Lesson 2: The Gaceta de Puerto Rico and Chronicling America

Step-by-step guide to searching Puerto Rico's oldest newspaper on Chronicling America, plus a dedicated section on finding slavery-related notices with specific search terms.

Intermediate

Part of the Looking for Ancestors in Historical Puerto Rican Newspapers course. See Lesson 1 for background.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:

Navigate Chronicling America to find Puerto Rican newspaper titles
Filter results by territory, newspaper title, and date range
Conduct a keyword search and interpret the results
Identify the genealogical value of four Puerto Rican titles on Chronicling America
Apply specific search terms to locate slavery-related notices in colonial Puerto Rican newspapers

What Is Chronicling America?

Chronicling America is a freely accessible digital archive maintained by the Library of Congress. It holds more than 22 million pages of historic American newspapers, including six Puerto Rican newspaper titles, more than 33,000 issues, covering 1756 to 1963. All content is free, searchable by keyword, and available as digitized page images.

Access Chronicling America at: chroniclingamerica.loc.gov

Puerto Rican Titles on Chronicling America

Gaceta de Puerto Rico (1806–1902)

The Gaceta de Puerto Rico is the oldest and most genealogically valuable newspaper in Puerto Rican history. As the official colonial government gazette, it published:

Royal decrees, land grants, and administrative orders
Property transactions and tax notices
Militia appointments and legal notices naming individuals
Birth, marriage, and death announcements
Slave sale advertisements, manumission notices, and runaway notices (pre-1873)
Post-1873 liberto labor contract disputes

Chronicling America holds 10,643 digitized issues, 1836–1902. Item record: loc.gov/item/2013201074

Research implication: For ancestors who owned property, held any official position, were involved in legal proceedings, or were enslaved or freed in nineteenth-century Puerto Rico, the Gaceta is your first newspaper stop.

Boletín Mercantil de Puerto Rico (1839–1918)

Valuable for reconstructing economic and social lives of ancestors connected to commerce, land, or elite networks. Chronicling America holds 34 of 37 years in print. Item record: loc.gov/item/2021270641

La Correspondencia de Puerto Rico (1890–1943)

Founded in San Juan on December 18, 1890, by Ramón B. López. Priced at one cent, it quickly reached a daily print run of 5,000 copies – the first daily in Puerto Rico accessible to a wide public. Its vital notices often include family detail that official records omit. Item record: loc.gov/item/sn91099747

La Democracia (Ponce, 1890–1948)

Founded and published by poet and politician Luis Muñoz Rivera. Covers political activity, community leadership, and land disputes. Chronicling America holds more than 4,244 issues from 1891–1907. Item record: loc.gov/item/sn90070270

Step-by-Step: Searching Chronicling America

Step 1: Go to the site

Open chroniclingamerica.loc.gov.

Step 2: Filter by Territory

On the main search page, find “Limit by State” and select Puerto Rico.

Step 3: Filter by Newspaper Title (Optional)

Use “Select Newspapers” to choose a specific title, or leave unfiltered to search all Puerto Rican titles.

Step 4: Set a Date Range

Use “Select Date Range” to narrow your search. For pre-civil-registration ancestors (before 1885), start 3–5 years around the estimated event date.

Step 5: Enter Search Terms

In the “All of the words” field, enter your ancestor’s surname. Start with the surname alone.

Search tip: Accent marks are often stripped by the OCR process. Search Mendez rather than Méndez. Try multiple spellings if the first search returns nothing.

Step 6: Review Results and Browse

Results show matching pages with keyword highlights. Click any result to open the page image. If keyword searches return no results, switch to Browse mode: select a title and date range and read issues directly.

Step 7: Save and Cite

Download the page image and record the URL of the specific issue page as your source reference before moving on.

The Gaceta de Puerto Rico and the Boletín Mercantil published slave-related notices throughout the slavery period (ended 1873). After abolition, the same papers published notices related to freed persons (libertos) under the patronato system (1873–1876).

What to Look For

Slave sale advertisements: naming the enslaved person, sometimes with age, origin, and skills
Runaway slave notices: physical descriptions and sometimes place of origin
Manumission notices: formal announcements of freedom, naming the enslaved person and previous owner
Liberto labor contract disputes: post-1873 notices contesting labor contract terms

Search Terms for Slavery Research

Use these in Chronicling America with the Gaceta de Puerto Rico or Boletín Mercantil, date range 1840–1876:

Search Term	What It Finds
`esclavo`	References to enslaved men
`esclava`	References to enslaved women
`manumision`	Manumission notices (search without accent – OCR strips it)
`liberto`	Freed men post-1873
`liberta`	Freed women post-1873
`patrocinado`	Men under patronato labor contracts (1873–1876)
`patrocinada`	Women under patronato labor contracts
`carta de libertad`	Documents of freedom
`se ha fugado`	Runaway slave notices
Owner surname + `esclavo`	Manumission and sale notices

Research implication: Cross-reference any newspaper findings with the 1872 Padrón General de Esclavos, available through FamilySearch.

Key Terms

Term	Definition
Chronicling America	Free LOC digital archive of historic American newspapers, including Puerto Rico
OCR	Optical character recognition; converts newspaper images to searchable text; often imperfect for Spanish-language content
Liberto/Liberta	Freed person; used in Puerto Rican records after abolition in 1873
Manumission	Formal act of freeing an enslaved person; documented in official notices
Patronato	Labor contract system governing freed persons in Puerto Rico, 1873–1876

Reflection Questions

You are searching for an ancestor with the surname Rodríguez in Bayamón around 1870. What search terms would you try first in Chronicling America, and why would you search without the accent mark?
How would the audience difference between the Gaceta and La Correspondencia affect what type of genealogical information each is likely to contain?
Your ancestor was freed from enslavement in Puerto Rico in 1873. Which paper would you search and what specific terms would you use?
You search Chronicling America and find no results. What is your next step?

Class Exercise

Open Chronicling America. Filter by Puerto Rico. Select the Gaceta de Puerto Rico. Set a date range of 1860–1875. Search for manumision (without accent).

In your Newspaper Search Log (WS-01), record:

How many results appeared
The date and title of one result
What information about a named person appears in that notice
The URL of the specific issue page

If no results appear for manumision, try liberto or esclava in the same date range and record what you find.

Continue to Lesson 3: Puerto Rico’s Own Free Portals

Back to Lesson 1

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