Research Guides: HIST 4363: American Slavery: Find Primary Sources from the Library

Librarian

Kristina Claunch

Contact:

936-294-1520
kclaunch@shsu.edu
Library (NGL) Room 223G

Historical Document Collections

American Periodicals, 1740-1940 This link opens in a new window U.S. periodicals, including special interest, general, children's, women's, literary, and professional. Includes American independence and Civil War articles.
American State Papers 1789-1838 This link opens in a new window U.S. Congressional and Executive documents, 1789-1838. Covers many topics, such as Lewis and Clark expedition and trade with China.
C19: The Nineteenth Century Index This link opens in a new window Citations for millions of books, official publications, archival collections, and journal, magazine, and newspaper articles. Links out to full text when available (including many items in British Periodicals).
Civil War, Parts 1-7 (Accessible Archives) This link opens in a new window Wide variety of rosters, muster lists, newspapers, pamphlets, regimental histories, and memoirs, Union and Confederate. Click "more" for details of content.
- Regimental histories, rosters, and muster lists representing all Union regiments.
- Commanding officer memoirs, strategies and tactics (mostly Union, some Confederate).
- Selected newspaper content from 1850s and 1860s representing Union
Early American Imprints 1639-1819 (includes Evans and Shaw-Shoemaker) This link opens in a new window Virtually every book, pamphlet and broadside published in America from 1639-1819. Documents almost every aspect of life in colonial America and the early U.S.
Eight Centuries (formerly Nineteenth (19th) Century Masterfile) This link opens in a new window Eight Centuries is a vast scholarly database for finding published material from the 12th century through 1930. Through enhancement and implementation of dozens of historically significant scholarly indexes, it offers multidisciplinary coverage of primary materials in the Humanities, Social Sciences, Engineering, History of Science, Law, Economics, Religion, Psychology, Government Documents, Visual Arts, Music, and the Physical Sciences.
Papers of Thomas Jefferson This link opens in a new window Search & view 37 volumes of Jefferson's papers, 1743 to his death in 1826. Includes all illustrations and bibliographical content of print edition, plus linked cross-references and indexes.
Periodicals Archive Online This link opens in a new window Journal articles, 1802-2000, international and in many subject areas. Journals in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and other Western languages.
U.S. Congressional Serial Set, 1817-1994 This link opens in a new window Reports, documents, journals of U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, 1817-1994. Every publication, over 415,000 documents, from 15th - 103rd Congresses.
U.S. Congressional Serial Set Maps This link opens in a new window Over 65,000 maps, 1872-1979, 42nd Congress 3rd session - 96th Congress 1st session. Diverse topics such as diseases, railroads, migrations, explorations, international events.
HeinOnline This link opens in a new window
Features a special collection, Slavery in America & the World, which "brings together...all known legal materials on slavery in the United States and the English-speaking world." Includes centuries of legal cases, thousands of historical books and pamphlets, "every English-language legal commentary on slavery published before 1920," and many modern histories of slavery, and "all modern law review articles on the subject."

Historical Newspapers

African American Newspapers 1827-1998 This link opens in a new window Approximately 270 U.S. newspapers, 1827-1998, document African American experiences.
America's Historical Newspapers 1690-1998 This link opens in a new window American and U.S. local newspapers from all 50 states, ranging from 1690 to 1998.
Civil War, Parts 1-7 (Accessible Archives) This link opens in a new window Wide variety of rosters, muster lists, newspapers, pamphlets, regimental histories, and memoirs, Union and Confederate. Click "more" for details of content.
- Regimental histories, rosters, and muster lists representing all Union regiments.
- Commanding officer memoirs, strategies and tactics (mostly Union, some Confederate).
- Selected newspaper content from 1850s and 1860s representing Union

Friend of Man Anti-Slavery Newspaper 1836-1842 Newspaper documenting early anti-slavery and other reform movements, published in Central New York. (Cornell Univ.)
Huntsville Item, Civil War issues only
From the SHSU Library's Special Collections in the Thomason Room. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on the dates listed.

New York Times Historical, 1851 to 3 years ago This link opens in a new window Every page of every issue of the New York Times, from 1851 until approximately 3 years ago.
Nineteenth (19th) Century U.S. Newspapers Digital Archive This link opens in a new window 19th-century newspapers from various urban and rural regions throughout the U.S. Strong in topics such as Civil War, African-American history, Western migration, etc.
The Times Digital Archive, 1785 to 2014 This link opens in a new window "World's newspaper of record." Covers all major international historical events. Every page of every issue, from 1785 to 2014.

Video: How to Search America's Historical Newspapers

Click the icon in the bottom right corner of the video player to view it in full screen!

Video: Using Dates to Search History Databases

Many primary source databases cover a long period of history, so you can really improve your searching by knowing how to search only the dates you need.

Click the icon in the bottom right corner of the video player to view it in full screen!

