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This documentary collection is the record of an expedition led by Dr Antonio Núñez Jiménez in South America and the Caribbean in 1988. Its main goals were to recreate the discovery of the Caribbean and its islands by the prehistoric tribes of the Amazon and the Orinoco basins, conduct scientific research in the fields of nature and anthropology by way of science and culture, and take a concrete step towards Latin American and Caribbean unity.

The expedition, which has no precedent in the zone, lasted one year. Sixty-six scientists, artists, technicians and assistants from Latin America and the Caribbean, and more than 58 collaborators participated fully or in part. If civilian and military crew members of the support ships are added, this number increases to a total of 432 people mobilized for the trip.

The expedition travelled 17,422 kilometres across twenty countries. This distance included not only journeys through the Napo-Amazonas-Negro-Guainía-Atabapo-Temi-Orinoco waterways and the Caribbean Sea, carried out mainly in canoes, but also the adjacent trips through tributaries, jungles and island territories. Ecological, botanical, zoological, sociological, geographical, geological, archaeological, anthropomorphic, geophysical and other studies and research were carried out during the journey. Contacts were established with the Quichua, Huaorani, Secoya, Ticunas, Yaguas, Curripacos, Barés, Waraos and other aboriginal peoples on the South American continent, while at sea they interacted with the Black Caribs of St. Vincent and of the Community of Dominica, last survivors of that American culture in the Antilles.

The collection "From the Amazon to the Caribbean in Canoe" consists of extensive documentation in different formats: film, photographs and prints. The holding includes books published by Dr Núñez Jiménez and by other Colombian and Puerto Rican researchers, as well as documents from the preparatory stage, and made during and after the expedition. The expedition made possible the production, in collaboration with the Spanish Television, of 30-minute documentaries of great testimonial value.