LibGuides: Primary Sources: America (U.S.A.) History: Colonial America & Early Republic

Colonial America saw European settlers establishing diverse colonies along the eastern seaboard, each with unique economic, social, and political structures. From the Puritan communities of New England to the plantation economies of the South, colonists forged new societies amidst interactions with indigenous peoples. During the colonial period, they witnessed tension with the British Crown over governance and taxation issues, culminating in the Revolutionary War and the birth of the United States. The Early Republic era, marked by the adoption of the Constitution, saw the fledgling nation grappling with questions of federalism, individual rights, and westward expansion, laying the foundation for American democracy.

Book Sources: Colonial America & Early Republic

Click the title for location and availability information.

Alexander Hamilton: Documents Decoded by Hamilton, Alexander, 1757-1804 author.; Villegas, Christina, editor, author.
Call Number: View Online
ISBN: 1440857636
Publication Date: 2018
The American Republic : primary sources by Bruce Frohnen (Editor)
Call Number: Boca Raton General Collection E173 .A7535 2002
ISBN: 0865973326
Publication Date: 2002-09-09
The boisterous sea of liberty : a documentary history of America from discovery through the Civil War by David Brion Davis (Editor); Steven Mintz (Editor)
Call Number: Boca Raton General Collection E187 .B65 1998
ISBN: 0195116690
Publication Date: 1998-10-15
British Royal Proclamations Relating to America, 1603-1783 by Edited by Clarence S. Brigham
Call Number: Online - free - HathiTrust
Colonial America: Facts and Fictions by K. David Goss; A. A. Grishin
Call Number: View Online
ISBN: 1440864276
Publication Date: 2021-01-13
The Colonial Image: Origins of American Culture by John Chester Miller
Call Number: Online - free - HathiTrust
American Political Writing During the Founding Era, 1760-1805 by Charles S. Hyneman; Donald S. Lutz
Call Number: Jupiter General Collection JK113 .A716 1983 Holdings: v.1-v.2
ISBN: 0865970386
Publication Date: 1983-05-01
Debating the Issues in Colonial Newspapers by David A. Copeland
Call Number: View Online
ISBN: 0313309825
Publication Date: 2000-08-30
Reading these United States : federal literacy in the early Republic, 1776-1830 by Keri Holt
Call Number: View Online
ISBN: 9780820354538
Publication Date: 2018-09-30
Explorers of the American east : mapping the world through primary documents by Kelly K. Chaves; Oliver C. Walton; Jay H. Buckley (Contribution by); Jeffery D. Nokes (Contribution by)
Call Number: View Online
ISBN: 1440839301
Publication Date: 2019
Exploring the Bounds of Liberty: Political Writings of Colonial British America from the Glorious Revolution to the American Revolution by Jack P. Greene (Editor); Craig B. Yirush (Editor)
Call Number: View Online
ISBN: 9780865978997
Publication Date: 2018-04-30
The Founders' Constitution by Philip B. Kurland (Editor); Ralph Lerner (Editor)
Call Number: Boca Raton General Collection KF4502 .F68 1987 : v.1-v.5
ISBN: 0226463877
Publication Date: 1987-09-24
The Glorious Revolution in America; Documents on the Colonial Crisis of 1689 by Michael G. Hall (editor)
Call Number: E191.H178 G5
The Great Awakening by Richard L. Bushman (Editor)
Call Number: Boca Raton General Collection BR520 .B94 1970
ISBN: 0807842605
Publication Date: 1989-08-11
The Jamestown adventure : accounts of the Virginia colony, 1605-1614 by Ed Southern (Editor)
Call Number: Boca Raton General Collection F234.J3 J325 2004
ISBN: 9780895873026
Publication Date: 2004-10-01
Mississippi Provincial Archives, 1763-1766 English Dominion by Dunbar Roland (editor)
Call Number: Online - free - HathiTrust
Letters and Enclosures to the Secretary of State From Major Robert Farmer and Governor George Johnstone
Mississippi Provincial Archives ... French Dominion by Dunbar Rowland and A. G. Sanders (edited and translated)
Call Number: Online - free - HathiTrust
Prologue to Revolution by Edmund S. Morgan
Call Number: Boca Raton General Collection E215.2 .M57
ISBN: 9780807807620
Publication Date: 1959-01-01
Records of the American Colonies Collection
Call Number: Online - free - HathiTrust
Published documents--legislation, court proceedings, records, correspondence, etc.--from the 13 original colonies and their predecessors.
