones, hoy Museo Nacional de Arte (MUNAL).² La descentralización perjudicaba las funciones de la institución y ponía en riesgo el acceso de los usuarios.

Tres imágenes del palacio de Lecumberri: estructura exterior, cúpula interior, edificio exterior — *Fotografías tomadas por la autora.*

Consciente de sus necesidades presentes y futuras, el personal de la institución había estado buscando soluciones para este problema. José Ignacio Rubio Mañé, que fue director de la institución entre 1960 y 1977, incluso llegó a viajar por el mundo a través de un programa financiado por el gobierno en busca de inspiración en otros archivos para mejorar el que él supervisaba. Pero el proyecto de remodelación quedó truncado antes de concluirse.

Y ahora, la solución estaba ahí: Lecumberri. El edificio ya era propiedad del gobierno, estaba abandonado y salvarlo garantizaría su funcionamiento como lugar rememoración y estudio. Como elemento adicional y fortuito, este palacio se había construido para garantizar las prácticas de vigilancia, un componente muy necesario para los archivos. Estos otorgan una gran prioridad a la vigilancia porque almacenan documentos sensibles y únicos que sirven de fuentes primarias para los relatos históricos de una comunidad determinada en el tiempo. Su robo o deterioro puede tener repercusiones sociales, materiales e incluso emocionales.

En 1977 se aprobó la transformación de Lecumberri en la nueva sede del AGN, que se trasladó en 1982 bajo la dirección de Alejandra Moreno Toscano. Las antiguas celdas de la prisión se convirtieron en bóvedas para el almacenamiento de documentos, y las largas galerías de cada uno de los 5 brazos de la prisión se transformaron en salas de lectura y oficinas. Aunque poética, la falta de control técnico sobre el clima y las plagas que los archivistas podían tener sobre los documentos dentro de las bóvedas impulsó la construcción del Anexo Técnico. Inaugurado en 2018, el Anexo es una instalación de almacenamiento de documentos moderna y tecnológica que aumentó masivamente el espacio de almacenamiento y modernizó los sistemas. Las celdas sirven ahora de oficinas para el personal, y algunos de los largos pasillos se han acondicionado para un proyecto de digitalización masiva. En el exterior, el gran edificio blanco y cuadrado contrasta con el palacio decimonónico situado a su lado. Dos estrategias e innovaciones tecnológicas diferentes para un mismo fin.

Tres imágenes de bloques de celdas y espacio de almacenamiento de documentos. Actualmente son oficinas. — *Fotografías tomadas por la autora.*

A mi llegada, me recibieron dos agentes de policía. Como en muchos archivos de todo el mundo, tuve que dejar mi mochila, papel, plumas, agua y cualquier alimento en los casilleros y registrarme con un documento de identidad oficial y registrar el número de serie de mi equipo de trabajo (computadora y tablet). Una vez registrada, tomé mi computadora, teléfono, guantes y mascarilla, y me dirigí a la Centro de Referencias, una parada obligatoria antes de entrar en las salas de consulta. No sabía dónde encontrar el archivo institucional, así que hablé con los archivistas. Mi primera conversación con la mujer de recepción -llamémosla M.- fue más o menos así:

“Buenos días”.

“¿En qué puedo ayudarle?”

“Estoy buscando… Estoy buscando el archivo del Archivo”.

“¿Disculpa?”

“Sí. Busco el archivo del Archivo”.

No puedo evitar reírme al recordar la cara de M. ante mi extravagante solicitud. Le expliqué que yo era historiadora, que estaba investigando la historia del Archivo General y que buscaba el archivo interno de operaciones del AGN.

“Tiene que haber uno, ¿no?”.

“Ay, no sé la verdad, no he oído hablar de él. Pero ¿por qué no pruebas en el buscador general a ver qué encuentras?”.

