LibGuides: U.S. History: Primary Sources: 18th Cen. &amp; Earlier

Databases: Pre-18th & 18th Century

Databases are also fantastic places to search for primary sources. If you only have time to look at a few, take a look below at some of our recommended databases that focus on U.S. History primary source materials from the 18th century or before. See the "Full List of Databases" tabs to find other useful databases covering Pre-18th & 18th century U.S. History. Many of these databases include eras beyond the 18th century.

America's Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new window
1690 - 1990s. Unlimited users.
Updated regularly. Includes more than 1,000 U.S. historical newspapers published between 1690 and the 1990s, including titles from all 50 states. Search by dates/eras, article types (news & opinion, election returns, letters, poetry/songs, legislative, prices, advertisements, matrimony & death notices), region/state, and newspaper name.
American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals Collection: Series 1 This link opens in a new window
1684 - 1820. Unlimited users.
From the library of the American Antiquarian Society, this collection contains more than 500 periodicals related to America from the colonial era through the first years of the Republic.
Bexar Archives: Colonial Archives of Texas during the Spanish and Mexican Periods, 1717-1836 This link opens in a new window
1717-1836. Unlimited users.
From 1717 through 1836 the governments of Spain and Mexico collected in San Antonio de Bexar (when that city was the capital of Texas under Spanish and Mexican rule) an amazing series of official documents detailing the military, civilian, and political life of the Spanish province of Texas and the Mexican state of Coahuila y Texas. These records, which have become known as the Bexar Archives, constitute the most complete and detailed primary source in existence for the study of colonial Texas. The Archives, housed at the University of Texas at Austin, consist of 250,000 pages of manuscript documentation and more than 4,000 pages of printed material on colonial and regional history. The collection includes:

Bexar Archives: Publications and General Manuscript Series, 1717-1836
Bexar Archives: Translations [1699-1812]
North American Indian Thought and Culture This link opens in a new window
1677 - present. Unlimited users.
A collection of biographical material of American Indians and Canadian First Peoples in their own words and through the words of others. Includes biographies, autobiographies, personal narratives, speeches, diaries, letters, oral histories, reference works, manuscripts, photographs and audio files.Sources include rare books and biographies from more than 100 Indian publications, such as The Arrow, the Cherokee Phoenix, and the Chickasaw Intelligencer. The collection includes 2,000 oral histories presented in audio and transcript form and at least 20,000 photographs from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Edward Curtis, and many rare collections.
Sabin Americana This link opens in a new window
1500 - 1926. Unlimited users.
Provides over 14,000 primary source titles based on Joseph Sabin's bibliography, Bibliotheca Americana. Materials describe every aspect of life in the Western Hemisphere from 1500 to the 1890s. Included are books, pamphlets, serials and other documents that provide original accounts of exploration, trade, colonialism, slavery and abolition, the western movement, Native Americans, military actions and much more. Searchable in a variety of ways, including: author, title, year of publication, and subject.
Virginia Company Archives This link opens in a new window
1590 - 1790. Unlimited.
This collection of the Ferrar Papers, 1590-1790, from Magdalene College, Cambridge, is an essential source for the study of the Atlantic World and Early Colonial Period. It documents the founding and economic development of Virginia as seen through the papers of the Virginia Company of London, 1606-1624; the continuing interest of the Ferrar family in the settlement of North America from Jamestown to the Bermudas; trade between Britain and America; the ethnic and gender composition of early Virginia; and tensions among the colonists and of early relations with Native Americans. It is also a crucial source for London's economic history in the Early Modern era, and will be of interest to social and religious historians.

