Try Google Books for public domain texts
Google hasn't collected all the public domain documents out there, but there's a staggering amount available
Not in Google Books?
Try these two other digital archives
http://catalog.hathitrust.org/
digital repository of over 20 U.S. research libraries
http://www.archive.org/details/texts
The Internet Archive began life preserving snapshots of web sites and has evolved into a resources with a much broader focus. Often there are digitized books available for download that you won't find through Google Books or Hathi Trust. The search engine is a bit maddening, but the content is great.
Primary Source Collections of Note
Many early texts are now online, but navigating the databases in which they reside can be unwieldy.
Start with a subject bibliography, work off the bibliography of an overview article or secondary source, or refer to a compilation of documents as an easy - albeit indirect - entry into the material.
First Peoples (5th ed.) by Call Number: Baker-Berry Stacks - E77 .C14 2016
- The American Indian and the United States: a documentary history
edited by Wilcomb E. WashburnBaker-Berry stacks E93 .W27
[4-volume set]
See description in this 1974 book review published in the American Archivist. - Documents of American Indian Diplomacy: Treaties, Agreements, and Conventions, 1775-1979
compiled by Vine Deloria, Jr., and Raymond J. DeMallieBaker-Berry stacks KF8202 1999 (vols. 1-2)
Google Books preview available - Documents of Native American political development: 1500s to 1933
edited by David E. WilkinsBaker-Berry stacks E98.T77 D63 2009
[see catalog record - linked above - for Google Books preview] - European treaties bearing on the history of the United States and its dependencies.
Edited by Frances Gardiner DavenportBaker-Berry E173 .D24
4 vol. set
Contents --I. To 1648.--II. 1650-1697.--III. 1698-1715.--IV. 1716-1815
Also online at HeinOnline [note: volumes online are listed by publication date, not date coverage] - Documents of United States Indian Policy
edited by Francis Paul PruchaBaker-Berry stacks KF8205 .D63 2000
Google Books preview available - Clues in the library catalogSort your results by "Date, oldest first", or
Look for subject subheadings such as:- Sources
- Correspondence
- Diaries
- Early works to [year]
e.g. New York (State) -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800. - Personal narratives
e.g., Wounded Knee Massacre, S.D., 1890 -- Personal narratives.
- Sources
Use a campus computer or the "Dartmouth Library Public" wireless network to connect to these databases.
- Ancestry Library Edition
Includes the Indian Census Rolls, US decennial census 1790-1940, selected military records, and more! - America's Historical ImprintsSearchable monographs, pamphlets, broadsides, government documents and ephemera, generally dating from about 1650-1800
- Early Encounters in North America
This first release of Early Encounters in North America (EENA) contains approximately 10,250 pages of material. When complete the product will include more than 100,000 pages of letters, diaries, memoirs and accounts of early encounters. - Empire Online
"... collection of original documents relating to Empire Studies, sourced from libraries and archives around the world." - Indigenous Peoples: North America
Contains a tremendous amount of material from the US National Archives, including Bureau of Indian Affairs records and correspondence; papers of the Society of American Indians; records of several Missions; selections from the set Iroquois Indians: A Documentary History; a large number of Indigenous newspapers; and more... - North American Indian Thought and Culture
autobiographies, biographies, oral histories, photographs, drawings, and audio files - Sabin Americana, 1500-1926
Included are books, pamphlets, serials and other documents that provide original accounts of exploration, trade, colonialism, slavery and abolition, the western movement, Native Americans, military actions and much more.
- Alaska's Digital Archiveshistorical photographs, videos, oral histories, maps, documents, and other materials from state, university & tribal libraries, museums and archives throughout Alaska.
- American Indians of the Pacific Northwest CollectionUniversity of Washington Libraries
- American Journeys (Wisconsin Historical Society)"Eyewitness accounts of early American exploration and settlement"
- Annual Reports of the Commissioner of Indian AffairsPart of the Annual report of the US Secretary of the Interior.
[HathiTrust record with many years is linked here, but there are many sources, including Google Books, with this content. And other Hathi records offer different years] - A century of lawmaking for a new nation 1774-1873 U.S. Congressional documents and debatesThis Library of Congress site contains selected years of Congressional journals, debates and documents, including American State Papers, the Congressional Serial Set, and the Congressional Record
- Hubert Wenger Eskimo Database: first contact and first observations in the literature pertaining to Eskimos.Focuses on first contact and primary source literature pertaining to the Inuit of Alaska, Canada, Chukotka, and Greenland. Indexes a wide variety of journal articles, books, essays & reports, published from the late 1700s through the 1980s.
- Indians of the Midwest: An Archive of EnduranceNewberry Library exhibit
- Montana Memory ProjectThere are some wonderful gems buried here, with coverage beyond Montana. Includes some digitized microfilm from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and more
- Native American Language DictionariesHuntington Free Library Native American Collection from Cornell U.
- New Mexico Digital CollectionsIncludes the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center as well as th Institute of American Indian Arts
- Rivers, Edens, Empires: Lewis & Clark and the Revealing of America2003 exhibit at Library of Congress
- Theodor de Bry's America (Univ. of Houston Digital Library)we have a nice edition in the stacks: Baker-Berry Oversize E141 .B8818 1992
- Making of AmericaTwo portals available: Cornell & U. Michigan
- U.S. Congressional Serial SetPresenting every publication from the 15th Congress through the 103rd Congress, including items missing from other editions, the Readex U.S. Congressional Serial Set, 1817-1994 contains over 415,000 individual documents in more than 14,000 volumes. Designed for legislative and historical research, the Readex digital edition features unique browse capabilities and comprehensive metadata, offering new research opportunities for students and scholars in cultural, economic, ethnic, government, military, political and science history and other fields. Readex uses the original volumes to create fine new digital images of every publication, including approximately 56,000 maps. Nearly 14,000 maps and more than 8,000 illustrations appear in high-resolution color.
