Research Guides: United States History Resources: Native American History

Primary Sources for Native American History

Indigenous Histories and Cultures in North America
Indigenous Histories and Cultures includes manuscripts, artwork, rare printed books, photographs, newspapers, original documents, maps, and travel journals from the earliest contact with European settlers up to the mid-twentieth century.
Indigenous Newspapers in North America
Indigenous Newspapers offers publications from historic pressings to contemporary periodicals, nearly 200 years of Indigenous print journalism from the US and Canada.
American West
American West contains original manuscripts, ephemeral material , maps, and rare printed works from the Everett D Graff Collection of Western Americana at the Newberry Library, Chicago.
Early Encounters in North America
Early Encounters in North America contains documents on relationships among peoples in North America from 1534 to 1850. The collection focuses on personal accounts and provides perspectives from all of the protagonists.

IDA Treaties Explorer
Digitized versions of the 374 Ratified Indian Treaties held by the National Archives. These are treaties between the United States and indigenous peoples.

Frontier Life: Borderlands, Settlement & Colonial Encounters
Frontier Life covers the various European and colonial frontier regions of North America, Africa and Australasia from 1650-1920, and includes correspondence, diaries, government papers, business records, land transactions, legal documents, speeches, books and pamphlets.
Indian Claims Insight
Access guaranteed through May 2027
Indian Claims Insight offers compiled docket histories, court documents, cites treaties, related congressional publications, maps, and histories for both Court of Claims and Indian Claims Commissions dockets.
Indigenous Peoples of North America
Access guaranteed through May 2027
Indigenous Peoples of North America Part I offers materials that explore the impact of invasion and colonization through the use of manuscripts, monographs, newspapers, photographs, motion pictures, images of artwork, and more. Content has been sourced from both American and Canadian institutions and has received direct-from-source permission to digitize newspapers from various tribes and organizations. This archive also features indigenous language materials, including dictionaries, religious texts, and primers.

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