Me senté frente a una computadora y escribí lo primero que se me ocurrió: «archivo». Pero al teclear una palabra que forma parte del nombre de toda la institución, el sistema transcribió toda la base de datos en la sección de resultados del programa, y lo colapsó. Pasé las siguientes semanas en Centro de Referencias analizando ArchiDoc, el gigantesco sistema de búsqueda del AGN, intentando averiguar cómo encontrar esta colección de la que nadie en el había oído hablar. Hasta que un día, a primera hora de la mañana, se acercó M. para decirme que había visto una colección en el perfil de administrador de ArchiDoc. Se llamaba Archivo Histórico Institucional (AHI) y figuraba en la sección del siglo XIX.

¡Eureka! Resulta que no había visto esta colección en ningún lado porque los documentos estaban todavía siendo catalogados y procesados, y no estaba disponible aún para su consulta³. Se me puso la piel chinita de la emoción. Lo recuerdo claramente. Estos documentos constituyen la historia del Archivo a través del papeleo burocrático de la administración de la misma institución. De hecho, esto era exactamente lo que yo buscaba: el archivo del archivo. Y significaba que mi investigación doctoral era posible.

El Archivo Histórico Institucional tiene dos tipos de formatos documentales: volúmenes y cajas que contienen expedientes guardados en carpetas amarillas sin ácido. Los volúmenes están encuadernados en piel y tienen unas dimensiones aproximadas de 40 cm x 25 cm, con un número de páginas que oscila entre 250 y 450 por volumen. Consta de 295 volúmenes que van de 1825 a 1944, abarcando 119 años de historia administrativa archivística. La colección muestra un aumento significativo de volúmenes a lo largo del tiempo con un patrón de crecimiento sostenido a lo largo del tiempo. Su contenido es ecléctico y abarca informes, remisiones, recibos, notas, instrucciones y solicitudes de información, entre otros. En estos documentos podemos encontrar los mundos sociales, económicos, políticos, materiales e incluso afectivos que han sido parte esencial de la mecánica interna de la institución y de los materiales que ella resguarda.

Imagen del volumen encuadernado en cuero — *Fotografía tomadas por la autora.*

Imagen de papel con membrete de AGN — *Fotografía tomadas por la autora.*

No pude examinar los documentos físicos ese año y tuve que esperar hasta el verano siguiente para hacerlo, tras conseguir autorización previa de la administración del Archivo. Poco después, la historiadora y archivista Linda Arnold tuvo la amabilidad de compartir con nosotros la hoja Excel de toda la colección, lo que me permitió procesar y comprender más profundamente la colección antes acceder a los documentos.

En cuanto pude, regresé a la Ciudad de México y me dirigí directamente al AGN para analizar la colección física. Para ese momento ya sabía de qué elementos se componía el AHI, y por fin había llegado el momento de leerlo. Desde entonces he pasado cientos de horas en la Sala de Lectura «A» del AGN leyendo los documentos y tomándoles fotos para mi investigación.

En estos años, he paseado los extraños caminos de Lecumberri y he llevado a mis seres queridos a las visitas guiadas que ofrece la propia institución. También me he hecho amiga de algunos de los archivistas que trabajan ahí y he conocido a historiadores que admiro haciendo investigación. Mi investigación también me ha llevado a otros archivos de México y del mundo, donde he estado buscando evidencia que lo represente como parte de una red global de emergentes tecnologías de la información en el siglo XIX.

Tres imágenes de los exteriores de Lecumberri: edificio, cúpula desde el exterior, torre. — *Fotografías tomadas por la autora.*

Ya empecé a escribir la tesis y espero que esté lista en los próximos años. Pero escribir esta historia no ha sido del todo fácil. Los archivos son entidades por naturaleza fragmentadas y están constituidos por silencios y ausencias más que por lo que han logrado custodiar.⁴ Como objeto de tasación, botín de guerra o resultado de la volátil e imprevisible fragmentación de los fondos, la información documental que sobrevive en la actualidad no es más que un minúsculo fragmento de lo que se ha producido alguna vez. Esto plantea algunas preguntas fundamentales: ¿Por qué no se ha analizado en detalle la historia de los archivos? ¿Qué nos dice esto hoy? ¿Qué tipo de historias podemos recuperar analizando en detalle los archivos institucionales de las instituciones archviísticas?

