See the tutorial Primary vs. Secondary Sources (Twin Cities Library, St. Mary's University of Minnesota) for a definition and examples of Primary Sources.
For Further Primary Resources:
For Further Primary Resources:
Database and Internet Repositories
Tips for searching the internet for primary sources (See Evaluate a Web Site)
Search terms to include: oration, speeches, letters, diaries, primary sources and limit search to specific extensions (e.g., .edu or .gov)
Selected Databases (See complete list)
- Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law This link opens in a new windowThis HeinOnline collection brings together, for the first time, all essential legal materials on slavery in the United States and the English-speaking world.
- American History 1493-1945 This link opens in a new windowModule 1: Settlement, Commerce, Revolution and Reform: 1493-1859
Sources from the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, New York. Contains books, diaries, correspondence, newspapers, photographs, military documents, pamphlets, broadsides and other ephemera.
“The majority of the collection is unique manuscript. It is an extensive resource for scholars, educators and students and is considered one of the finest archives for material on the revolutionary, early national, antebellum and civil war eras.”
Module 2: Civil War, Reconstruction and the Modern Era: 1860-1945
Includes documents on slavery, the Civil War, and secession. - Indigenous Histories and Cultures in North America This link opens in a new windowContains manuscripts, artwork, photographs, rare printed books, and maps related to the historical and personal stories of the colonization of the Americas from early contacts between European settlers and American Indians to the modern era, and told against the backdrop of the 19th century expansion into the Western Frontier right through to the civil rights movement of the mid-twentieth century. Sources from the Edward E. Ayer Collection at The Newberry Library, Chicago.
- Eighteenth Century Collections Online This link opens in a new windowFull-text, searchable primary documents from the 18th century; over 180,000 titles: books, pamphlets, essays, broadsides and other material in all subject areas, published in the UK and elsewhere. Includes an image gallery.
Selected Internet Repositories (See complete list)
- The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade DatabaseExplore the Voyages Database, Assessing the Slave Trade interactive estimates page, and the African Names Database. Sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities, W.E.B. Du Bois Institute (Harvard University), and Emory University.
- Anti-Slavery Collection, 1725-1911 (UMass Amherst Special Collections and University Archives)"The Antislavery Collection contains several hundred printed pamphlets and books pertaining to slavery and antislavery in New England, 1725-1911. The holdings include speeches, sermons, proceedings and other publications of organizations such as the American Anti-Slavery Society and the American Colonization Society, and a small number of pro-slavery tracts."
- Digital Library on American Slavery (UNC Greensboro)"The Digital Library on American Slavery is an expanding resource compiling various independent online collections focused upon race and slavery in the American South, made searchable through a single, simple interface."
- North American Slave NarrativesCollection of "books and articles that document the individual and collective story of Black people struggling for freedom and human rights in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries."
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. - Early Americas Digital ArchiveGateway to primary source material “written in or about the Americas from 1492 to approximately 1820.” Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH), University of Maryland, College Park.
Primary Sources in Books
Search tip:
Include search terms such as letters, diaries, narratives, speeches, primary sources, primary documents, sources, etc.
Selected searches by subject:
Documents Illustrative of the Slave Trade to America
Boston Public Library Resources
- Boston Public Library Anti-Slavery CollectionContains approximately 40,000 digitized primary documents. In the late 1890's, the family of William Lloyd Garrison, along with others closely involved in the anti-slavery movement, presented the library with a major gathering of correspondence, documents, and other original material relating to the abolitionist cause from 1832 until after the Civil War.
- Databases available through BPL This link opens in a new windowAccess to the Boston Public Library (BPL) databases are available with either your BPL library card or BPL e-card.
Collections include Slavery and Anti-Slavery, Black Freedom Struggle in the United States, and historical newspapers, along with other relevant databases.