Library Guides: Historical Primary Sources: United States: Native American

Online Resources

American Indian Digital History Project
The American Indian History Project is a digital cooperative whose purpose is to recover and preserve rare indigenous materials, documents, and records from all over Native North America. The database's goal is to increase access to indigenous and tribal historical content in order to promote accurate and responsible Indigenous research. It seeks to build further partnerships with Tribal governments, Native Nations, Indigenous communities, and archives to build a digital repository for Indigenous Peoples.

American Indian Histories and Cultures
Contains primary and secondary documents such as artwork, speeches, petitions, diaries, journals, correspondence, early linguistic and ethnographic accounts, photographs, maps, rare books and newspapers, ranging from the 16th to the 20th century.
Presents material from the Newberry Library's Edward E. Ayer Collection, an extensive archival collection on American Indian history. The content ranges from early contacts with European settlers through the expanded occupation of the American west, up through the Indian political movements of the mid-20th century. The collection covers a wide geographic area with a primary focus on North America and Mexico.

American Indians and the American West, 1809-1971 (HV)
Covers U.S. interactions with Native American tribes, including treaties, land disputes, and assimilation policies. Documents include federal agency records and personal correspondence.
Ancestral Voices
An ongoing effort of the Library of Congress to digitize fragile field recordings originally captured on wax cylinders, many dating back to the late 19th century. Many items in the collection are recordings of Native American cultural expressions.
Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center
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.
Curtis (Edward S.) Collection
The Library of Congress collection of Edward S. Curtis's photographs includes many that were not published as part of his multi-volume work, The North American Indian.
Genoa Indian School Digital Reconciliation Project
To tell the stories of American Indian children who attended the Genoa Indian School, the creators are digitizing government records from various federal and state archives.
IDA Treaties Explorer
Includes the 374 Ratified Indian Treaties held at the US National Archives. Provides access to the digitized documents as well as tools to help put them into historical context.

Indian Claims Insight
Includes the decisions, transcripts, docket books, and journals of the Indian Claims Commission (a judicial panel for relations between the U.S. Government and Native American tribes), and related statutes, maps and congressional publications. [1789-present]
It allows researchers to search the full text of documents related to Native American migration and resettlement throughout U.S. history, as well as U.S. Government Indian removal policies and subsequent actions to address Native American claims.
Access courtesy of the Berkeley Law Library.

Indian-Pioneer Papers Collection
An oral history collection spanning from 1861 to 1926 that includes typescripts of interviews conducted by government workers during the 1930s, regarding the settlement of Oklahoma and Indian territories and the condition and conduct of life there.
The Invasion of America
An interactive site that maps every Native American treaty and executive order between 1776 and 1886, as originally compiled by Charles Royce in 1899. The map contains links to the original treaty text, when available.
Letters Sent, 1903–1948 (Sherman Institute)
This series includes letterpress copies of letters sent by the Superintendent of the Sherman Institute, an off-reservation boarding school in Riverside, California. The letters were sent to government agencies, the public, former students, and students' parents.
Native American Constitutions and Legal Materials
The Law Library of Congress collection contains a variety of Native American legal materials. The Law Library holds most of the laws and constitutions from the early 19th century produced by the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole who were forced to leave the Southeast for the Indian Territory after passage of the Indian Removal Act in 1830. Some of these documents are in the vernacular languages of the tribes. This collection includes 19th century items and those constitutions and charters drafted after the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act.
Natives of Montana Archival Project
Includes over 65,000 pages from 126 boxes of Bureau of Indian Affairs records (Record Group 75) held at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. Scanned from the Central Classified Files (CCF), 1907-1939, this collection includes letters, reports, photographs, petitions, leases, bonds, wills, and other legal documents.
Reports of the Pueblo Lands Board, 1925–1931
This NARA series contains copies of reports prepared by the Pueblo Lands Board which was established in conformance with an act of Congress of June 7, 1924 (43 Stat. 636), to investigate the ownership of lands within the external boundaries of lands granted or confirmed to the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico.
Utah American Indian Digital Archive
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.
War Department and Indian Affairs, 1800-1824
A collection of letters received and sent to the War Department, which oversaw Indian affairs from 1789 until the Bureau of Indian Affairs was established in 1824.

Dawes Commission Records

Dawes Commission records are used by Native American tribal members and tribal governments to prove tribal lineage. The Commission was established in 1893 to divide tribal land into plots, which were then divided among members of the tribe. As part of the process, the Commission accepted or rejected applicants for tribal membership based on whether the tribal government had previously recognized the applicant as a member of the tribe. The records cover the period 1898-1914 and only concern these tribes living in Oklahoma: Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, Seminole, Delaware Cherokee, and Mississippi Choctaw.

Three groups of records associated with the Dawes Commission are digitized.

Enrollment Cards, 1898-1914 (census cards) Available in the National Archives catalog

Applications for Enrollment (Enrollment Jackets) Available in the National Archives catalog

Applications for Allotment (Land Allotment Jackets) Available from FamilySearch.org (create a free account to access the records)

Read more about what is included in each type of record and how to navigate them on the National Archives website and at the FamilySearch wiki.

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Historical Primary Sources: United States: Native American

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Online Resources

Dawes Commission Records