Spanish Governors of Louisiana Dispatches, 1766-1791 | Illinois History and Lincoln Collections

This collection contains facsimiles of the dispatches of the Spanish governors of Louisiana to the captains-general at Havana beginning from 1766 and continuing until the end of 1791.

As a result of the efforts of Roscoe R. Hill and the Department of Historical Research at the Carnegie Institution of Washington D.C., ten sets of photographic copies were created from the original dispatches in Seville, Spain, and distributed in 1916. The dispatches (alternatively spelled "despatches") of the governors of Louisiana are part of a greater set of documents entitled "Papeles Precedentes de la Isla de Cuba," files of the captains-general at Havana, held at the Archives of the Indies in Seville, Spain. These files, transferred from Cuba to Spain in 1888, include approximately 950 legajos (bundles of documents) related to the history of the United States.

The collection contains facsimiles of the regular series of official civil dispatches from the Spanish governor of Louisiana to his immediate superior, the captain-general of Cuba. The dispatches include a range of communications sent by a series of Spanish governors of Louisiana, beginning with the first governor, Antonio de Ulloa, in 1766, and continuing until Francisco Luis Héctor de Carondelet began his term at the beginning of 1792. The dispatches range in subject matter and include criminal proceedings, troop movements, military reports, royal decrees, financial matters, general news, and other affairs related to the colonial administration.

The documents are arranged in thirty volumes labeled with the plate (page number) range and are chronologically organized by date and year. The collection includes a "Calendar of Documents" that provides the serial number (page number), legajo (bundle) number, date of the document, and a short description of each dispatch.

The collection was acquired by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign circa 1917.