CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE GENERAL ARCHIVES OF THE STATE, 1952-2000

Consuelo González Martínez *

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Archives and Libraries in Chiapas

1952:   The General Francisco J. Grajales, Constitutional Governor of the State, creates by means of decree the General Archives of the State of Chiapas. Its first director is Professor Fernando Castañón Gamboa, a distinguished Chiapaneco historian.

1959:   On the first of September a new director is named, Professor Eduardo J. Albores González, due to the death of Professor Fernando Castañón Gamboa.

1960:   Next to assume the position of director is the Lieutenant Colonel Gustavo López Gutiérrez, the diligent Chiapaneco historian and author of the works:  “Chiapas in the defense of the Mother Country”, “Gutiérrez, Colossus Chiapaneco Federalist”, “Chiapas and its Libertarian Epics”.

1969:   Professor Gustavo Maza y Maza is named as the director.

1972:   Replacing Gustavo Maza is the professor Ramόn Corzo Valasco. On the 15th of February, the General Archive of the State changes its name to the Historical Archive of Chiapas of the House of Culture (Archivo Histórico de Chiapas de la Casa de la Cultura).

1973:   Professor Marte Fabio Galvez Rivera is named the director of the Historical Archive of the State. The archive is a dependent office of the Sub-Secretary of Culture and Recreation of the State which is under the Secretary of Public Education of the State of Chiapas (SEPECH). During the administration of Professor Fabio Gálvez, the old General Archive of the State, later known as the Historical Archive of the State, was divided into two big heaps of documents. These are El Archivo Histόrico del Estado and the Archivo de Concentración. El Archivo Histórico was moved from la Casa de la Cultura to the new edifice of the Public Library of the State (Biblioteca Pública del Estado) and the Archivo de Concentración was moved to the edifice of the Proveeduria General de Gobierno.

1983:   The 10^th of January, during the Administration of the General Absalón Castellanos Domínguez, Constitutional Governor of the State, the Department of Libraries was created and it was responsible for the following three organizations, 1) Biblioteca Pública del Estado, 2) Archivo Histórico del Estado, and 3) Hermeroteca Pública “Fernando Castañόn Gamboa”. On the 25^th of January, in agreement with the poet Oscar Wong, Sub-Secretary of Culture and Recreation of the SEPECH, the Department of Libraries changed its name to the Department of Documentation and Information and was placed under the authority of the Direcciόn de Publicaciones y Bibliotecas, whose first director was Carlos Palacios Hernández.

1987:   On the 21^st of January was created the Chiapaneco Institute of Culture (Instituto Chiapaneco de Cultura), a public organization under its own jurisdiction and patrimony. Its goal is to rescue, to protect, to preserve, to spread and to foster intercourse with the arts and cultural evolution of the State. Consequently, it was responsible for the Historical Archive of the State (Archivo Histórico del Estado), the Central Public Library of the State (Biblioteca Pública Central del Estado) and the Hemeroteca Pública “Fernando Castañόn Gamboa”.

1988:   On the 8^th of December there is a new Organic Law of the Public Administration of the State. In Article 22 and in Fraction IX it says that it is the duty of the Secretary of Government to organize, to co-ordinate and to watch over the General Archive of the State.  For that reason, the Department of the General Archive of the State would be created under the office of the Secretary of Government.   

1989:    The Department of the General Archive of the State was created. On the first of January José Luis Castro Aguilar was designated as its chief. On the 8^th of May, Juan Lara Dominguez, the Secretary of the Governor, solicits the Oficialía Mayor de Gobierno to transfer the Archivo de Concentración of the state government to the Department of the General Archive of the State for his custody and conservation. On the 30^th of June, C. Carlos de Jesús Castañón Morell is named director of the Archivo Histórico of the State.On the 18^th of July, the chief of the General Archive of the State, José Luis Castro Aguilar solicited the governor of the state, José Patrocinio González Garrido for the construction of an edifice for the General Archive. The project is assigned to Cuauhtémoc López Sánchez being the President of the Consejo Estatal de Fomento para la Investigación y Difusión de la Cultura (CEFIDIC). He considers putting the Central Public Library in the same building to create a center of culture in Chiapas.

1992:    The Article 22, Fraction IX of the Organic Law of the Public Administration of the State was reformed to say that the Secretary of the Government (la Secretaría de Gobierno), la Oficialía Mayor de Gobierno, and el Instituto Chiapaneco de Cultura correspond, watch over and co-ordinate with the General Archive of the State. For that reason, on the 11^th of November, the Oficialía Mayor de Gobierno, Jaime Machorro Musalem asked the governor of the state to transfer the Archivo de Concentración to the Department of the Archive General of the State which is under the Secretary of Government.

1993:   On the 4^th of January the Archivo de Concentración, became dependant of the Department of the Archive General of the State. On the 11^th of February the Subcomité Especial de Administración de Documentos y Archivística del COPLADE was created. On the 21^st of March the first stone was laid for the construction of the edifice for the Central Public Library and the General Archive of the State, the cultural center that Cuauhtémoc López Sánchez envisioned a few years earlier. On the 11^th of August the Governor of the State, Elmar Harald Setzer Marseille expropriates an area of 10,970 square meters in the grounds of the old Escuela Prevocacional e Industrial (Prevo). Construction of the new edifice begins and lasts until 1998 costing a total of $90,514,508.49 pesos. On the 20^th of October was promulgated the Law of the State System of Archives.

1994:   On the 16^th of November, the regulation of the Law of the State System of Archives is promulgated. On the basis of this law and regulation, the next day the executive power of the state orders that both the General Archive of the State and the Central Historical Archive move to the culture center called the Centro Cultural de Chiapas “Jaime Sabines”.

2000:   On the 3^rd of April, the President of the Republic of Mexico, Dr. Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León, inaugurates the Centro Cultural de Chiapas “Jaime Sabines”. Dr. Ernesto Zedillo accompanied by Robert Albores Guillen, Governor of the State, Rafael Tovar y de Teresa, Director of the National Council for Culture and the Arts (Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes), José Luis Castro Aguilar, Chief of the General Archive of the State, and other civil servants, walked around the new installations of the General Archive in its new edifice.

* Translation provided by Alessandra Lee
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