Es precisamente la naturaleza fragmentada del AGN lo que me ha impulsado a explorar formas más experimentales de escribir sobre sus historias, llevándome a abordar sus complejidades a través de la escritura creativa, especialmente a través del ensayo. Porque al reflexionar sobre las condiciones en las que se archivó la historia, nos hacemos una idea de cómo se vivió y experimentó ésta, generando oportunidades para reinterpretar la formación de la identidad nacional y el pasado de formas nuevas y previamente inexploradas.

Camila Ordorica es candidata doctoral en Historia Latinoamericana por la Universidad de Texas en Austin, donde estudia la historia del Archivo General de México durante el largo siglo XIX (1790-1910). Su investigación dialoga con la archivística y la historia cultural, social y material, y explora cómo los archivos se escriben en la historia y su papel dentro de ella. La pasión de Camila por los estudios archivísticos tiene sus raíces en su formación como archivista. Camila ha trabajado en los Acervos Históricos de la Universidad Iberoamericana y en los archivos de Sine-Comunarr. Además, ha colaborado con la ENES-Morelia de la UNAM, el Instituto de Estudios Críticos ’17 y la Federación Internacional de Historia Pública en estudios y prácticas archivísticas y humanidades digitales.

Desde entonces he descubierto que la mejor ruta en transporte público es ir a la estación del metro Bellas Artes y tomar el Metrobús 4 directo al AGN. Suele haber más tráfico, pero el trayecto es más bonito. Con el aire fresco de la mañana, se puede contemplar todo el centro histórico, con sus edificios torcidos y su bulliciosa actividad. ↩︎
Pereyra, Carlos, et al. Historia, ¿para qué? 1st ed. (México: Siglo Veintiuno, 1980) ↩︎
El IHA aún no se ha abierto oficialmente a consulta, pero tengo entendido que se presentará oficialmente al público antes de finales de año. ↩︎
Ver: Jacques Derrida, Archive Fever. A Freudian Impression, (The University of Chicago Press, 1996); Michelle Caswell, Archiving the Unspeakable: Silence, Memory, and the Photographic Record in Cambodia, (University of Wisconsin Press, 2014); Verne Harris, Ghosts of Archive: Deconstructive Intersectionality and Praxis, (Routledge, 2021); Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past. Power and the Production of History, (Bacon Press, 1995) ↩︎

NEP’s Archive Chronicles: The General National Archive (AGN, Mexico City): Affective Processes, Urban Landscapes, and the Writing of History

Poster for NEP'S Archive Chronicles: The General Archive of the Nation (AGN, Mexico City): Affective processes, urban landscapes and history writing. Background image dome and courtyard of Lecumberri.

NEP’S Archive Chronicles explores the vital role archives play in historical research, offering insights into the process of conducting archival work. Each installment will provide a unique perspective on the treasures and challenges researchers encounter in the archives of the world. NEP’s Archive Chronicles aims to be both a practical guide and a reflective space, showcasing contributors’ experiences with archival research.

Nota: Haz click aquí para acceder a la versión en español.
Note: Click here to access Spanish version.

It feels almost too cliché of me to write that I was reading Arlette Farge’s The Allure of the Archives on the first day that I went to do research at the General National Archive (AGN) in Mexico City. But it’s true. I didn’t do it on purpose, I had been wanting to read the text for some time and had just gotten my hands on a used copy when I started researching the history of Mexico’s General Archive throughout the 19th century.

This happened three years ago, but I remember it clearly. I tend to forget things, but there where my social memory fails, my bibliographic memory is almost impeccable. I can remember all the books I have read. I know what the cover looks like, what size the book is, and where and when I read it. I remember how a book feels inside me, and I can reconstruct what it says or why it is important. Concerning Farge’s classic, I remember that the book is romantic, that she walked the corridors of the Judicial Archives in Paris looking for women in the sources, reflecting on the affectivity of the space, and I remember that I was reading it that day.

