US History: White Paper Project: Native America: Primary Sources

FIND PRIMARY SOURCES IN HISTORY DATABASES

FIND PRIMARY SOURCES IN NEWSPAPER DATABASES

Important tips for searching for primary sources in historical news / periodical databases:

• Always limit your search to the date range relevant to your topic.
• Try searching terms, phrases, etc. commonly used at the time in relation to your topic.
• Look for document-type limiters that may improve your results, such as article, commentary, editorial, front page / cover story, letter to the editor, etc

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• The American West (from Spartacus Educational; scroll down to Native American Tribes to select your tribe. Each tribal article is followed by several primary sources)

• Carlisle School Digital Resource Center (A vast collection of digitized documents about Indian Boarding Schools.Search students records , images, publications and documents relating to education, etc. Some categories can be searched by tribal nation; from Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA)

• Digital History: Native Voices (primary sources ranging from first contacts to the present)

• DocsTeach: American Indians: Primary Sources and Ready-to-Use Teaching Activities (from the U.S. National Archives)

• Edward S. Curtis's The North American Indian (search for images of your nation; from Northwestern University Digital Library Collections)

• Indian Peoples of the Northern Great Plains Digital Collection (includes photographs, paintings, ledger drawings, documents, serigraphs, and stereographs from 1874 through the 1940s; from Montana State University) Click here for the list of tribes represented in the collection.

• Native American Documents Project (Includes annual reports of the commissioner for Indian affairs from the 1870s and other documents; from E.A. Schwartz, formerly of California State University, San Marcos)

• Native American Newspapers (23 digitized newspapers from the Library of Congress Chronicling America project)

• Native Voices (Categorized collection of documents from first contact through the 20th century; from Digital History)

• Statutes of the United States Concerning Native Americans (Avalon Project, Yale University Law School)

Books on the website Internet Archive:

• A Century of Dishonor: a Sketch of the Government's Dealings with Some of the Indian Tribes by Helen Hunt Jackson and others, published in 1881. Contains chapters on the Cheyennes, Nez Perce, Sioux, and Cherokee among others.

• The Indian Question by Francis Amasa Walker, "late U.S. commissioner of Indian Affairs", published in 1874.

• Life Among the Apache / John Cremony.

Reserve Books containing Primary Sources

Click here for a list of PrImary Sources in Books on Reserve for the duration of the project.

Primary Sources in eBooks

The Native American experience. 1998 (an online ebook) ISBN: 9781578031405

Voices of the American Indian Experience / ed. by James E. Seelye Jr. and Steven A. Littleton.  (also a print book on reserve: E77 .V65 2013 2 vols) ISBN: 9780313381164

REMEMBER: Print Reference books are for use IN THE LIBRARY ONLY.

IDA Treaties Explorer (While treaties between Indigenous peoples and the United States affect virtually every area in the USA, there is as yet no official list of all the treaties. The US National Archives holds 374 of the treaties, where they are known as the Ratified Indian Treaties. Here you can view them for the first time with key historic works that provide context to the agreements made and the histories of our shared lands.)

Treaties between the United States and Native Americans (Avalon Project, Yale University Law School)