Latin American History

Selections from Archivo General de Indias
Author: Archivo General de Indias (Spain).
Language: Spanish
104 Reels

"The Archivo General de Indias is, without a doubt, the most important document collection in the world for the study of the history of the Americas."

Latin American Network Information Center

The Archivo General de Indias (AGI) is a massive collection of official documents produced by the Spanish government for the administration of Spain's overseas territories. The selection of documents from the AGI held in Stony Brook University Libraries consists of 104 rolls of microfilm drawn from two of the 15 major divisions of the overall collection: Gobierno (Government) and Contaduría (Auditing).

The documents contain information on population, mineral findings and mining projects, income reports, money shipments, military operations, Indian relations, discoveries and explorations. Some description and impressions of the area and its people are included.

The Gobierno (Government) section is the largest in the overall AGI collection, and is divided into 15 sub-sections, corresponding to the 14 Audiencias or tribunal jurisdictions into which the Spanish territory was divided, and the Indiferente General, containing documents of a general nature not related to any specific territory.  It consists mainly of adminstrative records issued by the Consejo de Indias.

The microfilm collection at Stony Brook contains material from two of the Audiencias:

1) México (1519-1856), which included the territory north of Chiapas to just before the city of Gudalajara and just below the present-day state of Tamaulipas.

2) Guadalajara (1533-1832), which extended north from the Audiencia of México and included the northern states in present-day Mexico, Baja California, and the southwest and much of the west in the present-day United States.

The collection also contains material from the Indiferente General.

The Archivo General de Indias (AGI) is divided into 16 sections and contains over 38,000 "legajos," or files.  The  "legajo" number is what people use to find material within the larger collection. The AGI collection at Stony Brook University comes from two of the 16 sections: Contaduria (Acccounting) and Gobierno (Government.)  The latter section is further divided into two parts: 1)  Distritos Audienciales (basically their regional governance districts), and 2) Indiferente General, a miscellaneous or general collection.  From the Distritos Audienciales, we have holdings from two districts: México and Guadalajara.  And we have some legajos from the Indiferente General.

Below is a summary list of Legajos in the AGI collection at Stony Brook University.

GOBIERNO:

Guadalajara: 1-3, 6-10, 28-33, 36-40, 49, 86-89, 107-115, 138-141, 143-145, 147-149, 151-152, 155, 159, 161-162, 164, 166, 169-172, 174, 178, 182, 185-187, 190, 194, 197, 203, 230-238, 253-255, 267-278, 281-285, 300-303, 306-312, 314-317, 325-327, 329-332, 337-348, 351-354, 357-358, 368-371, 373-375, 400-411, 416, 418-419, 423, 426-427, 435-438, 442-446, 448, 450-452, 458-488, 492-504, 526-531.
México: 2035, 2117-2120, 2145-2150.
Indiferente General: 38, 40, 102, 186, 1526, 1713-1714, 1767, 1780.

CONTADURIA: 842-850, 855, 863-870, 872, 875, 922-932.

The Excel spreadsheet lists the content by Roll # and by Legajos #.

While there is no specific guide to the sections of the Archivo General de Indias (AGI) held at Stony Brook, there are numerous books to help researchers locate different kinds of information within the AGI.