Revolutionary America, 1763-1815 a sourcebook by Francis D. Cogliano (Editor); Kirsten E. Phimister (Editor)
Call Number: View Online
ISBN: 9780415997119
Publication Date: 2010-07-07
Servants and Servitude in Colonial America by Russell M. Lawson
Call Number: View Online
ISBN: 1440841802
Publication Date: 2018-01-25

Online Sources: Colonial America & Early Republic

17th Century Colonial New England with a Special Emphasis on the Essex County Witch-Hunt of 1692 This website is designed to make it easy to access primary source materials of the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692, including digital images of the manuscripts, cross-referenced with transcription entries in Rosenthal's Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt (2009), Boyer & Nissenbaum's Salem Witchcraft Papers (1977), Woodward's Records of Salem Witchcraft (1864), Levin's What Happened in Salem? 2nd ed. (1960), and Godbeer's The Salem Witch Hunt (2011).
African Americans and the End of Slavery in Massachusetts This website features 117 items from the collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society. This group of unique manuscripts and rare published materials includes handwritten documents and letters by African Americans (Phillis Wheatley and members of the Hartford family), the earliest antislavery pamphlet published in Massachusetts (The Selling of Joseph, printed in 1700), petitions of African Americans requesting freedom, documents certifying the freedom of specific individuals, materials relating to two African Americans involved in landmark legal cases that brought an end to slavery in Massachusetts (Elizabeth Freeman and Quock Walker), warrants and depositions for runaway slaves, bills of sale and account books documenting slave transactions, and a series of letters written in 1795 in which some notable men share their perspective on the history and end of slavery in Massachusetts.
America and the Utopian Dream Utopias in America, from the first Puritan settlements to the communes of the 1960s, share the goal of removal from the heart of civilization to the wilderness in order to establish a new social order. Communities with European roots embraced the equalizing demands and freedoms of the New World’s open frontier, even as the new country claimed the pursuit of happiness as an inalienable right. Though their inspirations varied—theocracy, millenialism, socialism, theosophism, behaviorism—they all reflected the American dream of a better world, now.
American Colonist's Library A large collection of historical works that contributed to the formation of American politics, culture, and ideals. Arranged chronologically, the resources include material from classical times through the 18th century. (Although several links are no longer active, the site is useful in identifying specific works.)
American Journeys: Eyewitness Accounts of Early American Exploration and Settlement, 1000-1800 (Wisconsin Historical Society) American Journeys contains more than 18,000 pages of eyewitness accounts of North American exploration, from the sagas of Vikings in Canada in AD1000 to the diaries of mountain men in the Rockies 800 years later. Read the words of explorers, Indians, missionaries, traders and settlers as they lived through the founding moments of American history. View, search, print, or download more than 150 rare books, original manuscripts, and classic travel narratives from the library and archives of the Wisconsin Historical Society. To get started, simply select an activity on the toolbar above. Funded by the U.S. Institute of Museum & Library Services and by private donors, American Journeys is a collaborative project of the Wisconsin Historical Society and National History Day. It was originally created for students exploring National History Day's 2004 theme, "Exploration, Encounter & Exchange" and everyone else who loves American history.
American Memory: A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation* "Beginning with the Continental Congress in 1774, America's national legislative bodies have kept records of their proceedings. The records of the Continental Congress, the Constitutional Convention, and the United States Congress make up a rich documentary history of the construction of the nation and the development of the federal government and its role in the national life. These documents record American history in the words of those who built our government. Books on the law formed a major part of the holdings of the Library of Congress from its beginning. In 1832, Congress established the Law Library of Congress as a separate department of the Library. It houses one of the most complete collections of U.S. Congressional documents in their original format. In order to make these records more easily accessible to students, scholars, and interested citizens, A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation brings together online the records and acts of Congress from the Continental Congress and Constitutional Convention through the 43rd Congress, including the first three volumes of the Congressional Record, 1873-75. "
American Rhetoric Database of and index to 5000+ full text, audio and video versions of public speeches, sermons, legal proceedings, lectures, debates, interviews, other recorded media events, and a declaration or two.
