Cuba Collection

The SSDA Cuba collection consists of ecclesiastical and secular documents dating from the sixteenth-through nineteen centuries from the provinces of Cienfuegos, Havana, Holguín, Matanzas, and Santiago de Cuba, as well as a small selection of transcriptions and volume descriptions. The collection is organized in a geographical hierarchy, beginning with a modern province and descending to a modern city and finally the institution where the document was originally produced.

The Cuba collection also includes digitized images of La Aurora de Matanzas, the nineteenth century newspaper published in Matanzas that has been described as the jewel of Cuban journalism.

Collection information

  • Archives 27
  • Temporal Range 7/16/1584 through 12/31/1914
  • Volumes 414
  • Images 100,187
  • Languages Spanish
  • Browse the Collection

The Team

Jane Landers

Director

Roberto Alvarez

Researcher

Fernanda Bretones Lane

Researcher

Paula Covington

Reseacher

Michael Deliz

Reseacher

Charles Grand

Researcher

Oscar Grandío Moráguez

Researcher

John Harris

Researcher

Felix Knights

Researcher

David LaFevor

Photographer

Matt LaFevor

Researcher

Henry Lovejoy

Researcher

Paul E. Lovejoy

Researcher

Andrew McMichael

Researcher

Antonio Lacerda Menezes

Researcher

Willie Ramos

Researcher

Enrique Rivera

Researcher

Father Juan Manuel Triana (deceased)

Anfitrião

David Wheat

Researcher

Additional Resources

Although SSDA's primary mission is to digitally preserve endangered records before they are lost, SSDA team members also transcribe these documents for easier public use. Transcribing these handwritten documents requires skills in paleography (deciphering and interpreting historical texts) as well as in Spanish and Portuguese from the 16th-19th centuries.

Archivo Histórico Provincial de Matanzas, Religiones Africanas (Transcription by Elvira Aballí Morell, Vanderbilt University)
Catedral de La Habana, Libro de Barajas, Bautismos, 1590-1600 (Transcription by David Wheat, Michigan State University)
Catedral de La Habana, Libro de Barajas, Matrimonios, 1584-1622 (Transcription by Jorge E. Delgadillo Núñez, Vanderbilt University)
Archivo Histórico Provincial de Matanzas, Cimarrones, 1785-1843 (Transcription by Elvira Aballí Morell, Vanderbilt University)
Catedral de La Habana, Libro del Monte, 1666-1698 (Transcription by David Wheat, Michigan State University)
Libro APM Gobierno Provincial (Cimarrones), 1785-1843 (Transcription by Elvira Aballí Morell, Vanderbilt University)
Libro APM Religiones Africanas, 1897-1904 (Transcription by Elvira Aballí Morell, Vanderbilt University)
Libro 1 de Bautismos de Pardos y Morenos, 1797-1805 (Transcription by Elvira Aballí Morell, Vanderbilt University)