Arquivo Público do Estado da Bahia APEB

History and Founding

The Arquivo Público do Estado da Bahia (APEB) was founded on 16 January 1890 by act of the then-governor of Bahia, Manoel Victorino Pereira. It is considered the second most important state public archive in Brazil, after the Arquivo Nacional in Rio de Janeiro, owing to Salvador's role as the seat of the Portuguese colonial government in Brazil from 1549 to 1763. The archive was mandated from its inception to gather all historical, administrative, judicial, and legislative documents of the state in a single, systematically organised location.

For much of its first century the archive operated from several different premises. In 1980 it was transferred to its current home, the Solar da Quinta do Tanque in the Quintas neighbourhood of Salvador — a historic building listed by the Instituto do Patrimônio Histórico e Artístico Nacional (IPHAN) since 1949. The solar originated as a Jesuit rest house in the sixteenth century, belonged to the Jesuit order until their expulsion from Brazil in 1759, and passed through several owners and uses (including a leprosarium from 1787 to 1940) before being restored by the Bahia state government and assigned to the APEB. In 2002, as part of an administrative reform, the APEB became a directorate of the Fundação Pedro Calmon (FPC), under which it continues to operate.

Collections and Holdings

The APEB holds approximately 7,360 linear metres of documents, spanning from the late sixteenth century to the early twenty-first century, comprising textual, iconographic, and cartographic materials of both public and private provenance. Its oldest document dates to 1552. Colonial-era records of exceptional importance include documents from the Tribunal da Relação do Estado do Brasil (inscribed on UNESCO's Memory of the World Register in 2008), royal orders from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, records of the Conjuração Baiana (Búzios Revolt of 1798), and passenger arrival records at the Port of Salvador from 1855 to 1964 (inscribed in 2010). The private collections include the Companhia Empório Industrial do Norte (1891–1973), a major textile enterprise, whose records were inscribed on the register in 2016.

An online access system, AtoM (Access to Memory), is available at atom.fpc.ba.gov.br for remote consultation of finding aids and digitised materials.

Access and Usage

The archive is open Monday through Friday from 9:30 am to 4:30 pm. Access is free of charge. Researchers must register on arrival. Some materials under active processing have restricted access.