American Shores: Maps of the Middle Atlantic Region to 1850 (New York Public Library) The Mid-Atlantic region of North America – stretching from New York south to Virginia – was a pivotal area in the early development of the American colonies and the United States. This website looks at this region and its history through maps created up to 1850. The cartographic record created on paper by the early mapmakers preserves, places and events in the physical and historical context of the time in which the maps were made. Much of that context no longer exists on land, as development and growth have ridden roughshod over the past. The maps on this site cover the early modern period ending in 1850, just as so-called internal improvements (canals, highways, and railroads) began to cross the young nation and change the landscape. These early maps provide contemporary documentation of particular times and places and present a compelling way to study history today. The digitized maps and atlases included in American Shores are drawn from the extensive holdings of the Map Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences Library. In particular, the maps by English mapmakers from the Lawrence H. Slaughter Collection form the core of this site.
Archival Research Catalog (National Archives) Catalog to the National Archives
ArchiveGrid ArchiveGrid includes over 7 million records describing archival materials, bringing together information about historical documents, personal papers, family histories, and more. With over 1,400 archival institutions represented, ArchiveGrid helps researchers looking for primary source materials held in archives, libraries, museums and historical societies. If you'd like to see your collections included in ArchiveGrid or have questions about the ArchiveGrid project, please get in touch with us.
Archive of Early American Images A database of graphic representations of the colonial Americas, from Hudson Bay to Tierra del Fuego, drawn entirely from primary sources printed or created between 1492 and ca. 1825.
Calendar of State Papers, Colonial, America & West Indies Calendars provide summaries full enough, for most purposes, to replace the original documents. These summaries are printed in chronological order and do not necessarily reflect the archival ordering of the documents (hence calendar). They are the primary finding aid for the records that they describe. The State Papers Colonial are the accumulated papers of the secretaries of state relating to colonial affairs from the 16th to the 18th century. This series details papers relating to Colonial America and the West Indies for the period 1574-1739.
Capital and the Bay: Narratives of Washington and the Chesapeake Bay Region, ca. 1600-1925 (Library of Congress) The fourth in a series of local history collections presented by the National Digital Library Program as part of American Memory, joining "California As I Saw It", Pioneering the Upper Midwest, and Puerto Rico at the Dawn of the Modern Age. Together, these online collections make up a virtual local history bookshelf. Like the other local history collections, The Capital and the Bay comprises first-person narratives, early histories, historical biographies, promotional brochures, and books of photographs in an attempt to capture in words and pictures a distinctive region as it developed between the onset of European settlement and the first quarter of the twentieth century. Works published after that time generally pose copyright challenges that prevented their inclusion.
Charters of Freedom (America's Founding Documents) This site from the National Archives provides access to and information about the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the U.S., and the Bill of Rights.
Colonial and State Records of North Carolina The Colonial and State Records of North Carolina has been an extraordinary resource for students of North Carolina's history for over one hundred years. The series includes documents and materials from throughout the country and from several European repositories covering the earliest days of North Carolina's settlement by Europeans through the ratification of the United States Constitution. The publication of twenty-six volumes of historical materials, appearing between 1886 and 1907, with a four-volume master index, marked a significant achievement for the state's historians and provided a benefit to the entire state of North Carolina. The turmoil and uncertainty of the proprietary years, the attempts at consolidating power and improving life under royal stewardship, and the emergence of an independent state were documented here through individual, governmental, and organizational records. These documents were handwritten originals that are often difficult for non-experts to read, and some of the originals have disappeared since publication. When complete, "The Colonial and State Records of North Carolina" digital collection will present the entire original publication, including the index. Its mission is to continue the legacy of an earlier generation's extensive scholarship, improve it with this generation's technology, and empower today's and tomorrow's users by offering easier, more efficient, and more flexible access to thousands of unique documents. Our readers will be able to browse the volumes, consult the index, search the full text, or conduct advanced searches.
Colonial Charters and Related Documents (Avalon Project) Colonial Charters and documents from European Monarchy.