Video: Finding Primary Sources in the Catalog

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Help with Primary Sources

How to Understand and Find Primary Sources

What Did They Call...?

Language changes constantly over time. For example, African American is common today, but historically people have used Afro-American, black, colored, Negro, African, slave, etc. How do you know what word historical people used for an idea?

Search the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary (or find it in the library in the 2nd floor Reference section, call number PE1591 .H55 2009, volumes 1-2).

Slave Narratives

Find more by searching for the subject "Slaves United States Biography."

Narrative of James Williams, an American Slave
Call Number: Read Online - Or find print: E444 .W74 2013, 4th floor
The Classic Slave Narratives
Call Number: E444 .C63 2002 - 4th floor
From Bondage to Belonging: The Worcester slave narratives
Call Number: E444 .F88 2007 - 4th floor
The Odyssey of an African Slave
Call Number: E444 .S53 A3 2009 - 4th floor
Twelve years a slave: narrative of Solomon Northup, a citizen of New-York, kidnapped in Washington City in 1841, and rescued in 1853
Call Number: Read Online - Or find print: E444.N87 1968, 4th floor
Or get a free, fully-printable version here: http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/northup/northup.html
John Washington's Civil War: A slave narrative
Call Number: Read Online - Or find print: E450 .W325 A3 2008, 4th floor
A Slave No More: Two men who escaped to freedom : including their own narratives of emancipation
Call Number: E450 .W325 B58 2007 - 4th floor
Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave: Written by Himself
Call Number: Read Online
Henry Bibb was born in Kentucky in 1815 to an enslaved mother, and it was rumored that his father was the white Kentucky state senator James Bibb. When he was in his late 20s, Henry Bibb managed to make his way to Detroit, and from there, he slipped over the border to Canada, where he settled and founded an anti-slavery publication. In this compelling first-person account, Bibb tells his life story and rails against the evils of the institution of slavery.
I Was Born a Slave, Volume 1, 1770-1849: An anthology of classic slave narratives
Call Number: Read Online, or in Print at E444 .I18 1999 V.1 (4th floor)
I Was Born a Slave collects the 20 most significant "slave narratives." They describe whippings, torture, starvation, resistance, and hairbreadth escapes; slave auctions, kidnappings, and murders; sexual abuse, religious confusion, the struggle of learning to read and write; and the triumphs and difficulties of life as free men and women. This unprecedented anthology presents them unabridged, providing each one with helpful introductions and annotations, to form the most comprehensive volume ever assembled on the lives and writings of the slaves.
I Was Born a Slave, Volume 2, 1849-1866: An anthology of classic slave narratives
Call Number: Read Online, or in Print at E444 .I18 1999 V.2 (4th floor)

Other Primary Sources in Print

Often a variety of primary documents are collected together into a book (usually related to a time period, topic, or theme).

Below are just a few broad collections in the Library; each book contains many original documents.

(Note: many of these books will contain both primary and secondary content, so use your judgement or ask a librarian for help in distinguishing the two).

George Washington and Slavery: A documentary portrayal
Call Number: Read Online - Or find print: E312.17 .H648 1997 - 4th floor
Lincoln on Race and Slavery
Call Number: Read Online - Or find print: E457.2 .L744 2009 - 4th floor
Escaping Servitude: A documentary history of runaway servants in eighteenth-century Virginia
Call Number: HD4875 .U5 B59 2015 (4th floor)
Edited collection of runaway servant advertisements that appeared in newspapers in eighteenth-century Virginia. In addition to documenting the fugitive in the Chesapeake, it adds to our understanding of indentured servitude and provides valuable insights into an important chapter in American history. Highlights well over one thousand accounts in which bondsmen and women ran away from their masters in Virginia during the colonial era.
A Documentary History of Slavery in North America
Call Number: E441.D64 - 4th floor
Slavery in North America: From the Colonial Period to Emancipation
Call Number: E441 .S633 2009, vol. 1-4 - Reference, 2nd floor
Documents of upheaval; selections from William Lloyd Garrison's the Liberator, 1831-1865
Call Number: E449.L68 - 4th floor
Free at Last: a documentary history of slavery, freedom, and the Civil War
Call Number: E185.2 .F8 1992 - 4th floor
Slave Testimony: two centuries of letters, speeches, interviews, and autobiographies
Call Number: E444 .S57 - 4th floor
Slavery in the South; first-hand accounts of the antebellum American Southland from northern & southern whites, Negroes, & foreign observers
Call Number: E441.W78 - 4th floor
Slavery
Call Number: E441 .S6365 2004 - 4th floor
Opposing pro/con viewpoints presented through primary documents
American Negro Slavery: A documentary history
Call Number: E441.M86 1976 - 4th floor
Blacks in the U. S. Armed Forces: Basic documents
Call Number: E185.63.B55 vol. 1-13 - 4th floor
Primary source documents on blacks in the military, from slavery to the 1970s