The Archive of the Indies holds the “memory of a continent” as it’s cheesy museum video proclaims for tourists. The repository is probably one of the most important in the world for the study of the colonial history of the western hemisphere.  It contains nearly every record relating to Spain’s colonial empire in America and the Philipines, from Columbus’ “discovery” to the final moments of the empire in the late-nineteenth century.

I came to Spain because I wanted to investigate sources in Spanish that document the early commercial and political ties that developed between the Early U.S. Republic and Colonial Venezuela, 1790-1815. When I got here I had only a vague idea of what sources existed and how the research might turn out.

Now after four weeks, I’ve been reading about the scarcity, suffering, and sever disruptions the Napoleonic Wars brought to late-colonial Venezuela, and how the conflict in Europe radically altered Venezuelan society. In a completely serendipitous manner, the wars also allowed the young and weak United States to grow and build its own economy based on the disruption and scarcity the conflicts introduced in Latin America. The Venezuelan documents produced by colonial governors, town councils, and the consulado (merchant interest group) show how U.S. merchants were able to acquire a foothold in the colonial market on the eve of Latin American independence.

It was cacao and flour that brought Venezuela and the U.S. together. Venezuelan cacao producers desperately needed U.S. traders to carry their produce to foreign markets. In addition, because Venezuela was marked by a high population density in the late-colonial period, there was not enough grain produced in the country to feed its own people. Thus, Venezuelans came to rely on the import of U.S. manufactured flour from the early-flour-milling factory cities of Philadelphia and Baltimore.

I chose to study the history of the relationship between the two Americas through the case of Venezuela because it was the first Latin American country to declare itself independent from Spain in 1810, and because U.S. citizens, often acting without the support of formal institutions of power, became deeply involved in the events and changes that led up to independence there.

I’m also exploring the origins of the U.S. veneration of freedom and free trade and the inheritance of Manifest Destiny, trying to put these powerful historical forces into a turn-of-the-nineteenth-century context.

The archival research here is piecework and overwhelming.  Spanish colonial officials and local governing bodies exported a ton of paper documents from the colonies back to Spain.  The Spanish were tedious and consummate record keepers leaving for posterity bound volumes that can include as many as 400 pages of testimony and complaints about poor economic condition, bad governance, conflicts, grievances, etc.  The records come wrapped and packed in neat little stacks and you just keep reading and reading and reading for the gems.

You can’t really understand history until you get into an archive, because that’s the only place where you can understand how and why an “official” past is preserved, created, and reproduced to the exclusion and negligence of others.

It’s been quite exciting for me to be working with the documents. And it’s giving me new ways of  seeing the development and history of the U.S., but also other Spanish colonies like Mexico.  Finally, my understanding of colonial Latin American history has grown by leaps and bounds–an exciting prospect for my dissertation and for the development of some interesting courses in the future.

My name is Libby Neidenbach, and I am a PhD candidate in the American Studies program. This summer I am living in New Orleans for seven weeks to conduct archival research for my dissertation. For the past five weeks I have split my time between the Notarial Archives, the Historic New Orleans Collection, and the Archdiocese Archives.

Ok, so maybe it is not covered in dust, but Marie Couvent’s last will and testament is a fascinating document. In it, this free woman of color left property to establish a school for indigent free black children, which continued to operate on the same site after 1848. Using her will as a starting point, my dissertation recovers the life of Marie Couvent, and the early nineteenth-century New Orleans world she inhabited. Enslaved as a child in the late eighteenth century and taken to St. Domingue, she died a free and wealthy slaveholder in New Orleans in 1837. Tracing Couvent’s life as she moved from property to property owner provides a unique lens onto the ways in which free people of color built a community through social networks, property ownership, and collective institutions in New Orleans.

I plan to use Couvent as a focal point within larger social, cultural, and historical contexts to open new avenues to study New Orleans’ gens de couleur libre. Determining Couvent’s social landscape will illuminate the spaces free people of color created in the city to sustain their community as the center of slavery shifted to the Deep South. Analyzing the land, material, and human property Couvent owned will enhance our understanding of what property ownership could mean for black people in a slave society based on the chattel principle. Throughout my project I will pay particular attention to the ways gender inflects the experience of freedom for black men and women, particularly as this relates to the opportunities and experiences of free women of color.