Colonial Manuscript Collection (Hudson River Valley Heritage) The Colonial Manuscripts Collection offered online here is a growing accumulation of some of the earliest documents from the archives of Historic Huguenot Street in New Paltz, NY. Presently, the collection contains 52 separate documents which combined amount to 141 images. The aim of this online collection is to document the various activities of the New Paltz community during its earliest years. Items represented include an account book, a military commission letters, receipts, promissory notes, payment letters, wills, articles of vendue, contracts, and land papers. For this exhibit, the papers are organized under four general headings: Financial Documents, Legal Documents, Church-Related Documents, and Additional Documents, but items can also be searched by author, subject, date, or by keyword. Items of particular note in the collection include the 46-paged account book kept by seamstress, Jannetje DuBois from 1773-1797, the Contract and Accompanying Papers for the New Paltz Patent between the Huguenots and the Esopus Indians (also known as the Indian Deed) 1677, a Deacon’s Account from the New Paltz Reformed Church, 1731- 1736, and Letters of Recommendation for Jean Hasbrouck and Louis Bevier, from Protestant Churches in the German Palatinate, and several letters relating to the Coetus-Conferentie Dispute in the Dutch Reformed Church during the 1760s.
Colonial North America at Harvard Library Colonial North America at Harvard Library provides access to remarkable and wide-ranging materials digitized as part of an ongoing, multi-year project. When complete, the project will make available to the world approximately 650,000 digitized pages of all known archival and manuscript materials in the Harvard Library that relate to 17th- and 18th-century North America. Each item is connected to countless stories—of lives lived quietly and extravagantly, of encounters peaceful and volatile, and of places near and far – providing an opportunity to travel back in time, to rethink familiar stories, and to discover new ones.
Colonial Society of Massachusetts Publications Contains primary sources such as letters, diaries, church records, and notebooks from the colonial era in Massachusetts.
Colonial Williamsburg Digital Library Access to the Virginia Gazette Newspaper 1730-1780. Also provides access to York County Probate Records (17th/18th century,) transcripts and images of selected historical documents, as well as Research Reports "documenting the study of the eighteenth-century town since the establishment of the Foundation. "
Colonization And Settlement, 1585-1763 - Gilder Lehrman Collection (Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History) At the Institute’s core is the Gilder Lehrman Collection, one of the great archives in American history. More than 85,000 items cover five hundred years of American history, from Columbus’s 1493 letter describing the New World through the end of the twentieth century.
Cornell University Library: Witchcraft Collection Part of Cornell University Library’s Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell’s Witchcraft Collection contains over 3,000 titles documenting the history of the Inquisition and the persecution of witchcraft, primarily in Europe. The majority of the Witchcraft Collection was acquired in the 1880s through the collaborative efforts of Andrew Dickson White, Cornell’s first President, and his first librarian, George Lincoln Burr. The collection documents the earliest and the latest manifestations of the belief in witchcraft as well as its geographical boundaries, and elaborates this history with works on canon law, the Inquisition, torture, demonology, trial testimony, and narratives. The collection focuses on witchcraft not as folklore or anthropology, but as theology and as religious heresy.
Cotton Mather Home Page This collection includes writings by Cotton Mather and writings about Cotton Mather.
Diary of John Harrower, 1773-1776 "Diary of John Harrower, 1773-1776" is an article from The American Historical Review, Volume 6.
Diary of Samuel Sewell 1674-1729 At the Institute’s core is the Gilder Lehrman Collection, one of the great archives in American history. More than 85,000 items cover five hundred years of American history, from Columbus’s 1493 letter describing the New World through the end of the twentieth century.
Digital Quaker Collection DQC is a digital library containing full text and page images of over 500 individual Quaker works from the 17th and 18th centuries. The proprietary software developed for Earlham School of Religion provides multiple search functions and an interface for viewing pages.
Digital Witchcraft Collection The majority of the Witchcraft Collection was acquired in the 1880s through the collaborative efforts of Andrew Dickson White, Cornell’s first President, and his first librarian, George Lincoln Burr. The collection documents the earliest and the latest manifestations of the belief in witchcraft as well as its geographical boundaries, and elaborates this history with works on canon law, the Inquisition, torture, demonology, trial testimony, and narratives. The collection focuses on witchcraft not as folklore or anthropology, but as theology and as religious heresy.
Document Bank of Virginia
Early Americas Digital Archive
Early Americas Digital Archive (Maryland Institute of Technology in the Humanities) The Early Americas Digital Archive (EADA) is a collection of electronic texts originally written in or about the Americas from 1492 to approximately 1820. Open to the public for research and teaching purposes, EADA is published and supported by the University of Maryland Libraries’ e-Publishing Initiative, and was originally developed with the support of the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH). Intended as a long-term and inter-disciplinary project committed to exploring the intersections between traditional humanities research and digital technologies, it invites scholars from all disciplines to submit their editions of early American texts for publication on this site.
