British Empire and the American Revolution: Electronic Primary Sources
This is a guide to researching the American Revolution in the M.S.U. Libraries from both the American and British perspectives, but is not heavy into the military dimension. Loyalists. Empire Loyalists. Last updated 05-24-2023
Colonial State Papers (CO 1) provides access to thousands of papers concerning English activities in the American, Canadian, and West Indian colonies between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. Also included is a digitised version of The Calendar of State Papers, Colonial: North America and the West Indies 1574-1739, which contains bibliographic records and extracts for thousands of additional documents.
Empire Online offers about 60,000 images of original documents linked to essays by leading scholars in the field of Empire Studies. The sections cover Cultural Contacts, (1492-1969); Empire Writing and the Literature of Empire; the Visible Empire; Religion and Empire; and Race, Class, and Colonialism (c1783-1969). Maps, manuscripts, pamphlets, paintings, drawings, and rare books are included. Five centuries of history are represented.
MODULE 1: EARLY SETTLEMENT, EXPANSION AND RIVALRIES:
The first module of Colonial America documents the early history of the colonies, and includes founding charters, material on the effects of 1688’s Glorious Revolution in North America, records of piracy and seaborne rivalry with the French and Spanish, and copious military material from the French and Indian War of 1756-63. This is a bit early for American Revolution. But. This is the first installment of the whole digitization of the British Government's Colonial Office 5 documents.
MODULE II: TOWARDS REVOLUTION:
This module focuses on the 1760s and 1770s and the social and political protest that led to the Declaration of Independence, including legal materials covering the aftermath of the Boston Tea Party. It is also particularly rich in material relating to military affairs and Native Americans.
MODULE III: THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
This module charts the upheavals of the 1770s and 1780s which saw the throwing off of British rule in the Thirteen Colonies. Contents include volumes of intercepted letters between colonists, the military correspondence of the British commanders in the field and material produced by the Ordnance Office and the office of the Secretary at War, as well as two copies of the ‘Dunlap’ edition of the Declaration of Independence printed on the night of the 4th-5th July 1776.
MODULE IV: LEGISLATION AND POLITICS IN THE COLONIES
The material in this module consists mostly of the text of acts of assembly and the minutes of assembly and council sessions, building up to a comprehensive picture of the colonies’ legislative and political evolution.
MODULE V: GROWTH, TRADE AND DEVELOPMENT
The preponderant part of this module consists of correspondence with the Board of Trade. There are also details of land grants, financial accounts and documents focusing on American Indian relations, as well as George Vancouver’s despatches to London from his 1791 expedition to the Pacific Northwest. The module contains a number of shipping returns, accompanied by a video interview with Hannah Knox Tucker (PhD candidate, University of Virginia), who discusses these documents and their value for researchers in detail.
British History Online is a collection of nearly 1300 volumes of primary and secondary content relating to British and Irish history, and histories of empire and the British world. BHO also provides access to 40,000 images and 10,000 tiles of historic maps of the British Isles.
This series from Microform Academic Publishers includes archival materials such as journals, correspondence, official records and personal papers over a two hundred year period, all related to British involvement in the Atlantic region, including both Africa and the Americas.
With parts I & II spanning 1482-1899 and 1900-2010 respectively, the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) digital archive contains more than 150,000 maps, charts and atlases complemented by manuscripts, field notes, expedition reports, scrapbooks, correspondence, diaries, illustrations, and sketches.
The archive is representative of the world’s largest private collection of maps and charts, along with atlases, globes, world gazetteers, and original manuscript mapping dating back to the 1400s that is held in the Society building in London. Some of the most influential geographers of the last two centuries have contributed to the collection.
More than half of America’s states began as territories. From the 1760s to the 1950s the United States of America expanded southward and westward, acquiring territories that spanned from Florida to California to Alaska. Before they evolved into twenty-seven American states, these territories were managed by the U.S. State and Interior departments. The official history of their formative territorial years is recorded in the “Territorial Papers of the United States”—a collection of Native American negotiations and treaties, official correspondence with the federal government, military records, judicial proceedings, population data, financial statistics, land records, and more.
Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans, 1639-1800 is the definitive resource for information about every aspect of life in 17th- and 18th-century America, from agriculture and auctions through foreign affairs, diplomacy, literature, music, religion, the Revolutionary War, temperance, witchcraft, and just about any other topic imaginable. This resource consists of more than 37,000 books, pamphlets, and broadsides, all printed or published in the North American Colonies or the early Republic. Evans was the author of the bibliography of items this resource is based on.
Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans-the definitive resource for researching every aspect of 17th- and 18th-century America-has been dramatically expanded. From the acclaimed holdings of the Library Company of Philadelphia comes a broad range of recently uncovered books, pamphlets and broadsides, most of which were not included in either Charles Evans' monumental work or Roger Bristol's supplement. Printed during a 130-year period spanning the colonial era and the formation of the new nation, these nearly 1,000 rare and unique items represent a remarkable enrichment of the Readex digital edition of Early American Imprints.
Joseph Sabin’s Bibliotheca Americana: A Dictionary of Books Relating to America from Its Discovery to the Present Time, published 1868-1926, has been heralded as a cornerstone in the study of the history of the Western Hemisphere. The scope of this bibliography is works about the Americas, but published elsewhere. This online resource contains digital versions of works published from 1500-1926. Find original accounts of exploration, pioneering, settlement, the western movement, military actions, Native Americas, slavery, and abolition.
Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) contains digital versions of 150,000 works published or printed from 1701-1800 in England, and other English-speaking places around the world (including the rest of the British Isles, the American colonies, and the early United States). Look here to find full texts of primary source materials in history, geography, literature, language, religion, philosophy, social science, fine arts, music, architecture, medicine, science, technology, and law, as well as general reference works from the 18th century. The database also includes works in other western European languages which were published or printed in England or other English-speaking places during this time. Search by author, title of work, keyword, or publisher. Limit searches by year of publication, language, or general subject area.
English Historical Documents Online is the online version of a significant set of print books with the same name (Main DA 25 .E55 or .E56), edited by David C. Douglas. The database contains copies of over 5,500 primary source documents from the British government from 500-1914, including American Colonial era documents. Documents about all aspects of life are represented: society, economics, labor, education, politics, military/war, diplomacy, administration, religion, culture, health, etc. Search for particular documents by their title, by names of persons associated with their creation, or place name. Browse by date, theme (technology, foreign affairs, etc,), or originally published paper volume.
Covers all areas of social, political, economic and foreign policy, showing how issues were explored and legislation was formed. Searchable, with full text and detailed subject indexing. Includes 18th century 1688-1834.
Includes:
18th century (1688-1834)
19th century (1801-1900)
20th century (1901-2003/04 session)
21st century (2005-2002 sessions)
Hansard (1803-2005)
History of Parliament is a research project creating a comprehensive account of parliamentary politics in England, then Britain, from their origins in the thirteenth century. It consists of detailed studies of elections and electoral politics in each constituency, and of closely researched accounts of the lives of everyone who was elected to Parliament in the period, together with surveys drawing out the themes and discoveries of the research and adding information on the operation of Parliament as an institution.
Eighteenth-Century Journals contains rare English journals printed between c1685 and 1815, illuminating all aspects of eighteenth-century social, political and literary life. Many are ephemeral, lasting only for a handful of issues, others run for several years. Topics covered are extremely wide-ranging and include: colonial life; provincial and rural affairs; the French and American revolutions; reviews of literature and fashion throughout Europe; political debates; and London coffee house gossip and discussion.
When complete, North American Women's Letters and Diaries will be the largest collection of women's diaries and correspondence ever assembled. Spanning more than 300 years, it will bring the personal experiences of 1,500 women to researchers, students, and general readers.
This collection documents the relationships among peoples and the environment in North America from 1534 to 1850. The collection includes both published and unpublished accounts, narratives, diaries, journals, and letters.
Early Canadiana Online (ECO) is a collaborative research project to provide Web access to a digital library of primary sources in Canadian history from the first European contact to the late 19th century. The collection is particularly strong in the subject areas of literature, women's history, native studies and the history of French Canada. Browse by subject. See entries under United Empire Loyalists and United States-History-Revolution. Site still online as of Dec., 2019, but entry for Canadiana Online, just below, indicates Early Canadiana has been absorbed by it.
Over 25 million pages representing over 200,000 publication titles, most published prior to 1921. Three primary collections: monographs, serials (including newspapers, magazines, city directories, etc.) and government publications. Browse and search each part individually or search using keywords across the whole archive at once. Can refine results by searching with fields (e.g. subjects and full text) and filter results by date range and language. Most items are in English or French. Has a French language search interface also. Launched in current form in 2018, following merger of Canadiana.org and the Canadian Research Knowledge Network, during which it absorbed the now-closed Early Canadiana Online collections.
American Notes: Travels in America, 1750-1920 comprises 253 published narratives by Americans and foreign visitors recounting their travels in the colonies and the United States and their observations and opinions about American peoples, places, and society from about 1750 to 1920. Also included is the thirty-two-volume set of manuscript sources entitled Early Western Travels, 1748-1846, published between 1904 and 1907. Contents ranges from reports by the unjustly neglected to the justly famous, and from classics of the genre to undiscovered gems. Together, they build a mosaic portrait of a young nation.
This is a free resource containing a unique array of primary source material from 18th Century America. Scenes and portraits from original newspapers, maps and writings come to life on your screen just as they appeared to this country's forebears more than two centuries ago.
