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Michigan State University

Latin American History Guide: Selected Digital Collections

Many primary source documents have been digitized to form collections

World Scholar: Latin America & the Caribbean

The historical collections available through World Scholar provide original manuscripts, signed letters, expedition records, reports, maps, diaries, descriptions of voyages, ephemera, and more.

Empire Online

Original documents linked to essays by leading scholars in the field of Empire Studies.

Sabin Americana, 1500-1926

Works about the Americas published throughout the world.

PARES: Portal de los Archivos Españoles

Invaluable resource for colonial history. Millions of page images are freely downloadable; copies of other items identified but not digitized can be requested through the site. Includes holdings from a number of provincial archives and the famous Archivo de Indias.

dLOC, Digital Library of the Caribbean

Includes newspapers, photographs, archives of Caribbean leaders and governments, official historical documents, and historic and contemporary maps.

Argentina's Archivo Histórico RTA

Archivo Histórico de los Servicios de Radiodifusión Sonora y Televisiva del Estado Nacional (RTA)

Brazilian Government Documents

Executive branch serial documents issued by Brazil's national government during the period 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.

Mexican and Argentine Presidential Messages (Early 19th century to the present.)

Declassified U.S. National Security Documents

Digital National Security Archives

Among the 55 "complete collections" are numerous that document U.S. policy towards Chile, Cuba, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala and others. Also try using the "Documents search" option. Materials are obtained by The National Security Archive, an independent non-governmental research institute. Read more about the archive here.

The National Security Archive

A sample of the documents in the National Security Archives' collections are presented on this freely accessible Web site, following essays called "Electronic Briefing Books." From the home page click on Documents, then choose Latin America from the Subject Areas list.

Try searching a country in the NSA search box on the home page. Hint- Try 'Honduras' to find a report on human rights abuses in that country.

Questions?

Ask Mary Jo Zeter
Latin American & Caribbean Studies Bibliographer