It was the middle of the summer, a gloomy and rainy day in the city, as the summer tends to be. It was also the middle of the COVID pandemic. The AGN was open, but their hours of operation were severely restricted, and so where the materials researchers could consult. I had made an appointment a week earlier to attend and see whether or not I could actually find anything. I had never really heard of the collection that I was looking for, but I was certain it existed. An archive should have a collection about its operations, right?

I left the house early, hopped on the metro, and soon arrived at the San Lázaro Station, in the center-east part of town. The metro station is named after the old San Lazaro railroad terminal, an important part of the Interoceanic railroad system on the Mexico-Puebla-Veracruz route. San Lázaro is always nothing less than chaotic. Not only are there two different metro lines that stop there, but the space is also shared with the Oriente Passenger Bus Terminal, or la TAPO as the locals call it. The station is one of the busiest in the city, with over 44,000 users crossing it per day. It took me a moment to find the Metrobus L5 after getting off the train, but I boarded it quickly. Just one stop later, I reached the station ‘Archivo General de la Nación’.[1]

Images of metrobus station in Mexico City. — *Pictures taken by author.*

The AGN is currently housed in the Palace of Lecumberri. Originally inaugurated in 1900 by President Porfirio Díaz, the building was designed as a modern panoptical penitentiary. It served this purpose until 1972 when it was shut down due to a series of irregularities, corruption, and lack of space to sustain the growing inmate intake. After it shut down, a debate erupted in the Mexican press about its fate. Demolishing it would deprive both former inmates and the victims’ families of a significant place of memory. Additionally, opponents of its demolition emphasized the importance of preserving the building as a crucial site for studying and understanding the history of disciplinary architecture during the 20^th century. But what to do with it?

A debate about the possible uses for the building erupted in the media. The controversy of “the historians”, represented by Edmundo O’Gorman, Eduardo Blanquel, Jorge Alberto Manrique, and architect Flavio Salamanca, was instrumental in the refurbishing of Lecumberri from a prison to an archive. Their arguments were mostly geared to the question of space. The historians were well aware that one of the key characteristics of archives is that they are always expanding and are driven and dependent on the acceleration of data accumulation and storage. Case point, the AGN, originally housed in the National Palace since its inauguration in 1823, had long run out of space and its collections were scattered across various locations in the city, including the National Palace, the Temple of Guadalupe in Tacubaya or the Yellow House, the Ciudadela, and the former Palace of Communications, today’s National Museum of Art (MUNAL).[2] Decentralization disrupted the office’s operations, jeopardizing user access. And the archive was only going to keep on growing, as archives do.

Three pictures of Lecumberri palace: outside structure, internal dome, outside building — *Pictures taken by author.*

Aware of its present and future needs, personnel from the institution had been looking for solutions for this problem. José Ignacio Rubio Mañé, who served as the institution’s director from 1960 to 1977, even traveled the world through a government-funded program looking for inspiration in other archives scattered across the globe to improve the one he oversaw. But the project of refurbishing the Archive was cut short before completion.

And now, the solution was right there: Lecumberri. The building was already owned by the government, it was abandoned, and saving it would ensure its operations as a site of memory. As an additional and fortuitous element, it had been built to ensure surveillance practices, a much-needed component for archives. Archives place a high priority on vigilance because they store sensitive and unique documents that serve as the primary sources for the historical narratives of a given community in time. Their theft or damage can have social, material, and indeed emotional repercussions.

