Primary Sources - History: North, Central, and South America

Searchable and sortable databases of the Trans-Atlantic and Intra-American slave trades as well as the names of African people taken into captivity. Users can sort data on point of departure, gender, slave ship captain, and many many more variables. Site includes image galleries that contextualize data with historical maps, ship manifests, drawings, and more.

La Biblioteca Digital Puertorriqueña de la Universidad de Puerto Rico es un repositorio en línea de imágenes y texto relacionadas con la historia y la cultura puertorriqueña.

This collection contains sub-collections focused on political parties and organizations committed to the struggle for Puerto Rican independence, groups and organizations founded to support political prisoners and prisoners of war and general information.

Even though a significant number of items from earlier years have been included, the bulk of the materials currently found in the Digital Archive were originally created around the turn of the 20th century and after, with some originating as recently as within the last year. The formats or genre most commonly included are pamphlets, flyers, leaflets, brochures, posters, stickers, and postcards.

This database includes speeches, interviews, etc., by Fidel Castro from 1959 to 1996. All texts are in English.

"...thousands of titles of journals, newspapers, magazines, and newsletters published both in and outside Cuba, from colonial times to the present."

Digital Documents from the National Library of Cuba.

Audio from Radio Haiti-Inter, documenting Haitian politics, society and culture from 1957 to 2003, bulk 1972-2003.

University of Florida Digital Collections newspapers published on the Guantanamo Bay US Naval Base.

The Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC) is a cooperative digital library for resources from and about the Caribbean and circum-Caribbean.

Materials related to Cuban, Dominican and Haitian maritime migration from 1965-1996, including camps at the U.S. Naval Station, Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, 1991-1996.

dLOC provides access to digitized versions of Caribbean newspapers, gazettes, and other research materials on newsprint currently held in archives, libraries, and private collections.

Digitized diary entries, maps, and other documents of Che Guevara.

Handwritten documents that cover civil disputes over land, slaves, and livestock that occurred in the Arecibo appellate court district from 1844-1900.

Historical documents, monographs, and serials on Canada. Texts are searchable and include government documents, local newspapers, and some resources in First Nations languages.

This virtual library holds the most complete set of full-text historical content about Canada, including books, magazines and government documents.
This includes material published from the time of the first European settlers to the first half of the 20th century.

(From the World History Encyclopedia) The Jesuit Relations, published in France from 1632 to 1673, were a series of annual reports from the Roman Catholic Jesuit missions in the lands claimed by France in North America. The Relations were written as an appeal to French Catholics in hopes of gathering the political and financial support that was essential for the maintenance of the missions.

"View thousands of Métis historical documents, genealogical information, Hudson's Bay Company records, Church missionary records, and personal Métis accounts."

Over 3000 free film on Canadian history, First Nations peoples, environmentalism, and more.

Online archives of a Victoria BC newspaper. "The BritishColonist.ca website includes news about every B.C. premier and Canadian prime minister to hold office up to August 1980, along with stories on six British monarchs, 24 U.S. presidents, two world wars, the 1912 sinking of the Titanic and the 1969 moon landing."

Digital objects from Canadian history, primarily local and social topics.

Over 7,000 U.S. and Canadian advertisements covering five product categories - Beauty and Hygiene, Radio, Television, Transportation, and World War II propaganda - dated between 1911 and 1955.

These photos depict the people, places, and practices of Native Americans and their communities from at least 34 States, plus Canada and Mexico in the period from 1909-1953.

This collection consists of the Confidential Print for the United States, Canada and the English-speaking Caribbean, with some coverage of Central and South America, and covers such topics as slavery, Prohibition, the First and Second World Wars, racial segregation, territorial disputes, the League of Nations, McCarthyism and the nuclear bomb. The bulk of the material covers the late nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century.

"The resource tells the story of medical advances during warfare from the mid-nineteenth century to the outbreak of the influenza epidemic in 1918 and the discovery of penicillin in 1927. The wealth of documents cover multiple conflicts as well as interwar developments from a range of perspectives."

Eyewitness accounts from religious and lay witnesses to the effects of the Irish famine survivors who fled to Canada.

