Primary Sources - HIST 131: United States History I - Baker - LibGuides at Colorado Mesa University

Books

Native American Testimony: A Chronicle of Indian-White Relations from Prophecy to the Present, 1492-1992 by Peter Nabokov (Editor); Vine Deloria (Foreword by)
Call Number: E 93 .N3 1991 (3rd floor)
ISBN: 9780670837045
Publication Date: 1991-12-01
American Indian History: A Documentary Reader by Camilla Townsend (Editor)
Call Number: E 77 .A4963 2009 (3rd floor)
ISBN: 9781405159074
Publication Date: 2009-04-20
First Peoples: A Documentary Survey of American Indian History by Colin G. Calloway
Call Number: E 77.C14 2008 (3rd floor)
ISBN: 9780312453732
Publication Date: 2007-10-31
Manifest Destiny and American Territorial Expansion by Amy S. Greenberg
Call Number: E 338 .G83 2018 (3rd floor)
ISBN: 1319087949
Publication Date: 2017-09-08
The Cherokee Removal by Theda Perdue; Michael D. Green
Call Number: E 99.C5 P43 2016 (1st floor)
ISBN: 1319049028
Publication Date: 2016-04-29
The Papers of Chief John Ross (2 Volume Set) by John Ross; Gary E. Moulton (Editor)
Call Number: E 99.C5 R82 1985 (3rd floor)
ISBN: 0806118652
Publication Date: 1985-09-15

Digital resources

Native Northeast Portal
"The Native Northeast Research Collaborative's Native Northeast Portal contains primary source materials by, on, or about Northeast Indians from repositories around the world. Documents are digitized, transcribed, annotated, reviewed by the appropriate contemporary descendant community representatives, and brought together with scholarly annotations and academic/community commentary into one edited interactive digital collection. The Portal currently contains thousands of records associated with scores of Native communities. "
Southeastern Native American Documents, 1730-1842
"Over 2,000 documents and images dating from 1730 to 1842 on the history of Native Americans in the Southeastern U.S., letters, legal proceedings, military orders, and more."
Guide to the Indigenous Material at the American Philosophical Society
"This guide provides broad coverage of the Native American and Indigenous archival collections at the Library & Museum of the American Philosophical Society (APS). These materials date from 1553 to 2022 and include manuscript, audio, and visual materials relating to Indigenous peoples throughout the Americas. Use the Browse links to see all entries relating to a particular Indigenous culture or language, or to see all entries altogether."
Edward E. Ayer Digital Collection on American Indians
"As a collection of general Americana, the Newberry’s Edward E. Ayer Collection is one of the best in the country and one of the strongest collections on American Indians in the world. In 1911, Edward E. Ayer (1841-1927) donated more than 17,000 pieces on the early contacts between American Indians and Europeans...Featured here is a selection of more than 65,000 digitized images and texts from the Ayer materials."
American Indian Correspondence - Presbyterian Historical Society
"Missionary correspondence written to the secretaries of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions and the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions documenting the mission work among Native Americans. Letters are official in nature but often contain personal comment and experiences."
The Occom Circle - Papers of Samson Occom (Mohegan, 1723-1792)
"The Occom Circle provides free access to handwritten documents by and about Samson Occom (Mohegan, 1723-1792), intertribal leader, Presbyterian minister, and public intellectual, who helped raise the funds that eventually established Dartmouth College. This digital scholarly edition includes high-resolution images with diplomatic (literal) and modernized transcriptions, as well as annotations identifying people, places, organizations, and important events."
John Ross papers at Gilcrease Museum
"The collection contains correspondence, proclamation as chief of the Cherokee Tribe, legal papers, records, accounts, lists of names, and rations allocated during removal from Tennessee to Indian Territory, official and other papers of the Cherokee Council, petitions and protests to Congress, and papers relating to the East and West Cherokee controversy and the Civil War. Interesting items: A number of papers relate to the various detachments, or groups, of Cherokees being removed from their homes in the East."
Digital Public Library of America
The Digital Public Library of America makes millions of materials from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions across the country available to all in a one-stop discovery experience. It's one of the easiest access points for online primary source materials related to United States history.
National Archives and Records Administration
Use NARA's catalog to search millions of archival items. Click on "Available Online" or "Archival Descriptions with Digital Objects" to focus on items that are available for online viewing and downloading.

Databases

19th Century US Newspapers Digital Archive This link opens in a new window
Subjects: US History, Political Science
19th Century U.S. Newspapers provides access to primary source newspaper content from the 19th century, featuring full-text content and images from numerous newspapers from a range of urban and rural regions throughout the U.S. The collection encompasses the entire 19th century, with an emphasis on such topics as the American Civil War, African-American culture and history, Western migration and Antebellum-era life, among other subjects.
Hein Online This link opens in a new window
HeinOnline is a premier online database containing more than 186 million pages and 287,000 titles of historical and government documents in a fully searchable, image-based format. HeinOnline bridges an important research gap by providing comprehensive coverage from inception of more than 2,800 law-related periodicals. In addition to its vast collection of academic journals, HeinOnline contains the entire Congressional Record, Federal Register, and Code of Federal Regulations, complete coverage of the U.S. Reports back to 1754, and entire databases dedicated to treaties, constitutions, case law, world trials, classic treatises, international trade, foreign relations, U.S. Presidents, and much more.

Tips and tutorials to learn how to read cursive handwriting

Tips for Reading Handwriting
These tips will help you learn what to pay attention to when trying to read cursive handwriting. Sometimes we can recognize letters or small words, so it's a matter of using what we do recognize to help us figure out the parts that we don't recognize.
Examples of handwriting with typed transcriptions
You can use these handwritten examples and compare them to the typed transcription to practice recognizing letters and words.
Excercises to practice reading handwriting
These exercises let you practice transcribing (typing out) handwritten examples to see if you are correctly recognizing words.