Depiction of fire at Mexico City Cathedral (Mexico Documents Collection)

On this San Jacinto Day, the University of Houston Special Collections is happy to share more exciting developments on the digitization front with the recent publication of the Mexico Documents Collection on the UH Digital Library.

Originally combined from several smaller collections, the Mexico Documents Collection contains government orders, announcements, decrees, pamphlets, and correspondence (both personal and official) dating as far back as 1570 (manuscript on vellum) on into the 20th century.  Many of the materials in the collection date from Mexican Independence (1821) through the end of the Mexican-American War (1849), but scholars with research interests in the Mexican Colonial Period or the Mexican Revolution are also likely to find some fertile ground in this collection.  Researchers with limited experience in the Spanish language will also be pleased to find a number of the documents accompanied by English translations.

Thanks to this new level of access, scholars around the globe and around the clock browsing through the online collection will turn up the names of Santa Anna de Lopez, Porfirio Diaz, and Jose Joaquin de Hererra.  A closer look reveals materials related to American military actions as part of the Mexican-American War, business and land transactions, as well as documents chronicling religion in Mexico.

petition from the Barefoot Monks to Philip V, King of Spain (1739, from the Mexico Documents Collection)

While nothing can replicate working with a physical copy of a petition from the Barefoot Monks to Philip V of Spain in the Special Collections Reading Room, the opportunity to share online these types of centuries-old documents alongside more recent materials highlighting distinct periods of Mexican history marks another exciting step for our larger Hispanic Collections.  We invite you to enjoy the Mexico Documents Collection and look forward to assisting you in your research, whether online via the Digital Library or offline next time you are able to pay us a visit.