Lecumberri’s transformation into the new AGN’s headquarters was approved in 1977, and it moved locations in 1982 under the direction of Alejandra Moreno Toscano. The old prison cells were turned into vaults for document storage, and the long galleries of each one of the 5 arms of the prison were turned into reading rooms and office space. Though poetic, the lack of technical control—over climate and pests—that archivists could have over the documents inside the vaults pushed for the construction of the Technical Annex. Inaugurated in 2018, the annex is a modern and technological document storage facility that massively increased the storage space and modernized the systems. The cells now serve as office space for staff, and some of the long hallways have been refurbished for a mass-digitization project. Outside, the big white square building contrasts heavily with the nineteenth-century palace to its side. Two different strategies of technological innovation for the same end.

Three images of previous cell blocks and document storage space. Currently they are offices. — *Pictures taken by author.*

Upon arrival, I was greeted by two police officers. As in many archives across the world, I had to leave my bag, paper, pens, water, and any food in the lockers and register my identity and equipment with a valid ID. I gathered my computer, phone, gloves, and face mask, and headed to the reference center—a mandatory stop before entering the consultation rooms if you’re don’t know which collection you need to access. I really didn’t know where to find the institutional archive, so I talked to the archivists. My first conversation with the woman at the front desk—let’s call her M.—went something like this:

“Buenos días”.

“What can I help you with?”

“I am looking for… I am looking for the archive of the Archive”.

“Excuse me?”

“Yes. I am looking for the archive of the Archive”.

I cannot help but laugh at the memory I have of M.’s face after my strange request. I explained to her that I was a historian, that I was researching the history of the National Archive, and that I was looking for the internal archive of operations of the AGN.

“There must be one, am I right?”.

“Ay, no sé la verdad, I have not heard of it. But why don’t try the general search engine and try to see what you find?”

I sat down and I typed the first thing I could think of: “archive”. But typing a word that is part of the name of the entire institution just ended up in me getting all of the databases transcribed into the results section of the program and crashing it.

I spent the next couple of weeks analyzing ArchiDoc, the AGN’s gigantic search engine system trying to figure out how to find this obscure collection that no one in the reference center had heard about. Until one day, early in the morning, M. approached me and told me about a collection she had seen on the Administrator profile of ArchiDoc. It was calledInstitutional Historical Archive (Archivo Histórico Institucional, AHI), and it was listed under 19^th century.

Jackpot! As it happened, I had not seen this archive listed anywhere because the documents were being catalogued and processed, and it hadn’t been opened for consultation.[3] I shivered with excitement. I remember it so clearly. These documents constitute the history of the Archive through the bureaucratic paperwork of the administration of this institution. In fact, this was exactly what I was looking for: the archive of the archive. And it meant that my doctoral research was possible.[4]

The Institutional Historical Archive is divided in two mediums: volumes and boxes that contain files stored in acid-free yellow folders. The volumes are bound in leather that are roughly of 40cms x 25cms (15.75 in x 9.84 in), with page counts spanning from 250 to 450 pages per volume. It consists of 295 volumes spanning from 1825 to 1944, covering 119 years of archival administrative history. The collection demonstrates a significant increase in volume over time. The same pattern of growth is consistently observed, with increased numbers of documentation as the institution expanded. It’s contents are eclectic, ranging from reports, referrals, receipts, notes, instructions, and requests for information, among others. In these documents we can find the social, economic, political, material, and even affective worlds that have been an essential part in maintenance and up keeping of the institution and the materials within.

Picture of volume bound in leather — *Pictures taken by author.*

Image of paper with AGN letter head — *Pictures taken by author.*

I was not able to look at the documents that year and had to wait until the following summer to do so, with prior approval of the Archive’s administration. Thankfully, historian and archivist Linda Arnold was kind enough to share with the Excel sheet of all the collection, which allowed me to process and understand the collection more deeply before I was able to look at the documents.

I traveled back to Mexico City as soon as I could, and headed straight to the AGN to look at the physical collection. By then I knew what the AHI was about, not now it was time to actually read it. I have since spent hundreds of hours crammed in the AGN’s Reading Room ‘A’ looking at the documents and taking pictures of the them for my research.

