Biography of a Colonial Document
Biography of a Colonial Document
- Sylvia Sellers-GarcíaSylvia Sellers-GarcíaBoston College, Department of History
Summary
What can we learn about the documents we work with if we incorporate a study of document creation, travel, and storage into the consideration of document content? Some well-known documents, such as the Popol Vuh, have backstories that reveal as much as their content. But even obscure documents, such as a dispute over a road detour in 18th-century Guatemala, can be read productively as objects with life trajectories. Understanding the “life” of this document—the world in which it was made, the tools and knowledge of its making, its travel while being written, its storage in colonial and national archives—sheds new light on its meaning. Similarly, all colonial documents can be interpreted in new ways if their lives are treated as part of the interpretation.
Keywords
Subjects
- History of Central America
- 1492–1824
- Colonialism and Imperialism
