LA SAGRA'S HISTORIA

Notes
Appendices (maps, tables, and drawings)

One of the most important critics of this century José María Chacón y Calvo, said in 1958 that the Historia física, política y natural de la Isla de Cuba, by Ramón de la Sagra, "was among the greatest rarities of Cuban bibliography."¹ The thirteen volumes of this work, published in Paris in the middle of the nineteenth century, were destined to become a singular case among books about the island. Max Henríquez Ureña, the historian of Cuban letters, wrote in 1963: "La Sagra had to overcome numerous difficulties to achieve publication of his work in separate pamphlets that began appearing in 1837 and continued for a period of twenty years.... Since it was edited under such unusual circumstances, it is extremely difficult today to find a complete collection of the twelve volumes that it comprises."²

When La Sagra began publication of his extensive work, the only objective, scientific information about Cuba was Baron von Humboldt's Essai politique sur l'ile de Cuba (published in 1826 and translated to Spanish in 1827)³ and Robert Jameson's Lettres from the Havana, during 1820, Containing an Account of the Present State of the Island of Cuba, and Observations of the Slave Trade.⁴ However, because of the limited scope of these earlier works and the paucity of sources consulted by their authors, neither of them could, as did La Sagra," make the character and importance of Cuba known to the educated public of Europe and America.⁵ For this reason, and because of the historical content of La Sagra's work, Emilio González López, the foremost biographer of La Sagra, justifiably refers to him as "an innovator, a pioneer, in the studies of Cuba's history."⁶

La Sagra's approach to history can be said to place him within the positivist school. In fact, Chacón y Calvo has said that this work of La Sagra demonstrates "a distant prefiguring of the Tainean method."⁷ For Hippolite Taine, race, milieu and nature determined the course of events, and all analysis had to be based on the broadest documentary evidence. The 13 volumes of La Sagra's Historia serve as an extensive compilation of what had gone into the makeup of Cuba: the ethnic composition of the population, slavery, government, politics, economy, agriculture, commerce, climate, geography, flora, fauna, and more, all of which is presented with a rigorous methodology through statistical tables, maps, detailed descriptions, and drawings from nature faithful in color and dimension. It is logical, in consequence, that this work has deserved the praise of specialists from the time of its publication to the present. In the middle of the last century the greatest scholar of his time, Domingo del Monte, considered the work of La Sagra "one of the worthiest on the island of Cuba,"⁸ and in 1970, in the course of an international conference in the Library of Congress dealing with the works on Cuba from part of its collections, Carmelo Mesa Lago, economist and historian, said that the first part (vols. 1 and 2) of the Historia was "one of the most valuable entries in the collection."⁹ In his Historiografía de Cuba, José Manuel Pérez Cabrera calls it "an indispensable source and guide for our scholars."¹⁰

It is not surprising that in our days such a work might be considered a real rarity since shortly after its publication, La Sagra himself spoke of how few were the complete sets that were available. In 1861, he said:

My voluminous work, printed with ill-conceived luxury, suffered during its publication singular losses in the text that condemned it to be little known even before it was finished. The copies that the government generously procured in order to protect them were, for the most part, incompletely distributed. Those who had taken subscriptions in the island grew weary of waiting for the end of such a protracted, slow, and irregular process of publication. And of the copies that I had reserved for myself, only very few could be completed, since a lot was lost in the warehouses of the editors during the long years that were required to finish the publication. As a result of this conjunction of unfortunate causes, it came to pass that the Spanish edition of the Cuban work was little known, and that its future circulation would be limited to the reduced number of copies that I am today finishing for the government by means of a partial reprinting of the text and of the plates that are missing.¹¹

The Historia appeared in 190 installments, many of which were lost. During the printing of the work, La Sagra was forced to publish four pamphlets to explain the delays and the losses. In one, issued in 1855, he talks of the difficulties that he was facing, and confesses that "the greatest part (of the copies ordered by the government) had been burnt or lost."¹²

The Spanish government had commissioned La Sagra to prepare 300 copies of his monumental work. To this effect, in 1844 the Cuban treasury had given him $57,500, and between 1835 and 1856 paid him a salary of $2,500 a year, that is, a total of $110,000.¹³ In the middle of the last century, referring to this munificence of the colonial government, the Portuguese scholar Vizconde de Satarem, expressed that "The Island of Cuba has paid more than 150,000 francs for the two volumes of the magnificent work published by our colleague in the Royal Institute of France, Don Ramón de la Sagra."¹⁴