In these years, I have walked Lecumberri and taken loved ones on guided tours offered by the institution itself and have befriended some of the archivists. My research has also led me to other archives across Mexico and the world, where I have been looking at evidence that represents it as part of a global network of emerging information technologies in the 19^th century.

Three images of Lecumberri grounds taken for NEP's Archive Chronicles: one building, dome from outside, a tower. — *Pictures taken by author.*

I have since started writing my thesis, and it should be done in the next couple of years. But writing this history is not without challenge. Archives are fragmented entities by nature and are constituted by silences and absences more so than by what they have successfully safe kept.[4] As the object of appraisal, the spoils of war, or the result of the volatile and unpredictable fragmentation of collections, what survives today is just a tiny fragment of what has ever been produced. This raises fundamental questions: Why has the history of archives not been analyzed in detail until recently? What does this tell us today? What types of histories can we retrieve from analyzing institutional archives of archives in detail?

It is precisely the fragmented nature of the AGN that has compelled me to explore more experimental forms of writing about its histories, leading me to approach its complexities through creative writing, particularly in the form of essay. Because by reflecting about the conditions under which history was archived, we gain insight into how it was lived and experienced, and we open up opportunities to reinterpret the formation of national identity and the past in new and unexplored ways.

Camila Ordorica is a doctoral candidate in Latin American History at the University of Texas at Austin, where she studies the history of the General Archive of Mexico during the long nineteenth century (1790-1910). Her research dialogues with archival, cultural, social, and material history, and explores how archives are written into history and their role within it. Camila’s passion for archival studies is rooted in her training as an archivist. Camila has worked at the Acervos Históricos de la Universidad Iberoamericana and the archives of Sine-Comunarr. She has also collaborated with UNAM’s ENES-Morelia, the ’17, Institute of Critical Studies’ and the International Federation of Public History in archival studies, practice, and digital humanities.

[1] I have since figured that the best route in public transport is going to Bellas Artes metro station and taking the Metrobus 4 directly to the AGN. There’s usually more traffic, but the ride is prettier. In the crisp morning air, you can take in the entire historic center, with its crooked buildings and bustling activity.

[2] Pereyra, Carlos, et al. Historia, ¿para qué? 1st ed. (México: Siglo Veintiuno, 1980)

[3] The AHI has not yet officially opened for consultation, but it is my understanding that it will be officially presented to the public before the end of the year.

[4] See: Jacques Derrida, Archive Fever. A Freudian Impression, (The University of Chicago Press, 1996); Michelle Caswell, Archiving the Unspeakable: Silence, Memory, and the Photographic Record in Cambodia, (University of Wisconsin Press, 2014); Verne Harris, Ghosts of Archive: Deconstructive Intersectionality and Praxis, (Routledge, 2021); Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past. Power and the Production of History, (Bacon Press, 1995)

NEP’S Archive Chronicles Announcement

We are thrilled to announce a new series NEP’S Archive Chronicles!

We’re excited to announce the upcoming NEP Archive Chronicles series, curated by Associate Editor Camila Ordorica. This series will explore archives as affective and historical spaces in their own right, while offering insights into the process of conducting archival work. Each installment will provide a unique perspective on the treasures and challenges researchers encounter in the archives of the world. NEP’s Archive Chronicles aims to be both a practical guide and a reflective space, showcasing contributors’ experiences with archival research. Watch this space for new feature articles coming soon!

Camila Ordorica is a Ph.D. candidate in Latin American History at the University of Texas at Austin, where she studies the history of Mexico’s General Archive during the long nineteenth century (1790–1910). Her research bridges archival science with cultural, social, and material history, exploring how archives are written into history and their role within it. Camila’s passion for archival studies is rooted in her training as an archivist. She has previously worked at the Universidad Iberoamericana’s Acervos Históricos and the archives of Sine-Comunarr. Additionally, she has collaborated with UNAM ENES-Morelia, ‘17, Institute of Critical Studies’, and the International Federation of Public History on archival studies, practice, and digital scholarship training.

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