African American Studies Center This link opens in a new window
Most recent edition. Unlimited users.
Updated regularly. A comprehensive collection of scholarship focused on the lives and events which have shaped African American and African history and culture, coupled with sophisticated technology permitting precise search and browse capabilities. Features over 7,500 articles from Oxford's authoritative reference works, approximately 100 primary sources with specially written commentaries, over 1,000 images, over 100 maps, over 200 charts and tables, timelines to guide researchers through the history of African Americans and over 6,000 biographies.
Some of the titles included in this access are:
- African American Artists before the Twentieth Century
- African American National Biography
- Africana
- Black Women in America, Second Edition
- Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature
- Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895
- Encyclopedia of African American History, 1896 to the Present
American History Collection This link opens in a new window
1734 - 1888. Unlimited users.
A gateway into one of the great conversations in history. These newly prepared digital editions of the papers of many of the major figures of the early republic are presented in a fully searchable and interoperable online environment.
Collections include:
- The Adams Papers
- The Papers of Alexander Hamilton
- The Papers of Andrew Jackson
- The Selected Papers of John Jay
- The Papers of Thomas Jefferson
- The Dolley Madison Digital Edition
- The Papers of James Madison
- The Papers of John Marshall
- The Papers of George Washington
- The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution
- Founders Early Access
American History In Video This link opens in a new window
1492 - present. Unlimited users.
Updated regularly. This collection allows students and researchers to analyze historical events, and their presentation over time, through documentaries, commercial and governmental newsreels and archival and public affairs footage. The full runs of newsreels from United Newsreel and Universal Newsreel from 1929 through 1967 are included. On 14th September 2012, American History in Video was updated. As of this update there are 6,002 videos (including 3,211 documentaries) equaling 1,616 hours in American History in Video.
Users may also make isolated clips from the videos and save them in a free account available for registration set up within the database.
American Periodicals Series (APS) This link opens in a new window
1740 - 1940. Unlimited users.
Updated daily. Contains periodicals published between 1740 and 1940, including special interest and general magazines, literary and professional journals, children's and women's magazines and many other historically-significant periodicals. Titles include Benjamin Franklin's General Magazine, the first American professional journals, and several consumer magazines still in publication, such as Vanity Fair, Harper's Magazine, and Ladies' Home Journal. The search interface allows you to search the complete text, including tables of contents, by boolean and keyword operators. Articles are linked to the corresponding page images, downloadable in PDF format.
American State Papers This link opens in a new window
1789 - 1838. Unlimited users.
Updated regularly. Includes every legislative and executive document of the first fourteen U.S. Congresses. Complements the digital U.S. Congressional Serial Set, 1817-1980. A source of primary material on wide-ranging aspects of early American history.
American West This link opens in a new window
1722 - 1939. Unlimited users.
Provide access to source materials on the development of the American West. Contains a wide range of documents, including original manuscripts, ephemeral material (trade cards, wanted posters, photos, claim certificates, news-sheets etc), maps, and rare printed works. Topics covered include Native Americans, pioneers and homesteaders, mining, the Mormon Exodus, transportation, outlaws, the environment, and border issues.
Digitized content selected from The Graff Collection of Western Americana at The Newberry Library in Chicago.
Access to this resource is funded by the Emily Knauss Library Endowment for the Liberal Arts.
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Arte Público Hispanic Historical Collection: Series 1 This link opens in a new window
