The "exodus of Mexican Patrimony"
During the colonial period, many early printed Mexican books were preserved in the libraries and archives of religious orders. As the religious orders fell out of favor towards the late colonial period - and especially after Mexican independence - these collections began what many scholars describe as an "exodus" out of the country and into the United States, England, and other parts of the world.
This dispersal of Mexican books has been described by a number of scholars as one of the great tragedies of Mexican intellectual history. Ernesto de la Torre Villar, referring to the eighteenth century bibliographer Juan José de Eguiara y Eguren, writes
"The number of extremely valuable books cited by Eguiara in his works is frightening, but more frightening is that these books no longer exist in our repositories"(119).
In her article "Presencia de los impresos mexicanos del Siglo XVI en las bibliotecas del siglo XXI," the Mexican bibliographer Rosa María Fernández de Zamora similarly mourns what she refers to as the exodus of Mexican documentary patrimony. She adds her own voice to that of José Mariano Beristáin de Souza (1796), Juan B Iguíniz, Joaquin Fernandez de Cordoba, Alfonso Reyes, Alicia Perales Ojeda, Jose Miguel Quintana, Salvador Ugarte and Luis Gonzalez y Gonzalez. A passage she quotes from an editorial attributed to the nineteenth century Mexican historian Joaquín García Icazbalceta is particularly enlightening:
... una vez comenzada la decadencia de las ordenes religiosas, las librerías de los conventos, a pesar de las censuras que las resguardan, dieron paso franco a sus tesoros, y sufrieron un verdadero saqueo, lento y oculto, más no por eso menos desastroso. Sus mas (sic) preciosos libros y manuscritos pasaron a poder de particulares, y de allí muchos al extranjero, de donde ahora tenemos que volver a traerlos a gran costa y con mucha dificultad. Nuestras revoluciones ayudaron a la obra de destrucción. Los conventos eran siempre cuarteles y lugares preferidos para las asonadas. Los soldados no respetaban ciertamente las bibliotecas y más de una vez los libros dieron el papel necesario para los cartuchos... A pesar de todo, no es despreciable lo que milagrosamente se ha salvado de tanto naufragio. (11)
Fernández de Zamora explains the exodus of these documents as the legacy of two forces: rising bibliophilia in Europe and the United States, combined with the nationalization of religious libraries. At the time that religious libraries were nationalized after independence from Spain, public opinion sought to erase the memory of Mexico's colonial past. The result was a lack of regard for the archives and collections of religious libraries.
In his Breve historia del libro en México, for example, Ernesto de la Torre Villar describes how during the war of independence the military used religious institutions as barracks, utilizing the leaves of books to make paper cones, to wrap up butter, or to carry gunpowder (120). After independence, nationalized collections were often abandoned, mistreated, or forgotten.
In his Breve historia del libro en México, for example, Ernesto de la Torre Villar describes how during the war of independence the military used religious institutions as barracks, utilizing the leaves of books to make paper cones, to wrap up butter, or to carry gunpowder (120). After independence, nationalized collections were often abandoned, mistreated, or forgotten.
In this context, the sale of books abroad could be understood as a rescue effort, and in some cases they have been. For many scholars and bibliophiles, however, the acquisition of colonial documents by foreign collectors is remembered as thievery. In certain cases, individuals with access to religious libraries took advantage of the opportunity to sell books to collectors abroad, where they became part of a growing market for rare books and manuscripts that would, in turn, be incorporated into private collections in Europe and the United States.
Bibliophilia was not exclusive to Europe, however, and there were collectors in Mexico who were dedicated to building collections of national history. Joaquín García Icazbalceta, José Fernando Ramírez, and Genaro García all collected and wrote about books and documents from the early colonial period. They were also responsible for publishing new editions of important manuscripts written during that period, reinscribing these texts in the historical imagination.
