This week, The Junto will explore, “Archives around the Atlantic.” As research projects frequently plunge early Americanists into far-flung archival settings, over the course of the next five days we will draw from the wide experience of our contributing editors to offer advice for approaching research abroad. It is our hope that this forum and the comments sections below might also tap into the collective expertise of The Junto readership with the common goal of making foreign archives accessible and productive.

While the Archivo General de Indias in Sevilla remains the primary destination for scholars working on projects relating the Spain’s colonial empire, the collections infrequently receive the attention they deserve from historians north of the Río Grande. This, despite Kristen Block and Jenny Shaw’s proclamation that, “colonial records in the Spanish archives reveal a wealth of reportage” about moments in early American history for which few extant documents remain elsewhere.[1] In fact, Block and Shaw’s 2011 article, “Subjects without an Empire: The Irish in the Early Modern Caribbean,” forces a reconsideration of the contours of Anglo-Irish relations in the early Caribbean by reading Spanish and English language documents side-by-side. Uncovering the lived experience of Don Juan Morfa—an Irish translator for the governor of Santo Domingo and linchpin in the defense of the island against Cromwell’s Western Design—depended on reading documents housed in the AGI. Continue reading →