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Excerpt from Descriptive Catalogue of the Documents: Relating to the History of the United States in the Papeles Procedentes De Cuba, Deposited in the Archivo General De Indias at Seville To an organized and endowed institution which approaches the task of exploiting foreign archives for purposes of American history, it is natural to begin with that process which is most fundamental, most extensive in scope, simplest, serviceable to the greatest number and variety of investigators. Therefore this Department of Historical Research undertook, first, to go the rounds of the great national archives of Europe, and of Canada and Mexico, sending qualified scholars to each to make summary surveys of what it contains of unprinted material for the history of America, or of the United States, and publishing the results in volumes the scale of which was roughly proportioned to the amount or importance of the material found in each repository. Thus, four large volumes, prepared by Professor Charles M. Andrews, Dr. Charles O. Paullin, Professor Frederic L. Paxson, and Dr. Frances G. Davenport, have exhibited to the American student, in brief but comprehensive survey, the manuscript treasures, for American history, of the archives of London. Two or three volumes on those of Paris are under preparation by Mr. Waldo G. Leland. Those of Germany have been treated, in a substantial volume, by Professor Marion D. Learned, those of Switzerland and Austria by Professor Albert B. Faust, those of Rome and other Italian capitals by Professor Carl R. Fish, those of Russia by Professor Frank A. Golder, those of Canada by Mr. David W. Parker, those of Mexico by Professor Herbert E. Bolton, those of Cuba by Mr. Luis M. Perez. A thorough examination of those of the Netherlands had been begun when the present great war opened; and some preparations have been made for the examination of those of the Scandinavian countries, Scotland, Ireland, and the West Indies. If Spain be added to this list, it will be seen that summary guides to American materials in at least the national or central archives have been published or undertaken in the case of nearly all those foreign countries whose history to any important extent touches that of North America, certainly of all those to which any parts of North America stood in a colonial relation, and which are therefore in an archival sense motherlands of its history. In the process of "first aid" we have in a dozen years nearly made the circuit, and have produced a series of volumes which, whatever the imperfections resulting from preparation in so short a period of time, have at any rate "served the present age" by making known to the existing generation of American historical scholars not less than a hundred thousand documents in foreign archives not hitherto known to their studies. It may fairly be thought appropriate and seasonable to turn now to the exploitation, on a larger scale and by a different method, of some outstanding portions of the mass. That for this fuller and minuter treatment, after some method falling under the second of the processes described above, choice should be made of some body of papers in the archives of Spain, is due to several reasons. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.