9. Researching the history of slavery in Colombia and Brazil through ecclesiastical and notarial archives

This chapter addresses the history of slavery and development in two of the most African locales in colonial South America: the Pacific and Caribbean coasts of modern Colombia and northeastern Brazil. Both modern nations have recognised the historical and civic neglect of the “black communities” within their borders and now offer them legal and cultural recognition, as well as, at least theoretical, recognition of ancestral communal land ownership. The endangered archives digitised under the ..

From Dust to Digital

Much of world's documentary heritage rests in vulnerable, little-known and often inaccessible archives. Many of these archives preserve information that may cast new light on historical phenomena and lead to their reinterpretation. But such rich collections are often at risk of being lost before the history they capture is recorded. This volume celebrates the tenth anniversary of the Endangered Archives Programme at the British Library, established to document and publish online formerly inaccessible and neglected archives from across the globe. From Dust to Digital showcases the historical significance of the collections identified, catalogued and digitised through the Programme, bringing together articles on 19 of the 244 projects supported since its inception. These contributions demonstrate the range of materials documented - including rock inscriptions, manuscripts, archival records, newspapers, photographs and sound archives - and the wide geographical scope of the Programme. Many of the documents are published here for the first time, illustrating the potential these collections have to further our understanding of history

El ambiente entre representación y ecología - Un estudio de caso en Guatemala, siglo XIX The environment: between representation and ecology - A case study of Guatemala, 19th century

<abstract language="por">A Guatemala - onde a cultura do café assumiu papel relevante - foi alvo de intensa idealização de sua natureza, ao mesmo tempo em que foi exaltada como uma nação essencialmente agrícola. Tais imagens se construíram tanto sobre bases naturais como sobre representa ções sociais e históricas. Muitos estudos apontam a existência de duas macro-regiões homogêneas no seu território. Entretanto, cada uma delas apresenta uma composição ecológica muito mais variada do que se supõe tradicionalmente, o que se configura como um dos principais fatores de compreensão da constituição histórica das regiões de plantio do café naquele país.<br>Guatemala - where the culture of coffee became relevant - was the target of intense idealization of its nature, at the same time that it was exalted as an essentially agricultural nation. Such images were built upon natural bases as well as upon social and historical representations. Many studies point to the existence of two homogeneous macroregions in the territory. However, each one of them presents an ecological composition much more varied than is traditionally supposed, which is one of the main factors for understanding the historical constitution of coffee plantation regions in that country

Drastic Vegetation Change in the Guajira Peninsula (Colombia) During the Neogene

International audienceDry biomes occupy ~35% of the landscape in the Neotropics, but these are heavily human-disturbed. In spite of their importance, we still do not fully understand their origins and how they are sustained. The Guajira Peninsula in northern Colombia is dominated by dry biomes and has a rich Neogene fossil record. Here, we have analyzed its changes in vegetation and precipitation during the Neogene using a fossil pollen and spore dataset of 20 samples taken from a well and we also dated the stratigraphic sequence using microfossils. In addition, we analyzed the pollen and spore contents of 10 Holocene samples to establish a modern baseline for comparison with the Neogene as well as a study of the modern vegetation to assess both its spatial distribution and anthropic disturbances during the initial stages of European colonization. The section was dated to span from the latest Oligocene to the early Miocene (~24.2 to 17.3 Ma), with the Oligocene/Miocene boundary being in the lower Uitpa Formation. The early Miocene vegetation is dominated by a rainforest biome with a mean annual precipitation of ~2,000 mm/yr, which strongly contrasts with Guajira's modern xerophytic vegetation and a precipitation of ~300 mm/yr. The shift to the dry modern vegetation probably occurred over the past three millions years, but the mechanism that led to this change is still uncertain. Global circulation models that include the vegetation could explain the ancient climate of Guajira, but further work is required to assess the feedbacks of vegetation, precipitation, and CO2