Primary Sources for US History
Examples of primary sources that could be used for the study of United States history are well represented throughout this guide. Consider the many US government document, US newspapers, and other materials available at Monroe Library.
Below are a selection of digital collections and resources the cover specialized subjects or time periods. If you are having trouble identifying or locating primary sources for your research project, be sure to contact the History Librarian or an Archivist for assistance.
Native American History
- Duke Collection of American Indian Oral History"Provides access to typescripts of interviews (1967 -1972) conducted with hundreds of Indians in Oklahoma regarding the histories and cultures of their respective nations and tribes."
- Native Americans Oral History Collections (UF)"The 'Native Americans Oral History Collections' is part of the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program is an affiliated program of the University of Florida's Department of History. Its collections include approximately 4,000 interviews and more than 85,000 pages of transcribed material, making it the largest oral history archive in the South and one of the major collections in the country. The transcribed interviews are available for use by research scholars, students, journalists, genealogists, and other interested groups. Researchers have used our oral history material for theses, dissertations, articles, and books."
- Samuel Proctor Oral History Program Digital Collection (University of Florida)With over 8,000 interviews, of which over 3.600 are online, this is one of the largest oral history archives in the South. The largest collection contains more than 900 interviews with Native Americans including Seminoles, Cherokees, and Creeks. Other major holdings include projects on African Americans in Florida in the Joel Buchanan Archive of African American Oral History, Civil Rights action in St. Augustine (1964), and the University of Florida.
- Indian-Pioneer PapersThe Indian-Pioneer Papers oral history collection spans from 1861 to 1936. It includes typescripts of interviews conducted during the 1930s by government workers with thousands of Oklahomans regarding the settlement of Oklahoma and Indian territories, as well as the condition and conduct of life there.
- Indians of North America: Selected ResourcesA compilation of many of the resources on the Indians of North America available at the Library of Congress as well as selected resources outside the Library.
When searching for materials about specific nations or cultures of Indigenous Peoples of the Americas, you may need to search multiples names since the way American settlers have historically referred to Native groups may not be the same as how Native groups name themselves (e.g. Diné or Haudenosaunee, compared to Navajo or Iroquois.)
Library of Congress Subject Headings used in our local library catalog often use "Indians" to describe Indigenous Peoples generally. Note that Native Hawaiians are not included under these headings, but are described separately as Hawaiians.
The general subject headings are as follows:
- Indians of North America
- Indians of Mexico
- Indians of Central America
- Indians of South America
- Indians of the West Indies
These can be further subdivided geographically by adding a US state, Canadian province, or other country or regional name.
When browsing the book shelves for works about indigenous peoples and First Nations of North America, you may find the most books in the following call numbers ranges:
Indians of North America History: E 75-99 (2rd Floor)
- E 93 Government relations
- E 97 Education
- E 99 Individual nations
Law of the United States and Indians: KF 8201-8228 (3rd Floor)
North American Indian Languages: PM 101-2711 (3rd Floor)
- Indian Claims Commission Decisions (1946-1978)The Indian Claims Commission Decisions is a 43 volume set documenting the claims of American Indian groups against the United States from 1946 to 1978. All 43 volumes of this collection were digitized by the Oklahoma State University Library in cooperation with the University of Tulsa Law Library and the National Indian Law Library.
- Kappler's Indian Affairs: Laws and TreatiesCompiled and edited by Charles J. Kappler, this historically significant, seven volume compilation contains U.S. treaties, laws and executive orders pertaining to Native American Indian tribes. The volumes cover U.S. Government treaties with Native Americans from 1778-1883 (Volume II) and U.S. laws and executive orders concerning Native Americans from 1871-1970 (Volumes I, III-VII). Digitized by the Oklahoma State University Library.
- Records of the Bureau of Indian AffairsThe U. S. National Archives has begun digitizing records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
- Papers of the War Department, 1784-1800An innovative digital editorial project which reconstructed the records lost to fire in November 1800 through a painstaking multi-year research effort, making them freely available online.
The Papers record far more than the era’s military history. Between 1784 and 1800, the War Department was responsible for Indian affairs, veteran affairs, naval affairs (until 1798), as well as militia and army matters. During the 1790s, the Secretary of War spent seven of every ten dollars of the federal budget (debt service excepted). The War Office did business with commercial firms and merchants all across the nation; it was the nation’s largest single consumer of fabric, clothing, shoes, food, medicine, building materials, and weapons of all kinds.
