Among the billions of historical records housed at the National Archives throughout the country, researchers can find information relating to American Indians from as early as 1774 through the mid 1990s. The National Archives preserves and makes available the documents created by Federal agencies in the course of their daily business.
The Carlisle Indian Industrial School is a major site of memory for many Native peoples, as well as a source of study for students and scholars around the globe. This website represents an effort to aid the research process by bringing together, in digital format, a variety of resources that are physically preserved in various locations around the country.
The Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections features significant original materials on the history of native peoples of the Western hemisphere. Thousands of rare books document Indian life-ways, and manuscript materials provide documentation of the work of anthropologists, collectors, and ethnologists.
The Ella Deloria Archive, a searchable database of documents pertaining to the Dakota Indians. This Archive was created by the American Indian Studies Research Institute (AISRI) for the Dakota Indian Foundation
The Indigenous Digital Archive is here to help you explore the history of US goverment Indian boarding schools in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Explore, annotate and learn from over 500,000 archival documents about Santa Fe Indian School and others, all kinds of boarding school records, yearbooks, and letters.
While treaties between Indigenous peoples and the United States affect virtually every area in the USA, there is as yet no official list of all the treaties. The US National Archives holds 374 of the treaties, where they are known as the Ratified Indian Treaties. Here you can view them for the first time with key historic works that provide context to the agreements made and the histories of our shared lands. Here you can see the original documents spanning more than a hundred years.
Most are now available, and more will be added as the National Archives completes preservation and scanning.
The Indian Sentinel featured articles about Native Americans across the United States and their evangelization by the Catholic Church. Most were first-hand accounts by lifelong missionaries in the field that were often illustrated with photographs they had taken. Also featured are articles, essays, and letters by Native Americans, many of whom were students in Catholic schools.
Library and Archives Canada’s (LAC) collection is the shared documentary heritage of all Canadians and spans the entire history of our country. The collection contains materials in all types of formats from across Canada and around the world that are of interest to Canadians.
The Archives Related Resources contains primary source content and secondary source scholarship. It includes pdfs of books, articles, news, images, and excerpts from various historical governmental publications—including catalogs and reports—regarding boarding schools.
The Protocols were developed to provide best practices for culturally responsive care and use of Native American archival and documentary material held by non-tribal organizations. The Protocols build upon numerous professional ethical codes; a number of significant international declarations recognizing Indigenous rights, including several now issued by the United Nations; and the ground-breaking Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Protocols for Libraries, Archives, and Information Services.
The proposed standards and goals articulated in Protocols for Native American Archival Materials are meant to inspire and to foster mutual respect and reciprocity. The Protocols include recommendations for non-tribal libraries and archives as well as Native American communities.
The Rocky Mountain Online Archive (RMOA) is a source of information about archival collections in Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming. Participating institutions are expanding access to their collections by contributing to RMOA. Finding aids to collections located in all three states are available on this site to help scholars, researchers and educators discover source materials relevant to their studies.
The J. P. Harrington Collection of linguistic and cultural materials is one of the most remarkable holdings of the National Anthropological Archives (NAA). The collection includes documentation on over 130 languages, many of which are now highly endangered or no longer actively spoken. For many of these languages it is the best historic record; for some, it is the only surviving record. Linguists and communities interested in language revitalization consider the collection a treasure.
The J. P. Harrington Collection also includes close to one million pages of notes filling over 1,000 archival boxes, plus over 200 sound recordings, some 3,500 photographs, and thousands of botanical and other natural specimens. The NAA materials are complemented by nearly 600 artifacts that also are part of the National Museum of Natural History’s Department of Anthropology collection.
This guide provides information on using the Archives Department for your research on local Native American history. It outlines the strengths of our collections, recommends a few sources, and offers tips on effective searching
The Utah American Indian Digital Archive (UAIDA) is a gateway to the best resources regarding Utah’s Native American tribes. Including articles, books, government documents, tribal documents, oral histories, photographs, and maps pertaining to each of Utah’s tribes—the Northwestern Shoshones, Goshutes, Paiutes, Utah Navajos, Northern Utes, and White Mesa Utes—the archive captures the complicated history of Utah’s tribes from multiple perspectives and is the first website of its kind to incorporate such broad information regarding the native peoples of the state.
Access to detailed descriptions of primary resource collections maintained by libraries, special collections, archives, historical societies, and museums throughout California including the 10 UC campuses.
A searchable and browseable resource that brings together historical materials from a variety of California institutions, including museums, historical societies, and archives. Contains over 120,000 images; 50,000 pages of documents, letters, and oral histories; and 8,000 guides to collections. Images are organized into thematic and institutional collections, such as historical topics, nature, places, and technology.
Oral history dates to the beginnings of the University of California. Hubert Howe Bancroft conducted interviews in the 1860s in support of his 39-volume history of the West.
