LibGuides: Native American Studies: Find Primary Sources

Primary Sources

Primary Sources are original, or “first-hand,” sources of information, created by those who were present for or involved in the event or topic in question. Primary sources can come in many formats, including, but not limited to: diaries, manuscripts, recordings, photographs, newspaper accounts, official documents, and autobiographies.

Foley Library subscribes to a number of databases containing primary sources that represent the experiences and perspectives of Native American people.

American Indian Correspondence: Presbyterian Historical Society Collection of Missionaries' Letters, 1833-1893 This link opens in a new window
Digital access to over 14,000 letters written by Presbyterian missionaries from 1833 to 1893. Their letters describe native peoples and cultures, tribal factionalism, relations with the U.S. government and the many challenges of their work. Also searchable in Archives Unbound.
American Indian Movement and Native American Radicalism This link opens in a new window
Primary sources from FBI files that relate to the American Indian Movement (AIM), documenting the evolution of AIM as an organization of social protest and the development of Native American radicalism. Also searchable in Archives Unbound.
Archives Unbound This link opens in a new window
Search for primary sources across 315 collections covering U.S. foreign policy; U.S. civil rights; global affairs and colonial studies; and modern history. Broad topic clusters include: African American studies; American Indian studies; Asian studies; British history; Holocaust studies; LGBT studies; Latin American and Caribbean studies; Middle East studies; political science; religious studies; women’s studies; and more. The Archives Unbound program consists of more than 300,000 documents totaling more than 13 million pages. Individual collections in the program range between 1,200 and 200,000 pages.

Some collections also searchable in Gale Primary Sources.
Archives West This link opens in a new window
Archives West, formerly known as Northwest Digital Archives, offers descriptions of archival and manuscript materials held by institutions in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Alaska, Montana, and Utah, including correspondence, diaries, or photographs. Digital reproductions of primary sources are available in some cases.
Indigenous Peoples: North America (Gale) This link opens in a new window
Indigenous Peoples (North America) provides primary source materials including manuscripts, monographs, newspapers, photographs, motion pictures, and images of artwork related to indigenous peoples in the U.S. and Canada. Also searchable in Gale Primary Sources.
North American Indian Drama: Second Edition
Description: North American Indian Drama contains 244 plays by 48 playwrights representing the stories and creative energies of American Indian and First Nation playwrights of the twentieth century. More than half of the works are previously unpublished, and hard to find, representing groups such as Cherokee, Métis, Creek, Choctaw, Pembina Chippewa, Ojibway, Lenape, Comanche, Cree, Navajo, Rappahannock, Hawaiian/Samoan, and others. Together, the plays demonstrate Native theater’s diversity of tribal traditions and approaches to drama—melding conventional dramatic form with ancient storytelling and ritual performance elements, experimenting with traditional ideas of time and narrative, or challenging Western dramatic structure.
Overland Journeys: Travels in the West, 1800-1880 This link opens in a new window
A primary source collection covering the American west, from 1800 to 1880. Includes books, memoirs, journals, letters, and other documents. Also searchable in Archives Unbound.
War Department and Indian Affairs, 1800-1824 This link opens in a new window
The rare primary sources in this collection chronicle the unique, often controversial, relationship between the U.S. government and the Native American nations. Also searchable in Archives Unbound.