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- American Indian History
American Indian History
Guide to resources for finding primary and secondary sources, with a focus on Texas
Featured Databases
- Early Encounters in North America: People, Cultures, and the Environment (Alexander Street) This link opens in a new windowChronicles accounts of exploration, discovery, travel, environment, peoples, and cultures in North America from 1534-1850. Includes over 100,000 pages of published and unpublished material by 1,482 authors, including letters, diaries, memoirs, and accounts. The collection's focus is on present-day Canada and the United States with limited coverage of Mexico.
- American West (Adam Matthew) This link opens in a new windowExplore westward expansion in America from the early 18th to mid-20th century through a wide range of primary source documents including books, journals, contemporary newspapers, historic maps, broadsides, travel journals, photographs, artwork and more. Documents drawn from the Everett D. Graff Collection of Western Americana at the Newberry Library, Chicago.
Digital Collections
- Center for Archaeological Research PublicationsFull text searchable collection of the entire set of the Center for Archeological Research's publications from 1975 through the present.
- Lawrence T. Jones III Texas Photographs (Southern Methodist University)The Jones collection is one of the most comprehensive and valuable Texas-related photography collections, and includes portraits of a wide spectrum of Texan citizens, including Texas Indians, primarily from the 1860s and 70s.
- Portal to Texas HistoryDigitized materials submitted by archives across Texas.
- National Museum of the American IndianPart of the Smithsonian Institution, the NMAI is the first national museum dedicated to the preservation, study, and exhibition of the life, languages, literature, history, and arts of Native Americans. Includes online exhibits.
- Linguistic Material from the Tribes of Southern Texas and Northeastern MexicoAn ethnographic study of language from the early 20th century. Includes primary and secondary source material.
Oral Histories at the University of Oklahoma
- Doris Duke Collection of American Indian Oral HistoriesAccess to PDF transcripts of 46 oral history interviews with American Indians in Oklahoma, conducted between 1967 and 1972.
Bibliographies and Published Collection Guides
- Guide to Records in the National Archives of the United States Relating to American Indians byCall Number: Z1209.2 .U5H54 1982
The Indians of Texas: An Annotated Research Bibliography by Call Number: Z1209.2 .U52T497 1986Organized by tribe and chronology, this bibliography includes both primary and secondary resources, with annotations.
The Bexar Archives, 1717-1836 (Online and Microfilm)
- Bexar Archives Online - Briscoe Center for American HistoryAccess to digital versions of 1,900 original documents from the Bexar Archives, from 1717 to 1784, many accompanied by English translations. Documents from later periods will be added as time goes on.
- Bexar Archives at the University of Texas Archives on MicrofilmJPL 4th Floor Microfilm Cabinet CD3539 .A8 T42 -- Reel 1 (1717) – Reel 172 (1836)
Consists of more than 250,000 pages of manuscript documentation and 4,000 pages of printed material of colonial archives of Texas produced during the Spanish and Mexican periods, 1717-1836. - Bexar Archives TranslationsJPL 4th Floor Microfilm Cabinet CD3539 .A8 T4213 (Reel 1 – Reel 26)
An inventory of translations from the Bexar Archives. - Guide to the Microfilm Edition of the Bexar ArchivesJPL 4th Floor Microfilm Cabinet Call Number: CD3537 .B49 T4
A guide to help navigate the microfilm edition of the Bexar Archives. Available on microfilm in the periodicals room or in printed form in Special Collections. - The Béxar Archives, 1717-1836: A Name GuideCall Number: CD3537 .B49 T4
This guide (in book format) allows you to look up the names of many individuals from the Spanish Colonial period in Texas and identify in which documents in the microfilm they can be found.
El Archivo General de Indias (Microfilm)
- Viajes de misioneros franciscanos á la conquista del Nuevo México: documentos del Archivo general de Indias byCall Number: F591 .W478 reel 338, no. 33421 microfilm reel of documents relating to Franciscan missionaries' work in the New World, from the Archivo General de Indias.
- Colección de documentos inéditos relativos al descubrimiento, conquista y organización de las antiguas posesiones españolas de ultramar. 2. ser. pub. por la Real academia de la historia byCall Number: E123 .C7 196727 printed volumes of material from the Archivo General de Indias in Seville, Spain, relating to Spanish colonies in the New World.
- Catalogue of materials in the Archivo General de Indias for the history of the Pacific coast and the American Southwest byCall Number: CD1859 .S3C62 1974A guide to materials in the Archivo General de Indias, published in book form.
More Primary Sources in Archival Collections
- TARO (Texas Archival Resources Online) This link opens in a new windowTARO makes descriptions of the rich archival, manuscript, and museum collections in repositories across the state available to the public. The site consists of the collection descriptions or "finding aids" that archives, libraries, and museums create to assist users in locating information in their collections. Many of UTSA's special collections are available through TARO.
- WorldCat (OCLC) This link opens in a new windowComprehensive online catalog of library holdings locally and worldwide. Lists books, journals, maps, recordings, films, scores, open access resources, and other materials from academic, public, corporate, and specialized libraries. Get It For Me button allows you to request to borrow an item.
- ArchiveGRID This link opens in a new windowContains nearly a million collection descriptions and online archival finding aids of primary source material from more than 2,500 libraries, museums, historical societies, and archives around the world.
Searches That Work
Use the Keyword or Subject search option in the dropdown menu in Library Quick Search to find primary sources about a person or event. Search using some of the keywords that describe your subject in combination with one or more of the following terms:
- Personal narratives
- Letters
- Correspondence
- Diaries
- Memoirs
- Travelers
- Manuscripts
- Archives
- Records
- Documents
- Sources
- Indexes
- Bibliography
- Catalogs
- Guides
- Thesis
Example: Indians and (correspondence or travelers or records)