It is impossible to estimate the number of complete collections that exist of this "fundamental work on Cuba that is today so rare and therefore so expensive," as it was described in 1934 by the historian Gerardo Castellanos,¹⁵ but everything seems to indicate that they are very few. With such a limited number available to scholars, it is easy to understand why critic Raimundo Lazo wrote in 1965 that La Sagra's Historia física, política y natural de la Isla de Cuba is "as compendious as it is little known."¹⁶

Jorge Aguayo published the definitive study of La Sagra's Historia in 1946, when he was assistant director at the University of Havana Library. After reading the volumes available in Cuba, the collection at the Library of Congress, and referring to all the bibliographies that describe the work, he wrote:

a. The Historia física, política y natural de la Isla de Cuba, edited by Ramón de la Sagra, is the most complete and important work of its kind, detailing as it does the flora, fauna, and social and geographic conditions of our land.

b. La Sagra's words explain why it is so difficult to complete a collection of such an important work.... Up to now, I am yet to find a single, perfect collection in any one of the public libraries in Cuba.... In 1887, thirty years after it was finished, Bernard Quaritch, the famous London bookseller, commented that the Spanish edition of La Sagra had become rare and that it would increase in value with time.

c. The Spanish edition of the Historia física, política y natural de la Isla de Cuba is one of the most difficult works to find in perfect condition.¹⁷

Only very few of the descriptions of La Sagra's Historia, and fewer still of the Spanish-language edition, have been written with the benefit of a complete collection at hand, but a well preserved one and in its original bindings, belonging to a private collector in Madrid, was consulted for this article and is the basis for the following description:

Ramón de la Sagra. Historia física, política y natural de la Isla de Cuba. XIII volumes. París: Maulde et Renou; Madrid: Francisco P. Mellado; París: Simon Raçon, 1842B1961, 13 maps (2 fold.), 150 color plates, 110 black and white plates, tables, diagrams, etc. 39x26.5 cm.

INDIVIDUAL VOLUMES:

I.
Historia física, política y natural de la Isla de Cuba por D. Ramón de la Sagra.
Primera parte. Historia física y política. Tomo I. Introducción, geografía, clima, población, agricultura.
París, en la Librería de Arthus Bertrand, Librero de la Sociedad de Geografía, Calle Hautefeuille No. 23, MDCCCXLII.
París: Imprenta de Maulde y Renou, Calle Bailleul, No. 9 y 11. v-lxxix, 302 pp.

II.
Historia física, política y natural de la Isla de Cuba por D. Ramón de la Sagra.
Primera parte. Historia física y política. Tomo II. Comercio marítimo. Rentas y gastos, fuerza armada, apéndice.
París, en Librería de Arthus Bertrand, Librero de la Sociedad de Geografía, Calle Hautefeuille No. 23, MDCCCXLII.

III.
París: Imprenta de Maulde y Renou, Calle Bailleul, No. 9 y 11.
135 pp., Apéndice: 72 pp., Atlas geográfico: 13 mapas.¹⁸
Historia física, política y natural de la Isla de Cuba por D. Ramón de la Sagra.
Segunda parte. Historia natural. Tomo III. Mamíferos y aves.
París, en Librería de Arthus Bertrand, Librero de la Sociedad de Geografía, Calle Hautefeuille No. 23, MDCCCXLV.
Madrid: Establecimiento tipográfico de don Francisco de P. Mellado. Calle del Sordo, No. 11.
220 pp.

IV.
Historia física, política y natural de la Isla de Cuba por D. Ramón de la Sagra.
Segunda parte. Historia natural. Tomo IV. Reptiles y peces (por MM. Cocteau y Bibron y M. Guichenot).
París: en la Librería de Arthus Bertrand, Librero de la Sociedad de Geografía, Calle Hautefeuille No. 23, MDCCCXLIII.

V.
París: Imprenta y Litografía de Maulde et Renou. Calle Bailleul, No. 9 y 11.
255 pp.
Historia física, política y natural de la Isla de Cuba por D. Ramón de la Sagra.
Segunda parte. Historia natural. Tomo V. Moluscos (por Alcides D'Orbigny).
París: en la Librería de Arthus Bertrand, Librero de la Sociedad de Geografía, Calle Hautefeuille No. 23, MDCCCXLV.
Madrid: Establecimiento tipográfico de don Francisco de P. Mellado. Calle del Sordo, No. 11; París: Imprenta de Maulde y Renou, Calle Bailleul, No. 9 y 11.
376 pp.

