Into the Archive

Writing has long been linked to power. For early modern people on both sides of the Atlantic, writing was also the province of notaries, men trained to cast other people’s words in official forms and make them legally true. Thus the first thing Columbus did on American shores in October 1492 was have a notary record his claim of territorial possession. It was the written, notarial word—backed by all the power of Castilian enforcement—that first constituted Spanish American empire. Even so, the Spaniards who invaded America in 1492 were not fond of their notaries, who had a dismal reputation for falsehood and greed. Yet Spaniards could not do without these men. Contemporary scholars also rely on the vast paper trail left by notaries to make sense of the Latin American past. How then to approach the question of notarial truth? Kathryn Burns argues that the archive itself must be historicized. Using the case of colonial Cuzco, she examines the practices that shaped document-making. Notaries were businessmen, selling clients a product that conformed to local “custom” as well as Spanish templates. Clients, for their part, were knowledgeable consumers, with strategies of their own for getting what they wanted. In this inside story of the early modern archive, Burns offers a wealth of possibilities for seeing sources in fresh perspective.

“Those who read this small but wise volume will doubtless enhance both their understanding of colonial record making, and also their need to treat the documentary record with caution, always contextualizing the making of the records themselves. The author is to be congratulated for this major contribution to the analysis of colonial notarial sources, a book that will benefit all who work in archives.” - David J. Robinson, Journal of Latin American Geography, “Joining her voice to those of scholars such as Ann Laura Stoler and Natalie Zemon Davis, Kathryn Burns calls on historians to treat archives as a fundamental part of research rather than simply mining the documents that lie therein. Her rich case study of colonial Peru interrogates the production of archival documents and thus has wide-ranging methodological implications for historians and archivists interested not only in colonial Latin America but also in legal history, the early modern period, and the power of writing.Her clear and conversational writing style builds a convincing argument through visual and textual examples that show the constructed nature of truth in archival documents.” - Elizabeth Shesko, Journal for the Society of North Carolina Archivists, “Kathryn Burns’s elegantly written and exquisitely illustrated Into the Archive constitutes a remarkable and innovative contribution to our understanding of the making of Spanish colonialism in colonial Cusco.” - Alcira Dueñas, The Americas, “This eloquently written book is a must read for scholars and curators, within and without Latin American studies, on the meaning and function of colonial archives and their modern successors. It would be hard to find a more passionate argument for the vitality and profit of notarial collections and sources as subjects of historical inquiry.” - John Charles, Journal of Archival Organization, “Burns has given us a truly fascinating analysis of the dynamics involved in the creation of what comes to us as an archives. It is essential reading for any scholar who intends to engage in archival research or in research on the nature of the archives itself. . . . The book is rich in analysis, well researched, and full of possibilities.” - Francis X. Blouin, Jr, American Archivist

Kathryn Burns is Associate Professor of History at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She is the author of Colonial Habits: Convents and the Spiritual Economy of Cuzco, Peru, also published by Duke University Press.