The Archivo de José María Luis Mora digital archive contains scanned copies of over 600 documents, both manuscripts and printed works, from the Mora archive, as well as an exhaustive guide describing the collections.

Digital documents in the Mexican national archive.

These photos depict the people, places, and practices of Native Americans and their communities from at least 34 States, plus Canada and Mexico in the period from 1909-1953.

Collection of printed and manuscript materials created between 1965 and 1998 by 23 distinct revolutionary groups in Mexico.

The Bexar Archives are the official Spanish documents that preserve the political, military, economic, and social life of the Spanish province of Texas and the Mexican state of Coahulia y Texas.

This collection contains materials pertaining to the Chican@/Latin@ experience in the United States and Mexico. The majority of the sub-collections are derived from various BayArea radio programs (In English and Spanish) focusing on everything from challenging the legitimacy of the border with Mexico and farm-worker rights to the struggles of the diaspora from Central and Latin America, poetry and music. There is also a collection on the Zapatistas and their struggle against NAFTA in Mexico.

The Archivo consists of an inventory with descriptions of 364 manuscripts from the Papers of Mexican statesman and historian, don Lucas Alamán.

The Onda Latina Collection consists of 226 digitally preserved audio programs including interviews, music, and informational programs related to the Mexican American community and their concerns from the radio series "The Mexican American Experience" and "A esta hora conversamos" the Longhorn Radio Network, 1976-1982.

The Impresos Mexicanos del Siglo XVI project has built a digital collection of the first books printed in Mexico before 1601. These monographs are very important because they represent the first printing in the New World and provide primary sources for scholarly studies focused on a variety of academic fields.

The Presidential Messages database is a collection of digital full-text presidential messages of Argentina and Mexico from the early 19th century to the present.

"These sketch maps were hand-copied from originals that were created from approximately 1827-1846. Many of the diseños have labeled neighboring properties and as part of the initial land grant process all boarders were agreed upon by surrounding landowners. The diseños also show existing travel routes, locations of houses and local place names."

20 significant newspapers, 1850s-1970s, many in Spanish, published in the US and Mexico - University of Arizona Libraries

A growing collection of Mexican cookbooks from 1789 through the 20th century.

The collection includes images and texts from the Mexican revolution to American relations, focusing on the 19th century.

"The Historic Mexican and Mexican American Press collection documents and showcases historic Mexican and Mexican American publications published in Tucson, El Paso, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sonora, Mexico from the mid-1800s to the 1970s."

Browse this page for Latin American-American legal documents.

Digital collections include digitized documents from the Guatemalan National Police Historical Archive (AHPN) and the Latin American Government Documents Archive.

Rare pamphlets, flyers, leaflets, brochures, posters, stickers, and postcards that document political and social issues in the region.

Some digitized issues of the newspaper from 1977.

Browse this page for South American-American legal documents.

Searchable and sortable databases of the Trans-Atlantic and Intra-American slave trades as well as the names of African people taken into captivity. Users can sort data on point of departure, gender, slave ship captain, and many many more variables. Site includes image galleries that contextualize data with historical maps, ship manifests, drawings, and more.

Executive branch serial documents issued by Brazil’s national government between 1821 and 1993, and by its provincial governments from the earliest available for each province to the end of the first Republic in 1930.

Digitized manuscripts, images, and more from the National Library of Peru.

Many hundreds of protest murals were created in Chile during the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet from 1973 to 1990. Created in and around Santiago between 1983 and 1990, the murals document the spirit, force, and iconography of political protest during an important period of Chilean history.

The Presidential Messages database is a collection of digital full-text presidential messages of Argentina and Mexico from the early 19th century to the present.

Digital Collections of the National Archive of Chile.

Digitized diary entries, maps, and other documents of Che Guevara.

Rare pamphlets, flyers, leaflets, brochures, posters, stickers, and postcards that document political and social issues in the region.

"Forming a prominent feature of British religious philanthropy from the late eighteenth century onwards, missionary societies served as employer and community to missionaries far from home." Missions went to the Middle East, Africa, South America, and Asia.