Colonial times - 1960. Unlimited users.
Provides access to a digital collection of historical content pertaining to U.S. Hispanic history, literature and culture. Includes historical articles, newspapers, religious pamphlets, broadsides, historical books, letters, short stories, poems, advertisements, and more. The content is in Spanish (80%) and English (20%), and is searchable in both languages. Materials are drawn from the Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage Project.
Early American Imprints This link opens in a new window
1639 - 1800. Unlimited users.
Updated regularly. Contains the full text of all known existing books, pamphlets, and broadsides printed in the United States (or British American colonies prior to Independence) from 1639 through 1800. Based on the renowned bibliography by Charles Evans, every nonserial item listed in Evans is reproduced and an additional 1100 titles from Bristol's supplement to Evans is also included.
Early Encounters in North America This link opens in a new window
1534 - 1850. Unlimited users.
Updated quarterly (until completed). Contains early accounts of exploration, discovery, travel, environment, peoples, and cultures in North America. Currently contains 1,076 authors and approximately 83,000 pages of material. When complete the product will include more than 100,000 pages of letters, diaries, memoirs and accounts of early encounters. Particular care has been taken to index the material so that it can be used in new ways. For example, you can identify all encounters between the French and the Huron between 1650 and 1700. The collection is centered on present-day Canada and the United States with some limited coverage of Mexico.
ECCO: Eighteenth Century Collections Online This link opens in a new window
1701 - 1800. Unlimited users.
Users may need to refresh cache and cookies or use a private browsing window for this resource. Updated regularly. An online collection of English and foreign language books, pamphlets, broadsides and other ephemera published in the U.K. and the Americas between 1701 and 1800. Content is presented as full text page images which can be viewed online or downloaded as PDF documents. When complete, more than 33 million pages of material will support full text searching. The collection is an ongoing project based on The English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC), a machine-readable union list of the holdings of the British Library, as well as those from more than 1,500 university, private, and public libraries worldwide.
Electronic Enlightenment This link opens in a new window
18th century. Unlimited users.
Updated twice annually. Provides the most wide-ranging online collection of edited correspondence of the early modern period, linking people across Europe, the Americas and Asia from the early 17th to the mid-19th century. Includes letters in English, French, German and Italian from families and friends, bankers and booksellers, patrons and publishers, etc. Also includes primary source letters from more than 6,000 writers and numerous presses, as well as document sources such as manuscripts and early printed editions, scholarly annotations, and links to biographies, dictionaries, encyclopedias, newspapers, and other online resources. Explore the writer's views on history, literature, language, arts, philosophy, science, medicine, and personal, social and political relations.
An ongoing scholarly research project of the University of Oxford and other universities and organizations.
Empire Online This link opens in a new window
1492 - 2007. Unlimited users.
Provides full text access to primary source documents from the British Empire (the Empire encompassed Africa, the Americas, Australia, Oceania, and South Asia). Documents include travel accounts, the literature of Empire, photography and illustration, religious material, and records on issues of race and class in the colonial context.
The material is divided into 5 sections
1. Cultural Contacts, 1492-1969
2. Empire Writing and Literature of Empire
3. The Visible Empire
4. Religion and Empire
5. Race, Class, Imperialism and Colonialism c1607-2007
Browse by names, places and topics Search by period, date, places, person and subject.
Also includes scholarly interpretive essays on the British Empire.

