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Notes 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reason, and because of the historical content of La Sagra's work,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. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII. VII. IX. X. XI. XII. XIII. 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. |
