Travel Records to New Spain and Cuba

Travel records were the files used by the House of Trade for documenting individuals who had to board a vessel, before their transport to the Americas as part of a fleet was authorized. This included several visits to the vessel by the authorities and technicians of the House of Trade, recorded alongside the tonnage or estimate of its maximum load.

The files include records of the goods to be transported to the Americas, with the cargo loaded by each merchant identified. The records usually included the merchants' and trading houses' marks, which were drawn onto every package for ease of identification. The image shows a selection of these marks, which tended to be an anagram of the merchant's name or the initials of the different members of the trading company.