Early Americas Digital Archives (University of Maryland) The Early Americas Digital Archive (EADA) is a collection of electronic texts originally written in or about the Americas from 1492 to approximately 1820. Open to the public for research and teaching purposes, EADA is published and supported by the University of Maryland Libraries’ e-Publishing Initiative, and was originally developed with the support of the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH). Intended as a long-term and inter-disciplinary project committed to exploring the intersections between traditional humanities research and digital technologies, it invites scholars from all disciplines to submit their editions of early American texts for publication on this site. To learn more about EADA, please see Introduction to the Archive. In order to search the database of documents housed at EADA, see Browse/Search the Archive. In order to find early American texts on the Internet, at the EADA and elsewhere, see Gateway of Early American authors on the Internet.
Evans Early American Imprints - free TCP version Online texts of books, pamphlets, and broadsides known to have been printed in the U.S. between 1640 and 1821.
Federalist Papers, The "This web-friendly presentation of the original text of the Federalist Papers (also known as The Federalist) was obtained from the e-text archives of Project Gutenberg. Any irregularities with regard to grammar, syntax, spelling, or punctuation are as they exist in the original e-text archives."
Founders' Constitution "In this unique anthology, Philip B. Kurland and Ralph Lerner draw on the writings of a wide array of people engaged in the problem of making popular government safe, steady, and accountable. The documents included range from the early seventeenth century to the 1830s, from the reflections of philosophers to popular pamphlets, from public debates in ratifying conventions to the private correspondence of the leading political actors of the day."
Founders Online "Correspondence and Other Writings of Seven Major Shapers of the United States: George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams (and family), Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison. Over 184,000 searchable documents, fully annotated, from the authoritative Founding Fathers Papers projects."
French and Indian Wars Manuscript Collection (New England Historic Genealogical Society) This collection contains selected manuscripts from the R. Stanton Avery Special Collections related to the French and Indian Wars: King William's War (1689-1697), Queen Anne's War (1702-1713), King George's War (1744-1748), and the French and Indian War (1754-1763). These collections include diaries, letters, military records, and other materials that provide details about the experiences of men from Massachusetts, New Hampshire, England, and other locations who fought in the French and Indian Wars in North America. Most of these collections focus on the Crown Point Expedition, the Québec Campaign, and the Battle of Ticonderoga. Additional manuscripts will be added to this digital collection on a regular basis.
French Colonial, Spanish Colonial, & 19th century Louisiana Documents (1655-1924) Louisiana documents from 1655 to 1924 with a strong emphasis on the French colonial, Spanish colonial, and early national periods. Includes correspondence, land sales, slave sales, plantation journals, business licenses, property sales, professional and family papers, legal documents, land grants, tax receipts, theater programs, broadsides, engravings, and more. A noted Louisiana document collector, Felix Kuntz (1890-1971) donated his collection to Tulane University in four installments beginning in 1954 and requested that it be named after his parents. Today, the Rosemond E. and Emile Kuntz Collection (LaRC Manuscripts Collection 600) is a renowned resource for studying Louisiana with a special emphasis on New Orleans. Particularly noteworthy are records from the Company of the Indies, papers of Francisco Bouligny describing early French and Spanish authority over Louisiana, documents spanning Louisiana's entry into the United States through the Civil War and New Orleans? growth as a major commercial center, New Orleans municipal records (1805-1850s, including an 1805 census), and several small personal and family collections such as those of John McDonogh, the Pontalba family, and the Pierson family.
Friends Historical Library Selections The Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College is devoted to the history of the Society of Friends (Quakers) and its concerns. The Library includes printed works dating from the mid-seventeenth century to the present, as well as archives, manuscripts and other materials. This digital database is a small sample of its approximately 60,000 visual resources
The Goody Parsons Witchcraft Case: A Journey to 17th Century Northampton Historic Northampton will open a new exhibit chronicling an intriguing case of New England witchcraft beginning more than forty years before the notorious events in Salem. Bridget Marshall will discuss her research on the Mary Bliss Parsons witchcraft case at the exhibit opening on Sunday, October 27th at 2 P.M. in the historic Parsons house. The Parsons were one of the first families of Northampton and Mary Parsons was the subject of three separate witchcraft-related trials: in 1656, 1674, and 1678. Her story is a fascinating one, and sheds light on the workings of the Puritan mind and the early years of the colony. The opening will also feature demonstrations of a prototype website on the Mary Parsons Witchcraft Trial being developed by Northampton teachers and the Center for Computer-Based Instructional Technology at the University of Massachusetts. The project is sponsored by Historic Northampton and funded by the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities.
