Historical Primary Sources: Africa: Primary Sources by Region

Covers accounts of missionaries and European explorers navigating the interior of the continent in the early nineteenth century; to the rise in European desire for increased power, empire and wealth culminating in the Berlin Conference 1885-1886; to the subsequent power struggles, negotiations and conflicts that raged across the continent at the turn of the twentieth century.

From coastal trading in the early nineteenth century, through the Conference of Berlin of 1884 and the subsequent Scramble for Africa, to the abuses of the Congo Free State, fights against tropical disease, Italy's defeat by the Abyssinians, World War II, apartheid in South Africa and colonial moves towards independence, the documents in this resource cover the whole of the modern period of European colonization of the continent. The resource also includes a gallery of maps. Part of a larger series of documents issued by the British Government. This collection originated out of a need to preserve the most important papers generated by the Foreign and Colonial Offices. These documents range from single-page letters or telegrams to comprehensive dispatches, investigative reports and texts of treaties. All items marked Confidential Print were printed and circulated immediately to leading officials in the Foreign Office, to the Cabinet, and to heads of British missions abroad.

Covers such events as the Egyptian reforms of Muhammad Ali Pasha in the nineteenth century, the Middle East Conference of 1921, the Mandates for Palestine and Mesopotamia and the Suez Crisis in 1956, to the partition of Palestine, post-Suez Western foreign policy and the Arab-Israeli conflict. This collection originated out of a need to preserve the most important papers generated by the Foreign and Colonial Offices. These documents range from single-page letters or telegrams to comprehensive dispatches, investigative reports and texts of treaties. All items marked "Confidential Print" were printed and circulated immediately to leading officials in the Foreign Office, to the Cabinet, and to heads of British missions abroad. These historical documents inform the volatile situation in the region today.

Contains to date over 8,000 maps online and focuses on rare 18th and 19th century North and South America cartographic history materials. Historic maps of the World, Europe, Asia and Africa are also represented. [Note: This collection is also part of the UC Image Service and can be viewed in two ways: the Insight Browser allows users to view the collection using a web browser; the Luna Insight software provides greater functionality but must be downloaded.]

"This resource brings together primary source material produced in over 70 former British colonies and Commonwealth nations, alongside some from former French and Portuguese territories, created for local audiences by local actors during a period of enormous global change. Largely eschewing the accounts of colonizers, this collection helps researchers explore decolonization as a historical process sparked from within, specifically the changing or adapting of systems from an imposed imperial or colonial structure after 1945 and up to the present day. The archive sheds light on national political developments that followed decolonization and how former colonies negotiated their own agency and futures.
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Includes 70,000 images of original manuscript and printed documents to support study and research in the field of colonial and empire studies. Five sections include: Cultural Contacts, 1492-1969; Empire Writing and the Literature of Empire; The Visible Empire; Religion and Empire; and Race, Class, Imperialism and Colonialism, c. 1607-1969. In addition to original documents, this database contains scholarly essays and analysis.

A collection that documents the broad range of nineteenth century religious missionary activities, practices and thought in the United States; includes personal narratives, organizational records and biographies of the essential leaders, simple missionaries and churches.

Voyages by rail, road, sea and air are all covered as are walking, cycling and even a journey by stagecoach. Some items are relatively brief such as the record of a car journey when cars were relatively new, which records the places that were passed through, the weather and the road conditions. Others are daily journals which describe long tours of Europe, where all the details of the trip are meticulously recorded. Then there are scrapbooks containing fantastic visual material such as photographs, postcards, cuttings and sketches and other ephemera.