Library Research Guides: AFR 202: Critical Perspectives of Humanitarianism in Black Countries: Find Primary Sources

Primary Source Collections

For many more primary source collections, see our primary source guides for History and Literature. I'm happy to help you find primary sources relevant to your topic.

African Newspapers, 1800-1922 This link opens in a new window
More than 60 fully searchable African newspapers published in the 19th and early 20th centuries, in English and other languages.

Digital Library of the Caribbean
A digital library for resources from and about the Caribbean and circum-Caribbean. Provides access to materials held in archives, libraries, and private collections.
Digital Archive of Latin American & Caribbean Ephemera
Rare pamphlets, flyers, leaflets, brochures, posters, stickers, and postcards that document political and social issues in the region.
Struggles for Freedom: Southern Africa
"This collection focuses on the complex and varied liberation struggles in the region, with an emphasis on Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. It brings together materials from various archives and libraries throughout the world documenting colonial rule, dispersion of exiles, international intervention, and the worldwide networks that supported successive generations of resistance within the region."

HistoryMakers Digital Archive This link opens in a new window
The HistoryMakers is a growing collection of over 3,000 interviews of African American first person video oral history. By recording the untold personal stories of both well-known and unsung African Americans, The HistoryMakers seeks to preserve and elevate the cultural equity of the African American community.
Oxford African American Studies Center This link opens in a new window
Thousands of articles by scholars in the field, with primary source documents, maps, and images.

The following collections are part of AM Explorer, a large database of primary source collections from Adam Matthew Digital. A Wellesley login is required.

Apartheid South Africa, 1948-1980 This link opens in a new window
British government files spanning 1948–1980 including previously restricted letters, diplomatic dispatches, reports, trial papers, activists’ biographies and first-hand accounts of events from the history of South Africa’s apartheid regime.
Colonial Caribbean This link opens in a new window
Covering the history of Caribbean territories under British colonial governance from 1624 to 1870, this resource includes administrative documentation, trade and shipping records, minutes of council meetings, and details of plantation life, colonial settlement, imperial rivalries, and the growing concern of absentee landlords.
Confidential Print: Africa, 1834-1966 This link opens in a new window
These papers range from single-page letters or telegrams to comprehensive dispatches, investigative reports and texts of treaties, covering the modern period of European colonisation of the African continent from the British Government’s perspective.
Empire Online This link opens in a new window
Material in the collection spans across the globe and over five centuries, from the explorations of Columbus and other Europeans, through to de-colonisation in the second half of the 20th century and debates over American Imperialism.
Global Commodities: Trade, Exploration & Cultural Exchange This link opens in a new window
Broad range of materials exploring the history of fifteen major commodities, examining how they have changed the world: chocolate, coffee, cotton, fur, opium, oil, porcelain, silver and gold, spices, sugar, tea, timber, tobacco, wheat, and wine and spirits.
Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice, 1490-2007 This link opens in a new window
Documents and collections from libraries and archives across the Atlantic world, with close attention given to the varieties of slavery, the legacy of slavery, the social-justice perspective and the continued existence of slavery today.