Indexing and full texts of British periodicals published from 1681-1930. The periodicals included are in the disciplines of literature, history, philosophy, science, social science, and fine arts.
"This database contains periodicals published between 1740 and 1940, including special interest and general magazines, literary and professional journals, children's and women's magazines and many other historically-significant periodicals."
American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals Collection: Colonial Era through the Civil War and Reconstruction, providing digital access to a comprehensive collection of American periodicals published between 1684 and 1912.
Periodicals Archive Online is the new name for PCI Full Text - an archive of digitised journals published in the arts, humanities and social sciences. Over 200 years of scholarship, spread across a wide variety of subject areas. Over 5,000 periodicals covered. What periodicals existed at the time of the American Revolution? What magazines might people have been reading?
This database is composed of approximately 500 U.S. newspapers, published between 1800 and 1900. It includes titles from throughout the United States, including many published in what were, at the time, only territories. Search for topics, persons, events. Limit by type of content (advertising, business news, images, editorials, etc.), by state or city, or by date of publication.
This resource brings together manuscript, printed and visual primary source materials for the study of global commodities in world history. The commodities featured in this resource have been transported, exchanged and consumed around the world for hundreds of years. They helped transform societies, global trading operations, habits of consumption and social practices.
You can study particular commodities (coffee, silver, gold, cotton, tobacco, chocolate, etc.), see sources from particular companies (Hudson's Bay Co., Cadbury's, etc.), choose a "popular search" to get ideas to pursue, look at documents on particular themes (in advertising and consumption, exploration and discovery, politics and empire and more), There are historical maps. You can look at price data over time. And there are pictures of the commodities in the Visual Resources section.
Bringing together unique primary sources drawn from world-class maritime archives and heritage collections Life at Sea takes a sociocultural approach, focusing on the individual experiences and personal narratives of seafarers. Through a broad range of sources, from journals and memoirs to ships’ logs and court records, the lives of ordinary seamen, merchants, whalers and pirates can be explored. This resource offers exciting new insights into three centuries of the Anglo-American maritime world.
The complete Thomas Jefferson Papers from the Manuscript Division at the Library of Congress consists of approximately 27,000 documents. This is the largest collection of original Jefferson documents in the world. Document types in the collection as a whole include correspondence, commonplace books, financial account books, and manuscript volumes. The collection is organized into ten series or groupings, ranging in date from 1606 to 1827. Correspondence, memoranda, notes, and drafts of documents make up two-thirds of the Papers and document Jefferson's activities as a delegate to the second Continental Congress; his drafting of the Declaration of Independence, June-July 1776; his position as governor of Virginia, 1779-81; his return to Congress as a representative, 1783-84; and his appointment as minister plenipotentiary in Europe and then minister to the Court of Louis XVI, succeeding Benjamin Franklin, 1784-89.
The complete George Washington Papers collection from the Manuscript Division at the Library of Congress consists of approximately 65,000 documents. This is the largest collection of original Washington documents in the world. Document types in the collection as a whole include correspondence, letterbooks, commonplace books, diaries, journals, financial account books, military records, reports, and notes accumulated by Washington from 1741 through 1799. The collection is organized into nine Series or groupings. Commonplace books, correspondence, and travel journals, document his youth and early adulthood as a Virginia county surveyor and as colonel of the militia during the French and Indian War. Washington's election as delegate to the First and Second Continental Congresses and his command of the American army during the Revolutionary war are well documented as well as his two presidential administrations from 1789 through 1797.
The Global History Sourcebook is dedicated to exploration of interaction between world cultures. It does not, then, look at ''world history''as the history of the various separate cultures (for that see the linked pages, which do take that approach), but at ways in which the "world" has a history in its own right. Specifically this means looking at the ways in which cultures contact each other, the ways they influence each other, and the ways new cultural forms emerge.
Collection of primary sources of historic documents from the early modern period to the present for both Europe and the Americas. Includes links to other sources of information on modern history and on the nature of historiography, and links to maps, images, and music.
The King’s Topographical collection, the map collection of George III, is one of the world’s most important historical resources. Donated to the nation by George IV in 1828, it comprises approximately 30–40,000 maps, plans and views, both printed and hand-drawn, of all parts of the world, particularly Great Britain and the then British Empire. The material ranges in date from about 1540 to 1824, and is extremely varied in terms of format and size. The Maritime Collection of George III consists of hand-drawn and printed sea charts and atlases of the 16th to 19th centuries. It was donated by George IV to the Admiralty, and from there to the British Museum in 1844.
Who did what in 1776? Learn more about the American Revolution with this detailed time line of events. Find primary documents, photographs and great books about the revolution. Follow external links for more information about the birth of our nation.
