Taken, Traded, Remembered: Journeys of Puerto Rican Collections
Taken, Traded, Remembered
Indigenous Taíno people called the island of Borikén home when the Spanish arrived on its shores in 1493. Now known as Puerto Rico, the island's history includes generations of Taíno, African, and European descendants, along with the diverse communities that followed. This exhibit draws in part on provenance research conducted by Luis Daniel Beauchamp, a Puerto Rican student in the North American diaspora, as part of a Museum Practicum course.
Explaining his motivation, Luis Daniel notes, “Historically, museums in North America have paid less attention to objects from South America and the Caribbean, and I think by studying Borikén Taíno objects one can learn so much about a part of the United States that few people think about."
Studying the provenance of items reveals how they arrived at the museum while also looking to connect them back to the communities they came from—to the artists who skillfully carved them out of raw materials and the people who cherished and cared for them throughout time.
Tracing how these collections came to the museum also helps us understand part of Puerto Rico’s history and what events influenced the movement of collections. These objects’ life histories began with creativity, artistry and profound meaning but they also encountered centuries of Spanish colonization, American imperial interests, and the rise of museum collecting. They sit before us today with those complicated journeys embedded in them.
Taíno history is “one of resilience, continuity and cultural survival.”
-Luis Daniel Beauchamp (Harvard '26)
Below are three groups of Puerto Rican items and what we know about their histories. To view a list of all items at the Peabody that are known to come from Puerto Rico, please visit the Collections Online.
First Puerto Rican Accession, 1876
George Latimer and the Smithsonian
The first cultural items to come to the Peabody Museum from Puerto Rico arrived in 1876, having been collected by American businessman George Latimer between 1828-1874. Latimer, a member of a prominent merchant family in Pennsylvania, established himself in the family business by running cargo ships between Philadelphia and the Caribbean. He settled in Puerto Rico around 1828 and served in various diplomatic positions as well as founded his own firm trading primarily in sugar, the dominant export crop and economic engine of 19th-century Puerto Rico.
One of the earliest North American collectors of archaeological material from Puerto Rico, Latimer exhibited his collection at Puerto Rico’s first Exposition Fair, held by the Spanish colonial administration in June 1854. By the 1860s he was sending items to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, making them among the earliest Indigenous Puerto Rican collections formally documented by a U.S. institution. After Latimer’s death in 1874, his nephew William H. Latimer carried out his uncle’s final wishes for the remaining collections to be sent to the Smithsonian.
Packed in 10 barrels and 16 boxes, the collection arrived from Puerto Rico on a Dutch ship loaded with sugar.
In 1876, a small portion of Latimer’s collection arrived at the Peabody as part of a collections exchange with the Smithsonian. Trading items between museums was a common practice around this time — the goal being for each institution to have an encyclopedic collection representing a broad variety of cultures.
No records appear to exist describing exactly where or how Latimer acquired his collection, separating it from its provenience — the archaeological context that would show where and how each item was found.
We do, however, know from institutional records that many of the items were unearthed by workers, possibly enslaved, who labored on Latimer's land and other local plantations—laborers whose own histories, like the objects' original context, were never recorded.
Selections from the Latimer collection
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Note that George Latimer's name is prominently recorded alongside catalog numbers from the Smithsonian and the Peabody. At the time these items entered museum collections, this was considered some of the most important information about them. Missing are the names of the people who carved these stones, the communities they held meaning for, and the laborers who first brought them out of the ground. We may not be able identify them, but we need to acknowledge them.
To view all items at the Peabody known to be connected to George Latimer, visit Collections Online.
Puerto Rican teacher, 1904
Eladio Pabón Vargas
Our first step in provenance research at the Peabody is to consult our archival catalog documents — an excerpt of the 1904 catalog ledger entry for this group of archaeological items is shown below.
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No further information on the donor, Puerto Rican teacher Eladio Pabón Vargas, was found in the museum’s records. Expanding our research took us to the Harvard University Archives where we learned about a Harvard summer school program that brought over 250 public school teachers from Puerto Rico to Cambridge in 1904. The HU archive holds rosters showing Vargas was in fact part of the program, earning an A in Mr. Raggio’s Class 12.
Participating teachers, selected by Puerto Rico’s commissioner of education, departed San Juan on a US Army Transport ship on June 26, 1904 for a six-week excursion to Harvard. Living with families in the Cambridge area, the visiting teachers primarily attended English language classes but were also focused on learning American history and culture. The United States had acquired Puerto Rico as a territory in 1898, and in the years that followed, U.S. colonial authorities made English the language of instruction in island schools as part of a broader Americanization effort.
