Arsenals of Knowledge: Reconstructing the Contents and Purpose of the Lost Jesuit Libraries of Northern Mexico

Abstract

This article examines several libraries assembled by the Society of Jesus in their college and missions in Northern Mexico (in the present-day Mexican State of Chihuahua), where Jesuits have been a constant presence from the seventeenth century, interrupted only temporarily by the Society’s suppression. All their bibliographic collections were transferred, dispersed, or looted after the general expulsion of 1767. Archival materials preserved in repositories such as the Archivo General de la Nación in Mexico City, however, enable a reconstruction of these libraries. This essay argues that these collections constituted a sort of “cultural oasis” (Michael Mathes). They provided arsenals of knowledge for missionaries in distant places with harsh living conditions and show the strong and lasting bond between Jesuits and print culture even in the most remote and adverse of conditions.