Subject Guides: Native American Studies: Native Americans and Indigenous Studies

Primary Sources

North American Indian Thought and Culture (ASP) This link opens in a new window
North American Indian Thought and Culture includes biographies, auto-biographies, personal narratives, speeches, diaries, letters, and oral histories.
American Indian Histories and Cultures This link opens in a new window
Explore manuscripts, artwork and rare printed books dating from the earliest contact with European settlers right up to photographs and newspapers from the mid-twentieth century.
American Indians and the American West (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
Consists of a large variety of collections from the U.S. National Archives, a series of collections from the Chicago History Museum, as well as selected first-hand accounts on Indian Wars and westward migration.

American Indian Digital History Project The American Indian Digital History Project is a Digital History Cooperative founded to recover and preserve rare Indigenous newspapers, photographs, and archival materials from all across Native North America. The project seeks to increase access to historical Tribal documents in order to encourage accurate and responsible American Indian research. Furthermore, the project will be seeking partnerships with Tribal governments and archives to create a digital repository for local Tribes. (University of Kansas)

Indians/Native Americans
This page contains links to American History relating to Native Americans
American Indian Records
Researchers can find information relating to American Indians from as early as 1774 through the mid 1990s.
Pictures of American Indians
The pictures listed here portray Native Americans, their homes and activities.
American Indian Treaties
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) houses original treaties made between the United States and American Indian nations. NARA also houses instructions issued to treaty commissioners, minutes of treaty councils, and other records related to American Indian treaties.

Browse Military Records: Mexican American and Early Indian Wars
Fold3 provides convenient access to military records, including the stories, photos, and personal documents of the men and women who served.

HeinOnline This link opens in a new window
Hein Online includes over 1,200 periodicals, All U.S. Treaties and Agreements, Every published U.S. Supreme Court decision as it appears in the official U.S. Reports, U.S. Federal Register Library, U.S. Treaties, legal classics, and more.

American Indian Newspapers This link opens in a new window
From historic pressings to contemporary periodicals, explore nearly 200 years of Indigenous print journalism from the US and Canada. With newspapers representing a huge variety in publisher, audience and era, discover how events were reported by and for Indigenous communities. An Adam Matthew database
Historical Newspapers from History Commons This link opens in a new window
The Virginia Gazette: 1736 - 1780; African American Newspapers: The 19th Century; The Liberator 1831-1865; The Pennsylvania Gazette 1728-1800; South Carolina Newspapers: 1732 - 1780. Formerly Accessible Archives.
19th Century U.S. Newspaper Digital Archive (Gale) This link opens in a new window
This database has full-text searching capability, and it displays images from numerous newspapers from urban and rural areas.
Periodicals Archive Online (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
This archive makes the backfiles of scholarly periodicals in the arts, humanities and social sciences available electronically, providing access to the searchable full text of hundreds of titles.
Utah Digital Newspapers This link opens in a new window
A growing digital collection of early Utah newspapers browsed by title or searched by keywords, article titles, weddings, deaths, and births.
New York Times Archive (1851-2006) This link opens in a new window
The collection offers full page digital reproductions and article images with searchable full text for every available issue (1851-2006).

Reference Books

Encyclopedia of American Indian history

This set contains 450 entries by 110 contributors and is edited by Johansen and Pritzker. Entries are organized by themes including issues, events, culture, government, people, and primary sources.

Encyclopedia of Native-American history

This set provides an overview of Native American life from a historical perspective, mainly covering the territory north of Mexico from the first-known human settlements there to the present day.

Native Americans: An encyclopedia of history, culture, and peoples

Featuring Native American groups from the northern reaches of Canada to the Rio Grande, this encyclopedia presents basic information about each tribal nation in a consistent manner.

Native America

This fresh and innovative set discusses Native American history on a state-by-state basis.

Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico, Volume 1

Reprint of Bulletin 30 of the Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ehnology.

Handbook of North American Indians

Information on Native American tribes in various regions across North America. Includes: Indians in contemporary society; History of Indian-White relations; Languages; and Mormon Missions to the Indians.

Native Peoples A to Z

Presents an introduction to the history of American Indian peoples intended for an audience of general readers.

Websites

American Indian Library Association
the American Indian Library Association is a membership action group that addresses the library-related needs of American Indians and Alaska Natives. AILA is also committed to disseminating information about Indian cultures, languages, values, and information needs to the library community.
Statutes of the United States Concerning Native Americans (Avalon Project, Yale Law School)
DPLA: Primary Source Set: The American Indian Movement, 1968-1978 Founded in July 1968 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the American Indian Movement (AIM) is an American Indian advocacy group organized to address issues related to sovereignty, leadership, and treaties. Particularly in its early years, AIM also protested racism and civil rights violations against Native Americans. During the 1950s, increasing numbers of American Indians had been forced to move away from reservations and tribal culture because of federal Indian termination policies intended to assimilate them into mainstream American culture. Founders of AIM included Mary Jane Wilson, Dennis Banks, Vernon Bellecourt, Clyde Bellecourt, and George Mitchell, while other activists like Russell Means worked with the organization prominently in the 1970s. This primary source set uses documents, photographs, videos, and news stories to tell the story of the first decade of the American Indian Movement.

Journal Articles

Recommended

MLA International Bibliography (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
Offers a detailed bibliography of journal articles, books, book chapters and dissertations from more than 4,400 journals & series, and 1,000 book publishers.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Focuses on humanities, social science, and science titles, going back as far as the 19th century.

Additional Sources

Academic Search Ultimate (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
America: History and Life (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
American Indian Experience This link opens in a new window
Anthropology Plus (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
ATLA Historical Monographs (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
ATLA Religion Database (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
ERIC (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
Linguistics/Language Behavior Abstracts -- LLBA (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
PAIS International (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window

Cultural Studies

Information on contemporary Indigenous culture, literature, art, and their changes.

Indian Country Today
A resource for Native American news across the country.
Tribal Writers Digital Library
Hosted by the University of Arkansas at Little Rock this digital library features out of print works by American Indians, Alaska Natives, and First Nations people of Canada. The project seeks to broaden what the term "Native writing" means.
Wordcraft Circle
An organization dedicated to promoting Native writers and their work.
Yellow Medicine Review
"A journal of Indigenous Literature, Art and Thought."
National Film Board of Canada--Indigenous Cinema
A collection of over 200 films made available by the National Film Board of Canada. Not all films can be streamed in the US.

Native American Studies: Native Americans and Indigenous Studies

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