- ProQuest CongressionalProvides access to U.S. Congressional materials: members and committees, bills, laws, hearing transcripts, committee prints, documents, the Congressional Record, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Code, Statutes at Large, CIS indexing and abstracting
- Handbook of federal Indian law
by Felix Cohen2005 edition with supplement in Baker-Berry stacks KF8205 .C6 2005.
The 1945 edition is available online at the U. Oklahoma's Native American Constitution and Law Digitization Project - Papers of John MarshallBaker Berry stacks E302 .M365 (12 volume set)
- Bibliography of the English Colonial Treaties with the American Indians including a Synopsis of each Treaty (1917)online via Hein Online database
- Calendar of state papers ; Colonial seriesfreely available online via British History Online (Institute of Historical Research and the History of Parliament Trust)
- Early American Indian documents : treaties and laws, 1607-1789Baker-Berry KF8202 1979
20-volume set (see "more" below for contents)
"Laws relating to the American Indians passed by colonial, state, and national governments before 1789 and all significant diplomatic documents (i.e., treaties, conferences, and official correspondence) of the same period" - English historical documentsBaker Berry stacks DA 26 .E55
[multi-volume work in progress]
Dartmouth currently owns vols. 1-5 and vols. 8-12
See in particular volume 9 (American colonial documents) - Jesuit relations : natives and missionaries in seventeenth-century North America
edited by Allan GreerBaker-Berry stacks F1030.7 .J47 2000
[see catalog record - linked above - for Google Books preview]
Selections from the seventy-three-volume compilation, The Jesuit relations and allied documents - Biblioteca Digital Hispánica (Biblioteca Nacional de España)The National Library of Spain is digitizing many historic documents, including the "Historia de América" collection.
- Historical documents relating to New Mexico, Nueva Vizcaya and approaches thereto, to 1773
collected by Adolph F.A. Bandelier and Fanny R. Bandelier; edited & annotated by Charles Wilson Hackett3 volume set in Baker-Berry stacks F1410 .H12
Volume 2 (only) is available online at the Internet Archive - The Journals of Don Diego de Vargas, New Mexico [1691-1704]Journals were published in a series of volumes. They're all shelved in the F799 .V28 area of the Baker stacks, but don't sit next to each other on the shelf. See above link to catalog record for full location info.
- The new laws of the Indies for the good treatment and preservation of the Indians, promulgated by the emperor Charles the Fifth, 1542-1543print copy in Rauner Special Collections library (see catalog record for details)
"a facsimile reprint of the original Spanish edition, together with a literal translation into the English language; to which is prefixed an historical introduction by the late Henry Stevens of Vermont and Fred W. Lucas" - Spanish exploration in the Southwest, 1542-1706
edited by Herbert Eugene BoltonOnline via Google Books or Early Encounters in North America database.
Paper copy in Baker-Berry stacks F799 .B69
Document compilation -- translated into English
A small sampling of items housed in the Rauner Special Collections Library
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| Eliot Bible (1663) |
Barnstable County, Massachusetts |
- Elliot Bible (1663)First edition of the first Bible printed in the New World, and the first example in history of the translation and printing of the entire Bible in a new language (Massachuset) as a means of evangelism.
Online here! - Gordon M. Day papers, 1942-1993Ethnographic research related to Abenaki settlements in New England and at Odanak, Quebec. Emphasis on Abenaki language.
- Stefansson's Encyclopedia ArcticaNow digitized.
Microfilm must be requested in advance from off-site storage [catalog location = Library Depository].
For more information contact me, or ask at the Berry Information Desk.
Collections of note (in roughly chronological order)
- Iroquois Indians : a documentary history of the diplomacy of the six Nations and their LeagueLibrary Depository 4207r
50 reel microfilm set. Some content is online in Gale's Indigenous Peoples database.
Guide to microfilm is housed in Baker-Berry Reference E99.I7 I74 1984.
Guide also online at publisher's site.
Film collection of documents, treaties, contracts, agreements, and minutes of Council meetings ; April 21, 1613 to December 9, 1921 - Microfilm edition of the papers of Eleazar Wheelock : together with the early archives of Dartmouth College & Moor's Indian Charity School, and records of the town of Hanover, New Hampshire through the year 177916 reels microfilm set [housed in storage]
Rauner has this content (and more!), but you may find the microfilm convenient when Rauner is closed.
Be sure to first check the *guide* to the set to determine which reels you need. - Draper ManuscriptsMultiple microfilm sets (see catalog records). The collection as a whole covers primarily the period between the French and Indian War and the War of 1812 (ca. 1755-1815). The geographic concentration is on what Draper and his contemporaries called the "Trans-Allegheny West," which included the western Carolinas and Virginia, some portions of Georgia and Alabama, the entire Ohio River valley, and parts of the Mississippi River valley.
* Additional info at the Wisconsin Historical Society - Documents relating to the negotiation of ratified and unratified treaties with various tribes of Indians, 1801-69Library Depository Microfilm 3786r
Some content online via Gale's Indigenous Peoples database - Letters received by the Office of Indian Affairs : 1824-81Massive (>900) reel set. Guide is available at the Baker Reserve Desk, and also buried online at the National Archives Site. I've uploaded it to our server (see link below)
- Letters sent by the Office of Indian Affairs, 1824-1881Not quite as massive set, but the guide is still necessary. View guide at Baker Reserve Desk or online (see link below)
- Letters received by the Office of the Adjutant General (Main series), 1871-1880we only own a few reels: roll245,
roll428 - roll430,
roll449