Letters between lettereds: circulation of knowledge in the correspondence between Joaquín García Icazbalceta and William H. Prescott (1849-1856)

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to show the importance of studying the correspondence exchanged between William H. Prescott and Joaquín García Icazbalceta is an opportunity to study a tiny fraction of this flow of interchanges in the 19^th century between the two countries (and also with Europe). Such a flow of letters, although fragmentary, unequal and small (compared to the thousands of letters both of them wrote in their lives) allow to demonstrate the importance of studying correspondence of such knowledge producers in the 19^th century. It is from these documents, as well as from the printing of books, periodicals and the circulation of those manuscripts and printed issues, that a great part of the memory-guarding institutions were formed in the United States and Mexico. We will argue about how to write the history of Mexico was being thought and the institutionalization of a historical science, as well as the attempts of making their first national histories. We dispute some ideas that corroborate that there was only a relationship of war and distrust between Mexico and the United States in that period.