VI.
Historia física, política y natural de la Isla de Cuba por D. Ramón de la Sagra.
Foraminíferas por Alcides D'Orbigny, Caballero de la Real Orden de Honor.
París: en la Librería de Arthus Bertrand, Librero de la Sociedad de Geografía, Calle Hautefeuille No. 23, MDCCCXL.

VII.
París: Imprenta de Maulde y Renou, Calle Bailleul, No. 9 y 11.
7-180 pp.
Historia física, política y natural de la Isla de Cuba por D. Ramón de la Sagra.
Segunda parte. Historia natural. Tomo VII. Crustáceos, aragnides e insectos.
París: en la Librería de Arthus Bertrand, Librero de la Sociedad de Geografía, Calle Hautefeuille No. 23, MDCCCLVI.

VII.
París: Imprenta de Maulde y Renou, Calle de Rívoli, No. 144.
xxxii, 371 pp.
Historia física, política y natural de la Isla de Cuba por D. Ramón de la Sagra.
Segunda parte. Historia natural. Tomo VIII. Atlas de Zoología.
París: en la Librería de Arthus Bertrand, Librero de la Sociedad de Geografía, Calle Hautefeuille No. 23, MDCCCLV.
París: Imprenta de Maulde y Renou, Calle de Rívoli, No. 144.
Mamíferos: 8 color plates, aves: 33 color plates, reptiles: 31 color plates, peces: 5 color plates, moluscos: 30 color plates, Paleontología: 8 black and white plates, foraminíferas: 12 color plates, articulata: 20 color plates.¹⁹

IX.
Historia física, política y natural de la Isla de Cuba por D. Ramón de la Sagra.
Segunda parte. Historia natural. Tomo IX. Botánica.
París, en la Librería de Arthus Bertrand, Librero de la Sociedad de Geografía, Calle Hautefeuille No. 23, MDCCCXLV.
Madrid: Establecimiento tipográfico de don Francisco de P. Mellado. Calle del Sordo, No. 11.
328 pp.

X.
Historia física, política y natural de la Isla de Cuba por D. Ramón de la Sagra.
Segunda parte. Historia natural. Tomo X. Botánica (por A. Richard).
París, en la Librería de Arthus Bertrand, Librero de la Sociedad de Geografía, Calle Hautefeuille No. 23, MDCCCXLV.
Madrid: Establecimiento tipográfico de don Francisco de P. Mellado. Calle del Sordo, No. 11.
319 pp.

XI.
Historia física, política y natural de la Isla de Cuba por D. Ramón de la Sagra.
Segunda parte. Historia natural. Tomo XI. Botánica.
París, en la Librería de Arthus Bertrand, Librero de la Sociedad de Geografía, Calle Hautefeuille No. 23, MDCCCL.

XII.
París: Imprenta de Maulde y Renou. Calle Bailleul, No. 9 and 11.
5B339 pp., tabla, 2 pp.
Historia física, política y natural de la Isla de Cuba por D. Ramón de la Sagra.
Segunda parte. Historia natural. Tomo XI. Atlas de Botánica.
París, en la Librería de Arthus Bertrand, Librero de la Sociedad de Geografía, Calle Hautefeuille No. 23, MDCCCLV.
París: Imprenta de Maulde y Renou. Calle Bailleul, No. 9 and 11.
20 color plates, 102 black and white plates.²⁰

XIII.
Historia física, política y natural de la Isla de Cuba por D. Ramón de la Sagra.
Suplemento a la sección económico-política. Comprensivo de los datos relativos a la población, a la agricultura, al comercio y a las rentas públicas de la Isla de Cuba desde el año 1842 inclusive (XIII Suplemento only in the spine).
París, en la Librería de L. Hachette y Cía. Calle de Pierre-Sarrazin, No. 14, MDCCCLXI.
París: Imprenta de Simón Raçon y Cía. Calle de Erfurth, 1
3-282 pp.²¹

Because of its usefulness to anyone wishing to study Cuba, because of the extraordinary resources that went into its production (primarily due to its 269 plates, engraved in copper and retouched by hand by the best specialists of that time), and because it has been for such a long time the greatest rarity of Cuban bibliography, the thirteen volumes of La Sagra's Historia may be considered the most valuable possession for any collection specializing in Cuba and the Caribbean.