African American History
- Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database
Combining data from across the globe, this project is sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities and is hosted by the Emory University Digital Library Research Initiative. Provides an interactive website and database with access to digitized maps, images, and an African names database. - Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938
More than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves. These narratives were collected in the 1930s as part of the Federal Writers' Project (FWP) of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). - Geography of Slavery in Virginia
A digital collection of advertisements for runaway and captured slaves and servants in 18th- and 19th-century Virginia newspapers. Building on the rich descriptions of individual slaves and servants in the ads, the project offers a personal, geographical and documentary context for the study of slavery in Virginia, from colonial times to the Civil War.
- Freedmen's Bureau OnlineEstablished in the War Department by an act of March 3, 1865, the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands supervised all relief and educational activities relating to refugees and freedmen, including issuing rations, clothing and medicine. The Bureau also assumed custody of confiscated lands or property in the former Confederate States, border states, District of Columbia, and Indian Territory.
Be sure to consult the dedicated guide to the Civil Rights Movement for additional resources.
- African-American Band Music & Recordings, 1883 to 1923The core of this presentation consists of "stock" arrangements for bands or small orchestras of popular songs written by African Americans. In addition, we offer a smaller selection of historic sound recordings illustrating these songs and many others by the same composers.
- African American Perspectives: Materials Selected from the Library of Congress Rare Book CollectionAn eclectic review of African American history and culture, primarily with a date range of 1822 through 1909. Most were written by African-American authors, though some were written by others on topics of particular importance in African-American history. Among the authors represented are Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Benjamin W. Arnett, Alexander Crummel, Emanuel Love, Lydia Maria Child, Kelly Miller, Charles Sumner, Mary Church Terrell, and Booker T. Washington, among others.
- African American Photographs Assembled for 1900 Paris ExpositionThe Paris Exposition of 1900 (Exposition universelle internationale de 1900) devoted a building to matters of "social economy." The United States section of the building featured an exhibit that, according to W. E. B. Du Bois, attempted to show "(a) The history of the American Negro. (b) His present condition. (c) His education. (d) His literature.
- Black Life in America
Database of newspaper primary sources related to the experiences and impacts of African Americans, arranged by era and topic.
- Guide to Historical African American Newspapers Available OnlineAn amazing guide to historical African American Newspapers available online as part of digitization projects at libraries and historical societies as well as digitization projects done by Google.
Newspapers are organized both alphabetically by title, and by geographic region. - Freedom's JournalFreedom's Journal was the first African-American owned and operated newspaper published in the United States. Founded by Rev. Peter Williams, Jr. and other free black men in New York City, it was published weekly as a four-page, four-column newspaper, between March 16, 1827 and March 28, 1829.
- Umbra: Search African American HistoryA freely available digital discovery tool designed for the research and study of African American history and culture. It includes a growing collection of digital materials—images, videos, books, and more—provided by libraries, museums, and other repositories around the country.
- The Church in the Southern Black CommunityAutobiographies, biographies, church documents, sermons, histories, encyclopedias, and other published materials. These texts present a collected history of the way Southern African Americans experienced and transformed Protestant Christianity into the central institution of community life.
Colonial America & the Early Republic
- The American Constitution - A Documentary RecordFrom the Avalon Project at Yale University.
Includes state constitutions, Articles of Confederation, notes from the Constitutional Convention, Ratification documents, and more. - A New Nation Votes: American Election Returns, 1787-1825a searchable collection of election returns from the earliest years of American democracy. The data were compiled by Philip Lampi. The American Antiquarian Society and Tufts University Digital Collections and Archives have mounted it online for you with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
- Louisiana Colonial DocumentsManuscript records of the French Superior Council (1714–1769) and the Spanish Judiciary (1769–1803), including criminal and civil court cases, commercial transactions, successions, wills, and other legal documents of Louisiana under French and Spanish colonial rule.
- Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789The First Continental Congress met from September 5 to October 26, 1774. The Second Continental Congress ran from May 10, 1775, to March 2, 1789. The Journals of the Continental Congress are the records of the daily proceedings of the Congress.
- Letters of Delegates to Congress 1774-1789The twenty-six volumes of the Letters of Delegates to Congress, 1774-1789 aims to make available all the documents written by delegates that bear directly upon their work during their years of actual service in the First and Second Continental Congresses.
- Colonial Charters, Grants and Related DocumentsFrom the Yale Law School Avalon Project.