The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 7, July 1903 - April, 1904 Page: 198
xvi, 340 p. : ill. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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198 bxwas Historical Association Quarterly.
special orders to do so, was too expensive; others, as in the case of
the larger portion of the Boturini collection, because they needed
classification before being sent. In 1790 order was given that a
large number of documents, some specified by title, the rest desig-
nated by a general provision,1 should be copied in Mexico, and a
set of the compilation be sent to Spain. In obedience to this order
the thirty-two volumes known as Coleccidn de Memorias de Nueva
Espaa were compiled. A set was sent to Spain in 1792; another
was retained in Mexico and is now in the Archivo General.
Plainly, there would have been no occasion to have this compila-
tion made in Mexico if the originals had existed in Spain in 1790.
And that they have since that date been sent there on any large
scale seems improbable. Many of the documents, being private pos-
sessions, could not easily be secured by the government. The dis-
turbed conditions, first in Spain and then in Mexico, subsequent to
1792 were, to say the least, unfavorable to the collection of mate-
rials for the literary work that had been planned. No record seems
to be known of any important shipment of such papers. And there
is evidence that as late as 1805 no considerable portion of the im-
portant materials on a large part of Mexican history were in Spain,
for when, in that year, the government wished to investigate the his-
tory of Texas and Louisiana, and incidentally of all the Provincias
Internas, as a means of securing light on the question of the Texas-
Louisiana boundary, the inquiry was made in the New World and
not in the Old, avowedly because the necessary materials were not to
be had in Spain.2 Finally, it is certain that some of the originals
of this portion of Secci6n de Historia are in the Archivo General
itself, for they have been found there. As examples of some that I,
personally, while working in only a restricted field, have encoun-
tered, I may mention the Derrotero of Domingo Ram6n, one of the
documents copied in Memorias, volume 27. The original of this,
signed by Ram6n himself, is in volume 181 of th'e Secci6n de Pro-
vincias Internas. Bound with this is the original of Espinosa's
Diario of the same expedition, and a number of letters signed by the
hand of St. Denis. In another volume of this section are contained
'Royal order of Feb. 21, 1790. Reales OCdulas y Ordenes. Archivo Gen-
eral. This order explains why a larger number of documents were not
sent to Spain in 1788.
3See below, page 202, a paragraph on the Talamantes Papers.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 7, July 1903 - April, 1904, periodical, 1904; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101030/m1/202/: accessed April 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.