Guide to the Hospicio de Pobres (Puebla, Mexico) Records 1761-1857


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Table of Contents

• Descriptive Summary
• Information on Use
• Access
• Citation
• Historical Note
• Scope Note
• Related Resources
• Subject Headings
• INVENTORY

Descriptive Summary

Information on Use

Access

No restrictions.

Citation

When quoting material from this collection, the preferred citation is: Hospicio de Pobres. Records, [Box #, Folder #], Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library

Historical Note

Most of these materials, which are largely official in character and concern haciendas and properties, were composed or transcribed in Puebla at the direction of city officials. The city of Puebla de los Angeles, founded by the Spaniards in 1532, was a district capital, the seat of a bishopric, and a leading center for the activities of the religious orders. At the end of the eighteenth century it was the capital of an intendancy whose jurisdictional borders, reaching far into Tlaxcala and elsewhere, were far more extensive than those of the later Estado de Puebla.

The original home of the Puebla Papers was probably the Hospicio building in a central city street called Calle del Hospicio, formerly known as the Calle del Colegio. The "Colegio" referred to was the Jesuit College of San Ildefon-so, built in the 1620s, which was turned into the "Hospicio de Pobres" after the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767. The documents in Box I, folder 6, suggest that mortgage assets held by the extinct Jesuit college were transferred to the Hospicio. According to Hugo Leicht's Las Calles de Puebla (2d ed. [Puebla, 1967], p. 192)-a rich source of antiquarian information about the city-the Hospicio building served as a barracks during the wars of independence and fell into ruins.

In 1825 the Mexican Congress decreed that a Casa de Hospicio, Enseñanza y Correcciòn was to be established, or re-established, in Puebla. The minute book in Box 11, Folder 1-which could be entitled "Actas de las Junta del Hospicio"-gives us a precise view of what occurred in response to the congressional directive. The governor of Puebla, Jose Maria Calderon, called a meeting on 27 July 1825 at which a governing junta was chosen to supervise the activities of the new Hospicio. Antonio Cal was selected president of the junta, with Jose Castillo Rosete as secretary, and five other vocales (directors). The junta was supposed to meet at 5 p.m. in the governor's palace, usually in his presence, every Monday and Friday. The junta met ten times during the first month of activity, plunged into a money-raising campaign, and organized the rebuilding of the Hospicio structure. The first indigents or orphans were supposed to be admitted on 1 September 1825, but the reconstruction was not finished until later.

The Hospicio contained a poorhouse, a home for the aged, an orphanage, and a school-at least in theory. The Monday and Friday schedule of junta meetings was never observed. The junta met only three times in September 1825, twice in October, once in November, and not at all in December. There are no minutes of meetings between 22 February 1826 and 5 January 1828. The Hospicio, nevertheless, seems to have functioned, although Leicht states that it was not inaugurated until 1832, when the directors invested the institution's funds in a paper mill (called La Beneficencia Publica).

The minutes for the thirty-seven meetings recorded in the book show that financial problems dominated the discussions of the junta. Mortgages held on haciendas and other properties, most of them assets inherited by the Hospicio from previous benevolent societies, provided an inadequate source of funds. The hacienda records, which dominate this collection, can be tied in to the minute book and to the fiscal papers of the Hospicio. The documentation is rich for the haciendas of Santa Maria de la Pena Hachichuca, San Diego Jalapaxco, Chapultepec, and San Antonio Tlacamulco-most of which were located in the vicinity of Tapeaca and Chalchicomula. There are many persons named from Puebla families, such as Seoane, Segura y Cevallos, Breton, Castillo Rosete, Calderon, and Furlong. Leicht (pp. 164-70) has a long notice on the Furlongs, the descendants of an Irish immigrant; Leicht also has useful scraps of information on various individuals from the other families mentioned.

The Hospicio owned various houses on the Calle del Hospicio apart from the main building. Aside from a miscellaneous affidavit dated 1857, the Hospicio papers proper end with the year 1846. By the 1860s the main structure of the Hospicio had again fallen into ruins (Leicht, p. 193), although charitable activities apparently continued in other buildings on the same street.

Scope Note

Consists of papers and documents, 1761-1857, chiefly deeds and mortgage records of neighboring haciendas related to the fiscal activities of the Hospicio and other charitable institutions of Puebla. Total of 53 items, with 871 leaves.

Related Resources

The following related resources are located in the Department of Special Collections:

http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/spcl/select.html

Mexican Confraternity. Records

Subject Headings

• Hospicio de Pobres (Puebla, Mexico)
• Almshouses -- Mexico
• Charities -- Mexico
• Deeds -- Mexico
• Mortgages -- Mexico
• Puebla (Mexico)
• Manuscripts, Mexican

INVENTORY