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Frontier Life This link opens in a new window
1650 - 1920. Unlimited.
This online collection brings together documents from 16 archives and libraries from around the world and the geographical spread of material allows scholars to take either a comparative approach or focus on a particular region. The collection deals with some of the major themes of frontier existence including: Settlement development, law and order, violence, expeditions and exploration, relations with indigenous peoples, trade and commerce, death and disease, missionaries and religion, women’s history, military matters, mining, gold rushes, settler governance, contested boundaries, agriculture and livestock.
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Gerritsen Women's History Collection of Aletta H. Jacobs This link opens in a new window
1543 - 1945. Unlimited users.
A full text collection of books, pamphlets and periodicals reflecting the evolution of a feminist consciousness and the movement for women's rights. Includes publications from Europe, the U.S., the United Kingdom, Canada, and New Zealand. The ASCII text is searchable by keyword and Boolean operators, and records are linked to the corresponding page images, viewable with the Acrobat Reader plugin from Adobe.

17th and 18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers This link opens in a new window
1600 - 1799. Unlimited users.
The newspapers and pamphlets gathered by the Reverend Charles Burney (1757-1817) represent the largest single collection of 17th and 18th century English news media available anywhere. The 1,270-title collection includes a wide range of pamphlets, proclamations, newsbooks and newspapers from the period, covering more than 200 years of accounts from newspapers from England, Ireland, Scotland and a handful of papers from British colonies in the Americas and Asia.
Historical Statistics of the United States This link opens in a new window
Colonial times - present. Unlimited users.
Updated regularly. Provides a standard source for the quantitative facts of American history. Expands and revises information provided in Historical Statistics of the United States, previously produced by the U.S. Bureau of the Census, and includes thirty years of new data and scholarship. Footnotes and explanatory information provide instructional information about the data and sources of the data.
Permits users to graph individual tables and create customized tables and spreadsheets reflecting particular areas of interest. Data is downloadable in Excel or CSV; also download entire groups of tables as a zip file.
Making of Modern Law: Primary Sources This link opens in a new window
1620 - 1970. Unlimited users.
Designed to complement The Making of Modern Law: Legal Treatises, this archive offers online access to state and municipal codes, documents relating to constitutional conventions, and other resources in American legal history. The term “primary sources” is used not in the historian’s sense of a manuscript, letter or diary, but rather in the legal sense of a case, statute or regulation.
Access to this resource is funded by the Tarlton Law Library at the Jamail Center for Legal Research.
Making of Modern Law: Trials This link opens in a new window
1620 - 1926. Unlimited users.
Comprises over 10,000 titles and more than 2 million pages of fully searchable content, covering trial books from all countries and languages (although the great majority are in English and published in the U.S. or Great Britain); includes books covering multiple trials as well as books about a single trial. Based on the law libraries of Harvard and Yale, and of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, as well as some from the British Library. The category of "trials" includes unofficially published accounts of trials; official trial documents, briefs, and arguments where these were printed as separate publications; official, separately published records of legislative proceedings; administrative proceedings; and arbitrations (domestic and international).
Access to this resource is funded by the Tarlton Law Library at the Jamail Center for Legal Research.
North American Women's Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new window
1700 - 1950. Unlimited users.
Updated quarterly (until completed). Includes diaries, journals, and letters written by women visiting or living in North America between the years 1700 and 1950. When complete, the database will be the largest collection of women's diaries and correspondence ever assembled and include the personal experiences of 1,500 women from all classes and walks of life.
ProQuest Congressional This link opens in a new window
1789 - present. Unlimited users.
Updated daily. Provides indexing of many Congressional publications, including Bills, Resolutions, Hearings, Committee Prints, Reports, Documents and Congressional Research Service Reports.
House and Senate Reports and Documents indexed in ProQuest Congressional (1817-1969) are available in full text in the Serial Set database. Our subscription to ProQuest Congressional does not include full text of the Serial Set.
Congressional Hearings after 2013 and House and Senate Documents and Reports indexed in ProQuest Congressional (1995 to present) are available in full text on Govinfo.gov site from the Government Printing Office.
Slavery, abolition and social justice This link opens in a new window
1490 - 2007. Unlimited users.
Provides a portal for slavery studies, bringing together documents and collections covering an extensive time period spanning six centuries, from libraries and archives across the Atlantic world. Offers images of many thousands of original manuscripts, pamphlets, books, paintings, maps and images not available elsewhere, links to other online sources approved by scholars and a series of contextual essays by leading authorities from around the world.
Includes extensive coverage of topics such as the African Coast; the Middle Passage; the varieties of slave experience (urban, domestic, industrial, farm, ranch and plantation); Spiritualism and Religion; Resistance and Revolts; the Underground Railroad; the Abolition Movement; Legislation; Education; the Legacy of Slavery and Slavery Today.
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Slavery and the Law This link opens in a new window
1777 - 1867. Unlimited users.
Slavery and the Law is a collection of archival primary sources.
Series I: Petitions to State Legislatures offers access to important but virtually unused primary source materials that were scattered in state archives of Alabama, Delaware, Florida, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. The collection includes virtually all extant legislative petitions on the subject of race and slavery.
Series II: Petitions to Southern County Courts were collected from local courthouses, and candidly document the realities of slavery at the most immediate grassroots level in southern society. It was at county courthouses where the vast majority of disputes over the institution of slavery were referred.
Slavery and the Law also includes State Slavery Statutes, a master record of the laws governing American slavery, covering 1789–1865.
Social Explorer This link opens in a new window
1790 - present. Unlimited users.
Updated regularly. Provides easy access to historical census data for the United States. Allows users to visually analyze and understand the demography of any part of the United States with access to the following:
- Interactive thematic maps of historical census data
- Customized reports for any chosen area or areas (including aggregates)
- Complete coverage of the United States, down to neighborhoods and streets
- Simple navigation buttons and a find tool make it easy and efficient to study neighborhoods
Users can examine geographic areas while selecting the type of data to be shown, such as population density or income level. The corresponding data tables are also available.
Women and Social Movements (U.S.) This link opens in a new window
1600 - 2000. Unlimited users.
Updated quarterly. Organized around the history of women in social movements in the U.S. between 1600 and 2000. A resource for the teaching the history of women in the United States. Consists of 74 editorial projects with more than 2200 primary documents intended for use in high school and college history classrooms. Also includes a major collection of links to related websites and a search engine that permits users to do full text searching of all the primary documents mounted on the site.