Library Guides: Historical Primary Sources: United States: Primary Sources: 18th C and earlier

Online resources

18thConnect
Search tool that helps you discover content related to 18th century American and British literature and culture, located in both freely available digital projects and commercial produced databases.
Archive of Early American Images
Collection of images that date from 1492 to the 1820s
The Atlantic World: America and the Netherlands
This collection explores the history of the Dutch presence in America and the interactions between the United States and the Netherlands.

Colonial America
Includes the correspondence of the colonial governments with the British government departments that held responsibility for the British possessions in mainland North America and the Caribbean. 1606 - 1822

Colonial Currency
A Project of the Robert H. Gore, Jr. Numismatic Endowment at the University of Notre Dame.

Colonial State Papers
Contains primary source documents that relate to the governance of, and activities in, the American, Canadian and West Indian colonies of England. [1570-1759]
Early American Imprints, Series I (1639 - 1800)
Digitized collection of primary documents and images of American life from 1639-1800. (Evans Digital Editions - Readex Digital Collections - Archive of Americana)
Indexes items and images offering insight into every aspect of American life in the 17th and 18th centuries such as agriculture, auctions, foreign affairs, diplomacy, literature, music, religion, the Revolutionary War, temperance, and witchcraft. Provides online access to the print and microform counterparts American Bibliography by Charles Evans, and Supplement to Evans' American Bibliography by Roger Bristol. (Archive of Americana allows cross-searching of several databases: Early American Imprints , Series I and II; Early American Newspapers; American State Papers; US Congressional Serial Set.)
Early American Imprints, Series II (1801-1819)
Digitized collection of primary documents and images of American life from 1801-1819. (Readex Digital Collections - Shaw-Shoemaker - Archive of Americana)
Indexes books, pamphlets, broadsides, state papers and other print genres published from 1801-1819. Covers all aspects of American life including taxation, public health and diseases, slavery, military law, Indians, Christianity, cosmology, etiquette, and much more. Based on the American Bibliography of Ralph R. Shaw and Richard H. Shoemaker. (Archive of Americana allows cross-searching of several databases: Early American Imprints , Series I and II; Early American Newspapers; American State Papers; US Congressional Serial Set.)

Early Americas Digital Archive
Collection of electronic texts and links to texts originally written in or about the Americas from 1420 to approximately 1820

Early Encounters in North America: Peoples, Cultures, and the Environment
Digitized archive that documents the relationships among early North American peoples and the environment.
Includes prints, drawings, paintings, maps, bibliographies, letters, photographs, and original facsimile pages documenting the relationships among peoples and with the environment in North America. Focuses on personal accounts and providing unique perspectives from all the protagonists, including traders, slaves, missionaries, explorers, soldiers, Native Americans as well as a wide range of Europeans.
European Views of the Americas: 1493 to 1750
Guide to printed records about the Americas written in Europe before 1750. [1493-1750]
Contains more than 32,000 entries and is a comprehensive guide to printed records about the Americas written in Europe before 1750. It covers the history of European exploration as well as portrayals of Native American peoples. A wide range of subject areas are covered; from natural disasters to disease outbreaks and slavery.

Friendly Association Papers
Papers dating from 1750s and 1760s of the Pennsylvania-based "Friendly Association for Regaining and Preserving Peace with the Indians by Pacific Measures."
Investigating Indentured Servitude
Digital history project using interactive visualizations of data compiled from indenture contracts. Dataset can be downloaded.
The Performing Arts in Colonial American Newspapers, 1690-1783
A database that includes all references to music, poetry, dance and theater found in early American newspapers, from the earliest extant copy (1690) through the Revolutionary War (1783).
Plymouth Colony Archive Project
Primary documents from the Plymouth Colony including court and probate records and laws
Probing the Past: Virginia & Maryland Probate Inventories 1740-1810
Information from 325 probate inventories that were recorded between 1740 and 1810 in several counties of Virginia and Maryland.
Salem Witch Trials Documentary Project
Contains court records, diaries, and other primary sources, in facsimile and transcribed versions.

Virginia Company Archives
Provides access to the archive of the Virginia Company, which brought settlers to the new world.
The Virginia Company was set up in 1606 as a way to settle what would become New England. Within this archive, discover the handwritten manuscripts, later printed records, and much more about this early attempt to colonize the new world.

Worlds of Change
A collection of more than 700,000 digitized pages of all known archival and manuscript materials in the Harvard Library that relate to 17th- and 18th-century North America.

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Historical Primary Sources: United States: Primary Sources: 18th C and earlier

Online resources