While we don’t know how Vargas came to possess these items, we assume he boarded that US Army ship with them. Was his intent always to bring them to a museum at Harvard? There is no documentation that the teachers visited the Peabody Museum specifically; however, in addition to their coursework, they had opportunities for museum visits and other excursions, both on and off campus.
A selection of objects from the Vargas collection
It's important to remember that Puerto Ricans were collecting, studying, and valuing these objects long before North American institutions became involved. It is not currently known how Vargas acquired pieces of pottery, stone celts, and one single stone bead, but they were recorded as coming from Cueva Ayala, a cave located on Isla Cueva in the Lajas region off the southwestern coast of Puerto Rico.
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To view all items at the Peabody known to be connected to Eladio Pabón Vargas, visit Collections Online.
Archaeologists, 1915-1916
Samuel and Rachel Lothrop
The vast majority of items from Puerto Rico currently at the Peabody were given to the museum by Samuel Kirkland Lothrop and his wife Rachel Warren Lothrop. From 1915-1916, the couple traveled in Puerto Rico where they acquired nearly 1,000 archaeological items. Although Sam had graduated from Harvard in 1915 with a degree in archaeology and Rachel had also studied anthropology at Radcliffe College with the intent of assisting in fieldwork, only some of the items were from excavations that the Lothrops were personally involved in. Catalog records tell us many were purchased from other collectors, often having been unearthed through agricultural work.
Studying this collection’s provenance connects to the wider global history of imperial interests leading to large-scale sugar plantations in the Caribbean. Sam’s father, William Sturgis Hooper Lothrop, was part owner of the Aguirre Sugar Company, one of the largest sugar companies to operate in Puerto Rico. Having spent parts of his childhood in Puerto Rico, Sam’s personal connections likely helped him build the collections through local collectors and laborers. Some of the find sites were even located on properties connected to the Aguirre Sugar Company.
Archival documents have not revealed the Lothrops’ specific motivations for traveling to the island in 1915 but other anthropologists, including Franz Boas and John Alden Mason, were also in Puerto Rico around the same time as part of The Scientific Survey of Porto Rico and the Virgin Islands, organized by the New York Academy of Sciences.
While it doesn’t appear Harvard explicitly commissioned the Lothrops’ collecting in Puerto Rico, the items received were put on display in the Peabody’s main entrance hall soon after their arrival.
A selection of objects from the Lothrop collection
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Taíno Zemi, 19-21-30/C9215
Catalog records tell us Dr. Coll y Toste sold this stone carving, found in Utuado, to the Lothrops in 1915-1916. Cayetano Coll y Toste was a Puerto Rican doctor and government official based in Arecibo. He was also an author and publisher of the journal Boletín Histórico de Puerto Rico. as well as the official Historian of Puerto Rico. Coll y Toste published this same carving in his book Prehistoria de Puerto Rico in 1907, which tells us he had collected it at least a few years before selling it to the Lothrops. Coll y Toste’s interpretation of it is upside down of how we have it shown here—he believed it represented a fish. It is possible the stone was carved to be viewed in both directions, duality often appears in Taino art.
The Peabody’s catalog ledger documents this ceremonial stool, or duho, as coming from the town of Cidra––it is one of dozens of items the Lothrops obtained from Dr. Izquierdo of Salinas. Further research into who Dr. Izquierdo was and especially into how and where he obtained collections is a potential avenue for gaining more knowledge about these objects’ histories. | 
Some of the collections received from the Lothrops have information about where they were collected, but many unfortunately do not—that is the case with this carved stone zemi. |
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Lothrop catalog records tell us this dagger-shaped stone carving was purchased from a Mr. Kidd of Mayaguez after being plowed out of a hill at the north end of Joyuda Lake, a bioluminescent lagoon just south of Mayaguez. Researching local collector names can sometimes reveal important clues about where items were collected. Unfortunately, in this case, we have been unable to find any more information on who Mr. Kidd is or how exactly he obtained this item. | 
This carved stone came from shell mounds on the site named Esperanza. A man named Mr. Prescott sold this object as well as dozens of others, primarily all from this same site, to the Lothrops. Museum records don’t tell us who Mr. Prescott was or what his relationship was to the Lothrops, so we turned to genealogical research. We identified a Mr. Robert S. Prescott from New Hampshire, listed as a sugar cane plantation owner in Central Aguirre in 1920. Given the overlap in place, time and plantation connections, this seems likely to be the Mr. Prescott who collected the items. |
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Some items donated by the Lothrops retain their original number labels, allowing us to directly match them with their catalog cards. While the cards provide some basic information, almost all of the items lost some of their provenience, meaning they cannot be reconnected to their exact find location, only a general area. Professional archaeologists today carefully record and document all aspects of a site excavation, preserving all available context connecting items to their pasts.
