Aims and objectives
The main goal of this project was to rescue a valuable documentary collection for the social and economic history of the Colombian Caribbean: the Notarial Protocols of Aracataca between 1912 and 1950. The history of the small town Aracataca is linked to the history of Spanish and American imperialism in the Colombian Caribbean. During the colonial period, some families of the regional elite received land concessions from the Spanish crown. Centuries later, from the beginning of the 20th century onwards, these lands were acquired by companies such as the United Fruit Company and the ‘Compagnie Agricole et Immobilière de Colombie’, for the extension of their cocoa and banana plantations. This involved a process of land accumulation in few hands that led to various conflicts. The notarial records of Aracataca reveal the history of these property transfers and the implied process of land concentration. This collection also gives greater insight into the history of the families in this region, a history that was masterfully novelised by the Nobel Prize winner and native of this town, Gabriel García Marquez.
Outcomes
In this project, we have managed to digitise the first 44 years of the Notarial Protocols of Aracataca, a small town located in the interior of the Colombian Caribbean, which was one of the most important centres for the development of Colombia's export economy at the beginning of the 20th century. The notarial protocols of Aracataca begin in 1912, after the foundation of the Notarial Office, and continue up to the present day. EAP1610 has digitised the collection from 1912 to 1955. The collection consists of 64 volumes containing a total of 34,616 pages. We have exceeded our original goal for the project, as the initial plan was to digitise only up to 1950, but in the end, we were able to digitise nine more volumes than initially proposed. In addition, during the digitisation work, we discovered the existence of a volume from 1912, which was included in the digitisation.
The notarial protocols of Aracataca are a very important historical source, as this region was colonised by both, landless peasants, and landowners who received large grants of land during the 18th and 19th centuries. At the end of the 19th centuy and during the first decades of the 20th, the presence of food corporations such as the Compagnie Agricole et Inmobiliere de Colombie and the United Fruit Company, introduced new changes to this intricated history, stored in this documentary collection. Of particular interest are sales transactions involving ‘improved land holdings’ (mejoras) made by peasant settlers to large landowners and corporations, which allow us to trace changes in the structure of land ownership in this region and processes of land concentration.
The digitised material includes not only public deeds, but also some copies of unknown newspapers and maps of farms and also of certain parts of the region. These contain very valuable information about the Magdalena banana-growing area during the first half of the 20th century.
As an outcome of the project, five copies of the digitised material were generated, which are now deposited in different institutions. In addition, this project also strengthened local capacities in digitisation and management of valuable historical documents.