While at times the research process can be highly frustrating, it is by far my favorite part of the work I do as a scholar. Perhaps my obsession with Nancy Drew books as a kid developed this passion for tracking down clues in the archives. And in the case of Marie Couvent there is certainly no shortage of mysteries. Although she could not sign her own name, Couvent left a meandering trail of documents throughout the archives in New Orleans from baptisms to wills, buying and selling slaves, and a host of social and business contacts.

When I first began this project I had no idea what I would find. I knew there was a very good chance that I would learn little more than I knew when I wrote my Honors Thesis on Couvent and the “Couvent School” as an undergraduate at Tulane. I am both thrilled and grateful that I have recovered so much about her life- more than I ever imagined.

This is actually the second summer I have spent researching in New Orleans. Last year I was here for ten weeks so I felt comfortable getting back into the habit of spending eight hours a day six days a week in the archives. Unfortunately, this familiarity with a routine did not always translate into a clear idea of what I needed to be doing in the archives. Of course, I came with a plan. But I also discovered that it is very easy to get overwhelmed once you start the research, whether you have a plan or not. This is especially true for the Notarial Archives which have tens of thousands of documents (and, if I had my way, I would look at every single one!) Zeroing in on what is most important can be tough, and it took me a few weeks to really get a clear sense of the direction I wanted to go.

I continued to work hard throughout this time no matter how frustrated I felt when I got home. One of my advisors told me that the things you need will just come to you in the archives, and I have found this to be my experience. I feel that I have stumbled upon most of the major discoveries I have made about Marie Couvent. Some of it is paying close attention to details, some of it is being very thorough, and the rest is going with your gut feelings. I really began to hit my stride about two weeks ago when I made some major breakthroughs concerning Couvent’s early life before New Orleans.

Now I feel like I have so much to do in these last two weeks. I know I cannot look at every document I want to or take notes or make copies of everything I need. This creates more difficult decisions about what is the most important versus what is interesting but not necessary. My first priority is any document that deals directly with Marie Couvent or the individuals closest to her. After that I am focusing on property ownership by free people of color and sources that will help me map where they lived and what land they owned in the city. This is a tall order, but I will do my best to gather as much as possible in the time I have left.

While I had hopes that this trip would get me everything else I needed to finish my dissertation, it does not look so promising, at least from this moment. I feel good knowing that I have worked hard and found some really great stuff. And I certainly can’t complain about having an excuse to return to my two-hundred year old books in the archives of my favorite city!

In my case, I already knew what I wanted to do with the manuscripts going into the archives. For the most part, my research in Pamplona was for the purpose of filling in some the gaps in my thesis. My thesis deals with Tridentine reform in a sixteenth-century parish, but on a more complicated level, it hinges on the actors being tugged in different directions. In other words, how was the bishop involved? What role did the parish priest take in facilitating a impeding the process? And crucially, what say, if any, did the parishioners have?

Because of what I found in my earlier trip to Pamplona in 2009, I am arguing that all three had roles in the reform process. However, my documentation from my earlier trip did not have enough testimony from the parishioners. Thus, one of my primary motivations on this trip was to gain more information on their wants and actions within parochial reform. Therefore, I made sure to focus in on witness testimony in the trials of my Don Pedro.

Specifically, the jewel of trials in terms of witness testimony is a trial the followed a dispute with Don Pedro’s brother, Juanes, Don Pedro himself, and most of the residents of Atondo. The argument was over tithes (when they should be given), but it escalated quickly. Don Pedro found himself facing the entire town, and noticing that his brother was amongst them, he turned his fury on him, calling him a “traitor” and “false.” He then proceeded by attacking him with the church keys (which weighed more than two pounds) and hitting Juanes over the head, apparently with the intention of killing him.

This, of course, took place in front of the entire town, and plenty of witnesses were found when a few days later, Juanes took the case to the Bishop’s court.  This then, is exactly what I was looking for. These witnesses happily stepped forward to tell the Bishop what had happened, and thus condemn, and correct Don Pedro’s behavior. They were not passive, but rather actively involved in the process of reforming this post-Tridentine cleric who was still acting much like a medieval parish priest in that he was heavily entrenched in his parish; in the case of Don Pedro, there was little difference in the actions of a priest when compared to a layman. He involved in the non-priestly happenings of his parish, to the extent that he would even resort to violence.

This is fundamental to my thesis. Don Pedro may have been lagging in the reforming process, but his parishioners showed that they were actively involved and interested. The parish mattered to them, and they mattered in the parish. Conclusions like these are what I will be finalizing in the next coming days as I insert this new evidence and witness testimony into my thesis before I get it to my committee on July 1.