Around 13 handwritten pages from the 16th century by Hernando Arias de Saavedra (Hernandarias), the first Creole governor of the Río de la Plata, have been recovered by Paraguay through a judicial process in the United States. The Hernandarias manuscripts are part of the Cabildo records dated December 12, 1598. They are believed to have been stolen from the country’s National Archive in the 1990s.
These documents were recovered through coordinated efforts by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Secretariat of Culture, and the National Archive.
The documents were handed over to Paraguay’s diplomatic mission in New York. They will soon be sent to Asunción to be added to the records housed in the National Archive.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who led the process, said he was “thrilled that, for the first time, we have been able to return a stolen artifact to the people of Paraguay.” He thanked his team of prosecutors, investigators, and analysts for uncovering the theft and returning the manuscript to Paraguay’s National Archives.
In December of last year, the Hernandarias manuscripts were spotted being offered for sale online, prompting a report to the New York District Attorney’s Office, which initiated the recovery process. The Office’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit began an investigation that ultimately led to the retrieval of the documents.
