The Archivo y Biblioteca de Bolivia
With the money that he made in Argentina, he purchased a number of silver, tin and other precious metal mines, as well as multiple mills and other businesses.
Curiosity got the better of me and I really wanted to know how many mines, mills, businesses and other investments he had amassed in the Sucre, Bolivia area and I thought that his last wills and testaments would delineate his possessions, so I searched all the genealogical sites for any documents that might have a copy of his will, but to no avail.
Next, I traveled to the University of Nevada at Reno which has a library dedicated to Basque studies. It was amazing, located on a dedicated floor of the library, all their shelves are full of books in all three languages, Basque, Spanish and English, documenting all aspects of the Basques in Latin America.
The Center’s Director is a native Basque and his assistants were very helpful in locating the books I had identified as possible sources of information in their card catalogues. Even though I did find interesting documents on the ship that he had sailed to South America, specific information about his holdings could not be found.
The only thing that I thought I had left to explore was the internet and for the next 3 days I tried every search string possible to see if there were any hits that would lead me down the right path of discovery.
I hit upon a resource that I thought would be my saving grace: The ARCHIVO Y BIBLIOTECA NACIONALES DE BOLIVIA, or The National Archive and Library of Bolivia.
The National Archive and Library of Bolivia
They have an online searchable archive with thousands of documents spanning the history of Bolivia, along with many documents from Spain. I thought that my search would be over with this discovery!
The archive can be found here: Bienvenido - Archivo y Bibliotecas Nacionales de Bolivia and in the top right side of the page is a short menu in which you can select “English” and all the results will be shown in English.
The Archive’s Search Engine
I spent the next several hours searching for documents on my relative, and I was rewarded with quite a few listing various mines and other possessions he had, but never did find his last will and testament or any other documents listing his entire list of investments, in spite of the wonderful help provided by the research librarians there at the Archivo.
So, the mystery continues to be unresolved. At least for the moment. I am still optimistic that, someday, the document will be uncovered, translated, indexed and awaiting a future search.
