The following is a guest post by Drue Edney, an intern in the Digital Resources Division of the Law Library of Congress through the Library of Congress Internship program (LOCI).
Note: this post uses a pejorative term as it originally appears in the collection item.
During my internship at the Law Library of Congress, I have had the great honor and privilege to read many documents and personal letters in the Miscellaneous Hispanic Legal Documents Collection. Written almost entirely in Spanish, the documents in this collection are from the 15th through the 19th centuries and therefore some knowledge of written Spanish and paleography are necessary. My goal is to use my research to highlight historical moments where underrepresented groups show up in the collection. In my research, I am preoccupied with how Afro-descendants appear in historical collections and why these instances may not always result in greater understanding of Afro-descendant cultural contribution. As a case study, I have chosen a document written on July 22, 1730 by Lorenzo Zabala, who was writing from “San Phelipe el Real” (present day Chihuahua City, Mexico). In the opening lines of his request for a marriage certificate, Zabala identifies