A Guide to the Primary Sources of the Salem Witchcraft Trials This website is a free portal to make it easier to access the on-line primary sources -- both in transcription and facsimile images -- of the Salem Witch Trials located at other websites on the internet. Most of the links will take you to the Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive at the University of Virginia, others will take you to the Witchcraft Collection at the Cornell University Library website, and a few others will take you to other sites, such as the Library of Congress, Maryland State Archives and the NEHGS. Texts or images are generally not hosted at 17thc.us: these webpages are only an index to make locating what you want on-line easier.
Immigrant Servants Database (1607-1820) This ongoing project introduces a novel approach for spotting early American immigrants in Colonial American and European sources. The basic thesis is that most indentured servants were European immigrants. This project aims to create a reconstructed passenger arrival list for people who came to Colonial America as indentured servants, redemptioners, and transported convicts between 1607 and 1820. A random sample taken from among the database’s first 10,000 immigrants revealed that approximately 50% do not appear in Filby’s multi-volume Passenger and Immigration Lists Index. Check back regularly for updates.
Isaiah Thomas Broadside Ballads Project With over 800 images and 300 mini-essays, this site offers a unique and comprehensive view of the broadsides that Isaiah Thomas (1749-1831) collected in early nineteenth-century Boston. Each broadside includes a brief explanation of its content by Kate Van Winkle Keller.
Law of Slavery in New Jersey: An Annotated Bibliography This bibliography is part of a digital collection on The Law of Slavery in New Jersey, in the New Jersey Digital Legal Library at Rutgers-Newark Law Library. Links to the texts in the digital collection are included in the bibliography.
Letters of Delegates to Congress 1774-1789 "The twenty-six volumes of the Letters of Delegates to Congress, 1774-1789 aims to make available all the documents written by delegates that bear directly upon their work during their years of actual service in the First and Second Continental Congresses, 1774-1789. "
Library of Congress - Digital Collections - Documents from the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention, 1774 to 1789 "Contains 277 documents relating to the work of Congress and the drafting and ratification of the Constitution. Items include extracts of the journals of Congress, resolutions, proclamations, committee reports, treaties, and early printed versions of the United States Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Most broadsides are one page in length; others range from 1 to 28 pages. A number of these items contain manuscript annotations not recorded elsewhere that offer insight into the delicate process of creating consensus. In many cases, multiple copies bearing manuscript annotations are available to compare and contrast."
Massachusetts Historical Society (MHS) Primary sources on Mass. history from the Colonial period to the present day.
Native American Materials (New York State Library) The New York State Library holds a wealth of first hand descriptions of the Native American experience in New York. These resources span four centuries, beginning with the Dutch colony of New Netherland and continuing to the close of the American frontier in western New York and beyond. Original manuscripts and published accounts provide windows upon Native American life and serve as lenses through which cultural and historical interpretations can be made.
New England Historic Genealogy Society Digital Collections (NEHGS) Digitized documents related to the family lives of individual Americans, with an emphasis on the New England region.
New York Slavery Records Index The New York Slavery Records Index is a searchable compilation of records that identify individual enslaved persons and their owners, beginning as early as 1525 and ending during the Civil War. Our data come from census records, slave trade transactions, cemetery records, birth certifications, manumissions, ship inventories, newspaper accounts, private narratives, legal documents and many other sources. The index contains over 35,000 records and will continue to grow as our team of John Jay College professors and students locates and assembles data from additional sources.
