The Archivo General de Indias, often called the Archive of the Indies, was created by Charles III and officially opened in 1785. It is located in a building that was once a merchant guild hall in Seville, Spain, constructed in the late 16th century. This place holds records that document the history of the Spanish Empire in the Americas and Asia. The building was designed by Juan de Herrera and features a style that combines Italian and Spanish Renaissance architecture. In 1987, UNESCO added this structure to the list of World Heritage Sites, along with the nearby Seville Cathedral and the Alcázar of Seville.

Structure

The structure was first planned in 1572 when Philip II asked the architect Juan de Herrera, who also designed the Escorial, to create a building for the Consulado de mercaderes of Seville. Before this, Seville’s merchants often met in the cool areas of the cathedral to conduct business.

The building, called the Lonja, began construction in 1584. Juan de Mijares led the work, using Herrera’s original plans. The northern rooms on the ground floor were finished in 1598, as noted by an inscription above the central door of the northern side. The rest of the ground floor was completed the next year. Construction of the upper level started later but stopped in 1601 because of funding issues. Work resumed in 1609, but the building was not completed until 1646. Archbishop Juan de Zumárraga oversaw the project until 1629, and Pedro Sanchez Falconete finished it afterward.

The Lonja has a large central courtyard surrounded by two-story buildings. Windows are placed in slightly recessed panels between flat pilasters. Above each window, plain square stone blocks are positioned. The building is topped with a balustrade, and rusticated obelisks stand at the corners. There is no sculptural decoration, only the subtle contrast between stone and stucco, and the shadows created by the slight relief of the pilasters, cornices, and the strips that frame each window.

After a deadly plague in 1649, the building was no longer used by merchants by 1660. From 1660 to 1674, one of its rooms served as a painting academy founded by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo. By the 18th century, the upper floor was divided into apartments for living.

Creation of the archive

On March 12, 1784, Juan Bautista Muñoz, a historian trying to write a history of the New World, wrote to José de Gálvez, the Minister of the Indies, with the idea of creating a central archive for documents about the Americas. José de Gálvez had already thought about this idea for ten years and replied on April 24, telling Muñoz to look in Seville and Cádiz for buildings that could house the archive. On May 24, Muñoz visited the former Lonja with Féliz Carazas and Lucas Cintora. He wrote to Gálvez on June 8, excited about choosing this building because it was strongly built entirely of stone and had enough space for many documents. He said they would only need to remove the recent walls on the upper floor and return the building to its original condition.

Gálvez shared the idea with King Charles III, who on June 27, 1784, wrote a letter telling Muñoz to prepare a plan for turning the building into the Archive of the Indies. In February 1785, Charles III approved a law to create the archives as planned. The project aimed to gather all documents about Spain’s overseas empire in one place, which had previously been kept in different locations, including Simancas, Cádiz, and Seville.

José de Gálvez, Secretary for the Indies, was in charge of the project and assigned Juan Bautista Muñoz to carry it out. Two main reasons led to the project. One was practical: the Archivo General de Simancas, the main storage place for the Spanish Crown, had no enough space. Another was the belief, influenced by Enlightenment ideas, that Spanish historians would study the history of Spain’s overseas empire. It was decided that documents created after 1760 would stay with their original institutions for now. The first shipments of documents arrived in October 1785.

Some changes to the Casa Lonja were needed to hold the materials, and a large marble staircase was added in 1787 based on designs by Lucas Cintora.

Archival holdings

The archives contain many signed documents from the first explorers known as the Conquistadores up to the end of the 19th century. These include Miguel de Cervantes' request for a government position, a document called the Bull of Demarcation Inter caetera from Pope Alexander VI that divided the world between Spain and Portugal, Christopher Columbus' travel journal, maps of Spanish American cities, and regular records that show how the large Spanish empire operated month by month. Historians have studied these materials over the past two centuries.

Today, the Archive of the Indies holds about nine kilometers of shelves with 43,000 books and 80 million pages. These materials were created by officials in the Americas and the Philippines and include:

• Consejo de Indias, Council of the Indies, 16th–19th centuries
• Casa de la Contratación, House of Trade, government group that controlled trade, 16th–18th centuries
• Consulados de Sevilla y Cádiz, Spanish merchant group that moved from Seville to Cádiz, 16th–19th centuries
• Secretarías de Estado y Despacho Universal de Indias, de Estado, Gracia y Justicia, Hacienda y Guerra, 18th–19th centuries
• Secretaría del Juzgado de Arribadas de Cádiz, 18th–19th centuries
• Comisaría Interventora de la Hacienda Pública de Cádiz, Dirección General de la Renta de Correos, 18th–19th centuries
• Sala de Ultramar del Tribunal de Cuentas, 19th century
• Real Compañía de la Habana, 18th–19th centuries

The building was completely restored between 2002 and 2004 without stopping its use as a research library. Since 2005, its 15 million pages have been turned into digital copies. These digital copies are available online.