Watermarks Tell Tales

This scribal copy of the Haitian Declaration of Independence will soon travel for exhibition at the Museum of the American Revolution. A declaration of independence by the army of black Haitians from French colonial rule made 1804, the original document strongly echoes the rhetoric of the American Revolution three decades earlier. It established the first black republic in the world.

High quality images of each page are available in the Duke Digital Repository: https://repository.duke.edu/dc/haitideclaration/hdims01001

Duke’s copy of the Declaration was found in the papers of Jean Baptiste Pierre Aime Colheux de Longpré, a French colonizer of Saint-Domingue (Haiti) who fled the country during its revolution and settled in New Orleans around 1812. The manuscript was very likely made shortly after the Declaration took effect. Few known contemporary manuscript copies are available to scholars, residing at the British Library, the French National Archives, and the National Library of Jamaica. For more background on the history and scholarship of this important document, see Julia Gaffield’s 2014 article in The Appendix.

Before any item from the collection is loaned to another institution, it undergoes thorough examination and documentation. This manuscript is written on light blue laid paper, which is traditionally manufactured by hand using a woven wire mould. Wire moulds often include a watermark from the paper mill, made by sewing wire into a design through the mould. Leonie Müller, from Harvard Museums, has written a good explainer of the process with images. Watermarks in paper can give a lot of information about the place and date of its manufacture.

Since the wires from the paper mould leave the paper slightly thinner above them during the paper making process, transmitted light can be used to clearly see the laid and chain lines, as well as any watermarks. I place the manuscript on a light table and was able to clearly see watermarks on the left and right side of the sheet. On the left side of the sheet, the words “AL MASSO” are visible. This is referring to the Al Masso paper mill, which was formed in 1782 in the city of Pescia, Italy.

On the right side of the sheet, you can see a crown-topped shield crest, featuring a bird and stone tower. The words “GIORo MAGNANI” are visible beneath it, referring to Giorgio Magnani. Magnani formed the Al Masso mill in partnership with Antonio Arrigoni. The Bernstein Consortium has some photos of the same watermark here that better show some of the details.

Pescia became known in Tuscany for papermaking as early as the thirteenth century. Due to an abundance of running water in the area, the city hosted hundreds of paper mills and by the nineteenth century became an important site of industrialization in the region. The Magnani family has been producing paper since the fifteenth century and continues to do so today.

By closely examining items in the library collection, we can start to piece together more information about their origin and manufacture from seemingly small details.