California's first legislature, meeting in 1849–50, charged the Secretary of State to receive "…all public records, registered maps, books, papers, rolls, documents and other writings . . . which appertain to or are in any way connected with the political history and past administration of the government of California." The California State Archives, a division of the Office of the Secretary of State, continues to serve in the spirit of those early instructions, providing a repository for the state's permanent governmental records as well as other materials documenting California history. The California State Archives serves a wide variety of researchers whose interests range from legislative intent and public policy to genealogy and railroad history in California.
The Freedom Archives contains over 10,000 hours of audio and video tapes which date from the late-1960s to the mid-90s and chronicle the progressive history of the Bay Area, the United States, and international movements.
The California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives, also known as CEMA, is a division of the Special Collections Department of the University of California, Santa Barbara Library. CEMA is a permanent program that advances scholarship in ethnic studies through its varied collections of primary research materials.
Collections from the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History features digital collections of:
- Natural History Specimens
- Photographs
- Sound Recordings
- Manuscript and Microfilm Materials
associated with this language group.
From the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History features digital collections of:
- Natural History Specimens
- Photographs
- Sound Recordings
- Manuscript and Microfilm Materials
associated with this language group.
Kroeber conducted field work with several Klamath River groups, including the Karok, Wiyot, and Yurok Indians; the Yokuts Indians of Central California; with Ishi, the last member of the Yahi band of the Sacramento Valley; the Mohave Indians of the Colorado River region; and the Zuni Indians of New Mexico, among many other groups. He also carried out archaeological field work in Mexico and Peru. He published more that 500 books and articles on anthropological topics, and served as an expert witness in the Indian land claims cases Clyde F. Thompson et. al. v. United States, Docket No. 31, and Ernest Risling et. al. v. United States, Docket 37.
The A.H. Gayton Papers contains material relating primarily to her work as an anthropologist at the University of California, Berkeley and especially to her research on the Yokuts Indians in California, including correspondence to and from other anthropologists, field notes, and manuscripts of some of her writings. Her papers relating to Peruvian textile materials and to the California-Portuguese remained in the possession of Professor Robert Spier. Her books were given to the University of California at Santa Cruz.
The American Indian Community History Center records, 1945-1999, consist of Intertribal Friendship House administrative records and reports, oral history materials, consisting primarily of transcribed interviews, writings regarding Native Americans, newspaper clippings, and newsletters. The records relate to the Intertribal Friendship House as well as the American Indian community in general.
Field notes, vocabulary schedules, manuscripts, typescripts, notebooks, clippings, and printed matter relating to Merriam's work with California and other Indian tribes (1898-1938). Primary material includes lists of tribes, bands and villages of California Indian tribes; ethnogeographic and ethnographic information; and lists of Indian words and their meanings. Secondary material includes Merriam's research files containing clippings and other printed matter on Indian tribes and Indian welfare in California and the West. Also included are manuscripts and typescripts of Merriam's published work on California Indians and typescripts of Robert Heizer's compilations of Merriam's work, published posthumously.
The Ethnological Documents of the Department and Museum of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley, is composed of 216 separate collections of varying size, spanning the period 1875 to 1958, with the exception of a Quiché Maya manuscript leaf, dating from the 17th Century. The collection is comprised of manuscripts, field notes, and other linguistic, ethnographic and ethnobotanical documents, including card files, newsclippings, genealogical tables, charts, maps, drawings, photographs, as well as some original microfilm.
Material documenting Spier's work as an anthropologist, primarily relating to American Indians. Includes correspondence on his research on Indian cradles; comparative notes on ethnography; field notebooks, mainly on the Plains and Klamath Indians; and material relating to Salish Indian weaving.
The Margaret Langdon papers contain correspondence; proposals and projects, primarily the Comparative Dictionary of Yuman Languages consisting of correspondence, contracts, evaluations, data entries, and drafts.
They relate mainly to the Donner Party, McKinstry's work as sheriff for the Sacramento District, estimates of the whites and Indians in the Sacramento Valley, and early steamboats on the Sacramento River. Included also is a pay roll of the garrison at Fort Sacramento during the winter of 1846-47.
The Randall Milliken papers consist of Milliken's research notes used in compiling his database of Central California Missions as well as his general ethnohistorical research of California Indian populations.
Heizer directed important field work in the Sacramento Valley of California, near Lovelock, Nevada, and the Mayan sites of La Venta, Tabasco, Mexico and Abaj Takalik, Guatemala. He published more than 500 books and articles concerning archaeology and anthropology. He served as an expert witness in the Indian land claims cases Clyde F. Thompson et. al. v. United States, Docket No. 31, and Ernest Risling et. al. v. United States, Docket No. 37.
Correspondence and papers relating to his career as professor of anthropology, University of California, Berkeley; field notes of his work on Indians and Indian linguistics, particularly the Crow Indians, as well as of Chipewyan, Hidatsa, Hopi, Kiowa, and Washo Indians; lecture notes; diaries; manuscripts of his writings; subject files and personalia.
