(MEXICO) Extensive estate file of Puebla merchant Francisco

Sale 2391 - Lot 398

Price Realized: $ 4,250

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 1,200 - $ 1,800

(MEXICO.) Extensive estate file of Puebla merchant Francisco Ruicabo. 60 manuscript leaves (most double-sided) plus 2 unnumbered partial leaves and several blanks. Folio, stitched; minor wear, a bit of dampstaining, leaf 55 cropped. Puebla de los Angeles and elsewhere, 1578-9

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Additional Details

Ruicabo was a native of Seville who came across the ocean to grow his fortune in Puebla. In 1578, while arranging a shipment of cow hides in the coastal of Pánuco, he fell ill and was taken home to Puebla to dictate his will and testament (leaves 1-4, also transcribed in a neater hand later in the file). This is followed by detailed inventories, testimony, and other probate documents, some relating to his holdings and interests in Veracruz, Tlaxcala, and Mexico City. A slave named Francisco is listed ("un esclavo negro llamado Fran'co nacido en mi casa de edad de catorze or quinze años") on leaf 39. Those Pánuco hides are discussed at length (leaves 45-47); an unscrupulous ship master assumed ownership of them from the dying man, though the subterfuge was detected in Veracruz before the cargo crossed the Atlantic. Provenance: William Reese Company, 1992.