Parallel Histories: Spain, the United States, and the American Frontier Parallel Histories: Spain, the United States, and the American Frontier is a bilingual, multi-format English-Spanish digital library site that explores the interactions between Spain and the United States in America from the fifteenth to the early nineteenth centuries. A cooperative effort between the National Library of Spain, the Biblioteca Colombina y Capitular of Seville and the Library of Congress, the project is part of the Library of Congress Global Gateway initiative to build digital library partnerships with national libraries around the world. Through the presentation in digital form of books, maps, prints and photographs, manuscripts, and other documents from the collections of the partner libraries, this project illuminates five main themes related to the history of Spain and the parallel histories between the United States and Spain: Exploration and Early Settlement, Colonization and Settlement, Meeting of Cultures and Religious/Evangelical Activities, American Revolution, and Mutual Perceptions. Exploration and Early Settlement was launched in June 2005; the other sections are in process.
The Plymouth Colony Archive Project This Plymouth Colony Archive presents a collection of fully searchable texts, including: court records, colony laws, seventeenth century journals and memoirs, probate inventories, wills, town plans, maps, and fort plans; research and seminar analyses of numerous topics; biographical profiles of selected colonists; and architectural, archaeological and material culture studies. Among other works, published here for the first time are a Glossary and Notes on Plymouth Colony, Seventeenth Century Timber Framing, and Vernacular House Forms in Seventeenth Century Plymouth Colony: An Analysis of Evidence from the Plymouth Colony Room-by-Room Probate Inventories 1633-1685, by Patricia Scott Deetz and James Deetz.
Principles of Freedom - Publishing and Publicizing the Declaration of independence. A Colonial Williamsburg Foundation digital project that contains images of various documents
Printed Ephemera: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera (Library of Congress) The collection contains, among other materials, posters, playbills, songsheets, notices, invitations, proclamations, petitions, timetables, leaflets, propaganda, manifestos, ballots, tickets, menus, and business cards. There are more than 28,000 items in the collection with 10,172 available online. The material dates from the seventeenth century to the present day and covers innumerable topics. The library of Peter Force, acquired by the Library of Congress in 1867, furnished the basis of the Printed Ephemera Collection. Force himself had secured many of the pieces assembled by an earlier American historian and collector, Ebenezer Hazard. The majority of the items in the collection were produced in America and their major strength is in historical Americana. In adding to the collection, the Library's aim was to accumulate a record of all broadsides printed in America, and to do so, photostats as well as originals were collected.
The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut transcribed and published, (in accordance with a resolution of the General assembly) (Hathi Trust) The blue laws of Connecticut : taken from the code of 1650 and the public records of the Colony of Connecticut previous to 1655, as printed in a compilation of the earliest laws and orders of the General Court of Connecticut, and from Dr. Lewis's book on Sunday legislation : also an extract from the constitution or civil compact adopted by the Towns of Hartford, Windsor and Wethersfield in 1838-9, showing the Biblical basis of the colony legislation : with an account of the persecution of witches and Quakers in New England and some extracts from the Blue Laws of Virginia
The Quaker Broadsides Collection The Quaker Broadside Collection consists of over 800 titles from the collections of Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College and the Haverford College Quaker Collection. It includes works from 1657 to the present. Some of the items in the collection are composed of a single, unfolded sheet with printing on only one side. Many others, however, are multiple pages and smaller sizes. Topics of the broadsides include: exhortations by Quakers against the slave trade; testimonials regarding deceased Friends; petitions to government authorities for recognition of various Quaker testimonies, including conscientious objection to war and refusal to take oaths; advice and caution to Quakers regarding their conduct of life; and theological arguments both within the Society of Friends and regarding other religions.
Quakers and Slavery The materials selected for this project are available for research within the confines of our two Quaker repositories. However, these materials are unique or rare, and as such should receive limited physical handling in order to ensure their longevity. Digitization of these materials supports their long term preservation by reducing the amount they are handled, as well as providing greatly increased access to researchers who are not able to visit. Moreover, within each repository the documents span a range of material types and come from several collections, such that there is no easy way to bring them together physically. This project allows for the virtual reunification of these materials and collections.
Records of the American Colonies Published documents--legislation, court proceedings, records, correspondence, etc.--from the 13 original colonies and their predecessors.
