Skip to Main Content

Native North America: Home - Primary Sources

Librarian

Library Reference

Email Me

Searching for Primary Sources

Sample searches:

Indians of North America History Sources.

Indians of North America Government relations Sources.

Native Americans North America Sources.

Cherokee Indians History Sources.

Black Hills War, 1876-1877 Personal narratives.

Databases - Primary Sources

Early American Imprints This link opens in a new window
1639-1800 (Evans)
19th Century US Newspapers This link opens in a new window
Includes full-text searchable newspapers from urban and rural areas in every region of the country. Also includes newspapers published by special interest groups.
Slavery and Anti-Slavery This link opens in a new window
A large selection of primary source materials related to the history of enslavement.

Digital Collections - Primary Sources

American State Papers - Indian Affairs
1789-1827
Documents Relating to Indian Affairs - University of Wisconsin Digital Collections
Occom Circle Project
Handwritten documents by and about Samson Occom (1723-1792), a Mohegan Indian, Presbyterian minister and missionary, intertribal leader, public intellectual, and important Indian writer.
Photographing the American Indian - Massachusetts Historical Society
Portraits of Native Americans, 1860-1913, from the collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
Yale Indian Papers Project
New England Native American primary source materials.
Catholic Native America Collections - Marquette University
Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions -- Holy Rosary Mission, Red Cloud Indian School -- The Indian Sentinel, 1902-1962 -- St. Francis Mission School on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota

Microfilm - Primary Sources

Letters to the Bureau of Indian Affairs
Microfilm filed alphabetically under "Bureau" with periodicals titles.

Akwesasne notes.
Publication Date: 1969-1991
Official publication of the Mohawk Nation at Akwesasne (People of the Longhouse).

Selected Books - Primary Sources

The Moravian Mission Diaries of David Zeisberger by Hermann Wellenreuther (Editor)
Call Number: 305.897 Z35m
Publication Date: 2005
Missionary to Native Americans in Ohio, 1771-1781
Women's Indian Captivity Narratives by Kathryn Zabelle Derounian-Stodola (Editor, Introduction by, Notes by)
Call Number: 305.4896 W842
Publication Date: 1998
Documents of Native American Political Development, 1500 to 1933 by David E. Wilkinson
Call Number: 323.1197 D659
Publication Date: 2009
American Indian Nonfiction: an anthology of writings, 1760s-1930s by Bernd C. Peyer (Editor)
Call Number: 810.8 Am357
Publication Date: 2007
The La Salle Expedition on the Mississippi River by Nicolas de La Salle; William C. Foster; Johanna S. Warren
Call Number: 910.92 L33l
Publication Date: 2003
Journal of Nicolas de La Salle (1643-1687)
The Lewis and Clark Expedition: selections from the journals, arranged by topic by Gunther Barth
Call Number: 917.804 L587j B
Publication Date: 1998
Chapter 4. Encounters with Native Americans
The View from Officers' Row: Army perceptions of western Indians by Sherry L. Smith
Call Number: 970.73 Sm65v
Publication Date: 1991
Native Americans in Early North Carolina: a documentary history by Dennis Isenbarger (Editor)
Call Number: 970.75 Is2n
Publication Date: 2013
Life of Black Hawk, or Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak by Black Hawk; J. Gerald Kennedy (ed.)
Call Number: 970.76 B564l 2008
Publication Date: 2008
Autobiography of Black Hawk, a Sauk leader who struggled against white encroachment on his people's lands in western Illinois in the 1800s .
The Ojibwe Journals of Edmund F. Ely, 1833-1849 by Edmund F. Ely; Theresa M. Schenck (Editor)
Call Number: 970.76 Oj3
Publication Date: 2012-11-01
To Do Good to My Indian Brethren: the writings of Joseph Johnson, 1751-1776 by Laura J. Murray (Editor)
Call Number: 970.745 J633m
Publication Date: 1998-03-01
The Cherokee Removal: A Brief History with Documents by Theda Perdue; Michael Green
Call Number: 970.755 C4241
Publication Date: 1995
The Dakota Prisoner of War Letters by Clifford Canku; Michael Simon; James Peacock
Call Number: 970.765 C16d
Publication Date: 2012
In April 1863--after the Dakota War of 1862, some 270 Dakota men were moved from Mankato to a prison at Camp McClellan in Davenport.
Indian Boyhood by Charles A. Eastman; E. L. Blumenschein (Illustrator)
Call Number: 970.765 Ea78i
Publication Date: 1971
Eastman attended Beloit College from 1876 to 1879.
Through Dakota Eyes: narrative accounts of the Minnesota Indian War of 1862 by Gary C. Anderson; Alan R. Woolworth
Call Number: 970.765 T416
Publication Date: 1988
The Pueblo Indian Revolt of 1696 and the Franciscan Missions in New Mexico: letters of the missionaries and related documents by J. Manuel Espinosa
Call Number: 970.775 P962
Publication Date: 1991
The Jesuit relations and allied documents : travels and explorations of the Jesuit missionaries in New France, 1610-1791 by Thwaites, Reuben Gold, editor.
Call Number: 971.01 J499j
Jesuits' letters from Native American North American missions, 1610-1791.
King Philip's War narratives
Call Number: 973.24 K58
The Seven Years' War in North America: A Brief History with Documents by Timothy J. Shannon
Call Number: 973.26 Sh19s
Publication Date: 2013
Native Memoirs from the War Of 1812 by Carl Benn
Call Number: 973.52 B43n
Publication Date: 2013
Captive Histories: English, French, and Native narratives of the 1704 Deerfield raid by Evan Haefeli; Kevin Sweeney
Call Number: 974.4 C175
Publication Date: 2006
Gideon's People: being a chronicle of an American Indian community in colonial Connecticut and the Moravian missionaries who served there by Corinna Dally-Starna; William A. Starna
Call Number: 974.6 G36
Publication Date: 2009
Documents dating from 1747-1763.
The Mountains We Have Crossed: diaries and letters of the Oregon Mission, 1838 by Clifford Merrill Drury (Editor, Introduction by); Bonnie Sue Lewis (Introduction by)
Call Number: 978.02 M864
Publication Date: 1999
Ho! for the Black Hills: Captain Jack Crawford Reports the Black Hills Gold Rush and Great Sioux War by Paul L. Hedren
Call Number: 978.3 C85
Publication Date: 2012-07-15
Narrative of the Black Hills War, 1876-1877.
Edge of Empire: documents of Michilimackinac, 1671-1716 by Joseph L. Peyser (Editor); José António Brandao (Editor); Mackinac State Mackinac State Historic Parks; José António Brandão
Publication Date: 2008