Library Guides: Native American/Indigenous Studies: Primary Sources

Native Sources

Prior to contact with Europeans, Native Americans passed down their history orally rather than by writing it down. This strong oral tradition means that there are virtually no early documents from the Native perspective. There are speeches by Native Americans early in American history that were written down by European observers, however as these were written down by people that were not a part of the culture nor was the language native to them, these documents should always be taken with a grain of salt.

Independent Voices
Independent Voices is a digital collection of alternative press newspapers, magazines and journals.
These periodicals were produced by feminists, dissident GIs, campus radicals, Native Americans, anti-war activists, Black Power advocates, Hispanics, LGBT activists, the extreme right-wing press and alternative literary magazines during the latter half of the 20th century.
Free account can be created for personalization.
Date coverage: 1950-2015
Maximum users: Unlimited
Truncation: Truncation * Wildcard ?

Great Documents in American Indian History by Wayne Moquin; Charles Van Doren; Dee Alexander Brown (Foreword by)
Call Number: E77.2 .M66
Publication Date: 1995
This remarkable collection of nearly one hundred primary documents presents a mosaic of individual Indian voices that span the vastness of their history while illuminating its particular moments. From an ancient Zuni creation myth to the resurgence of "Red Power" in the 1970s, this book gathers together the views of Indian leaders past and present, including Pontiac, Red Jacket, Chief Seattle, Tecumseh, Black Hawk, Ely S. Parker, Red Cloud, Sitting Bull, Cochise, Geronimo, Luther Standing Bear, Ruth Muskrat Bronson, and Vine Deloria, Jr.
The American Indian Intellectual Tradition by David Martínez (Editor)
Call Number: PS647.I5 A47 2011
Publication Date: 2011
The writers featured were activists for their home communities and for all indigenous people. Martínez divides his book into three critical epochs of American Indian history with section introductions that provide political context for the selected readings. Works by Vine Deloria Jr., Elias Johnson, Laura Cornelius Kellogg, Susette La Flesche, D'Arcy McNickle, Samson Occom, John Ross, and twenty-one other writers and community leaders are accompanied by bibliographies. Martínez's approach is pan-Indian, but each author is situated in terms of his or her specific culture, politics, and historical context.

Smithsonian Source: Primary Sources
A collection of primary sources from American history. Includes several speeches by Native American leaders.
Library of Congress Digital Collections
The Library of Congress Digital Library. Includes several collections related to Native Americans. Recommendations - Edward S. Curtis Indians of North America and American Notes: Travels in America, 1750-1920
Native American Heritage Month: Exhibits and Collections
List of collections and exhibits created for Native American Heritage Month. Material from the National Archives, Library of Congress, Smithsonian, National Endowment for the Humanities, and more.
American Indian Movement Documents (1968-1978)
A collection of scanned documents, photos, and sound recordings related to the American Indian Movement (AIM), curated by the Digital Public Library of America.
Doris Duke Oral History Collection
The Duke Collection of American Indian Oral History online 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. Related are accounts of Indian ceremonies, customs, social conditions, philosophies, and standards of living. Members of every tribe resident in Oklahoma were interviewed.

Non-Native Sources

American Civil War: Letters and Diaries
Offers full-text searchable letters and diaries of soldiers and noncombatants on both sides of the U.S. Civil War. The database can be searched by U.S. state, topics described, year of writers death, as well as by Union or Confederate loyalty and many other ways.
Date Coverage: 1861-1865

Maximum Users: Unlimited

Truncation:
*
North American Women's Letters and Diaries
Provides access to full-text letters & diaries by North American women from colonial times to 1950. This collection includes the immediate experiences of 1,325 women and 150,000 pages of diaries and letters.
Date Coverage: Colonial times-1950.

Maximum Users: Unlimited

Truncation:
Truncation: *; Wildcard: .; Capitalized: #
Early American Newspapers. Series I and II, 1690-1900
Images and full-content access to historic newspapers from the 18th to mid-19th Century, based on the collections of the American Antiquarian Society, the Wisconsin Historical Society, and 90 other institutions, from every region of the United States.
Date Coverage: 1690-1900

Maximum Users:

Truncation:
ProQuest Historical Newspapers
Searchable full-image of the Chicago Defender (1909-2010), Chicago Tribune (1849-1996), Los Angeles Times (1881-1995), St. Louis Post-Dispatch (1874-2003), New York Times (1851-2015), Wall Street Journal (1889-2002) and the Washington Post (1877-2002).

Digital Florentine Codex
16th century multi-volume handwritten and hand-illustrated encyclopedia, fully digitized by the Getty Museum.