Religion and the Founding of the American Republic (Library of Congress) The religion of the new American republic was evangelicalism, which, between 1800 and the Civil War, was the "grand absorbing theme" of American religious life. During some years in the first half of the nineteenth century, revivals (through which evangelicalism found expression) occurred so often that religious publications that specialized in tracking them lost count. In 1827, for example, one journal exulted that "revivals, we rejoice to say, are becoming too numerous in our country to admit of being generally mentioned in our Record." During the years between the inaugurations of Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, historians see "evangelicalism emerging as a kind of national church or national religion." The leaders and ordinary members of the "evangelical empire" of the nineteenth century were American patriots who subscribed to the views of the Founders that religion was a "necessary spring" for republican government; they believed, as a preacher in 1826 asserted, that there was "an association between Religion and Patriotism." Converting their fellow citizens to Christianity was, for them, an act that simultaneously saved souls and saved the republic. The American Home Missionary Society assured its supporters in 1826 that "we are doing the work of patriotism no less than Christianity." With the disappearance of efforts by government to create morality in the body politic (symbolized by the termination in 1833 of Massachusetts's tax support for churches) evangelical, benevolent societies assumed that role, bringing about what today might be called the privatization of the responsibility for forming a virtuous citizenry.
Richard Hakluyt Online Books Page Links to books by Richard Hakluyt, including his books about North America
Salem Witchcraft Papers Original documents and transcriptions.
Salem Witchcraft Trials 1692 From June through September of 1692, nineteen men and women, all having been convicted of witchcraft, were carted to Gallows Hill, a barren slope near Salem Village, for hanging. Another man of over eighty years was pressed to death under heavy stones for refusing to submit to a trial on witchcraft charges. Hundreds of others faced accusations of witchcraft; dozens languished in jail for months without trials until the hysteria that swept through Puritan Massachusetts subsided.
Samuel Wyllys Papers (1663-1728) The Samuel Wyllys Papers, 1668-1728, undated, are a group of 88 court documents also known as Depositions on Cases of Witchcraft, Assault, Theft, Drunkenness, and Other Crimes Tried In Connecticut 1663-1728. The papers include 6 cases of witchcraft (42 documents), 12 cases concerning assault and battery, theft, adultery and other crimes.
Trial Pamphlets Collection The Trial Pamphlets collection at the Cornell University Law Library consists of pamphlets ranging in date from the late 1600s to the late 1800s. Trial pamphlets are contemporary accounts of trials that involved prominent citizens or that dealt with especially controversial or lurid topics. These pamphlets were produced quickly and inexpensively, and then sold on the street soon after the trial to a mass audience. The paper used to print the pamphlets was of a lower quality (ephemera) and the pamphlets were not bound. Thus, the pamphlets were not meant to survive much past their initial use. The content of the individual pamphlets varies widely. They were sold to an eager public as both a form of entertainment and as cautionary tales. Some include the details and illustrations of scandalous crimes and others include “execution sermons,” which were meant to serve as moral examples to the readers. Most include valuable information not available elsewhere, such as verbatim transcripts of testimony and arguments of counsel, depositions of parties, and illustrations or copies of evidence used in the trial.
Unknown No Longer: A Database of Virginia Slave Names Virginia Untold: the African American Narrative provides digital access to records that document some of the lived experiences of enslaved and free Black and multiracial people in the Library of Virginia’s collections. Traditional description, indexing, transcription, and digitization are major parts of this effort. However, and perhaps more importantly, this project seeks to encourage conversation and engagement around the records, providing opportunities for a more diverse narrative of the history of Virginia’s communities.
Virtual Jamestown The Virtual Jamestown team hopes that you enjoy your visit to our site, and that you will return to see the further enhancements we are planning.
Voyages: Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database This digital memorial raises questions about the largest slave trades in history and offers access to the documentation available to answer them. European colonizers turned to Africa for enslaved laborers to build the cities and extract the resources of the Americas. They forced millions of mostly unnamed Africans across the Atlantic to the Americas, and from one part of the Americas to another. Analyze these slave trades and view interactive maps, timelines, and animations to see the dispersal in action.
Witness to the Early American Experience The digital images of historical documents in this archive preserve the words of hundreds of eyewitnesses to the American Revolution in and around New York City. The letters, newspapers, broadsides, legal records, and maps presented here record events from the early years of the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam through the British occupation of the city during the Revolution. Here you can explore the history of New York through the words of those who lived it…
World Wide Web Virtual Library: History: United States [Click Here for WWW-VL History Index]logo: WWW-VL: United States History Index] WWW-VL: HISTORY: UNITED STATES

Videos on Colonial America & Early Republic

Settling in New England - Dyer, Julier, director - 2001 - Available Online

Settling the Southern Colonies - Dyer, Julia, director - 2001