Finding Primary Sources on Library Catalog
- Go to Advanced Search in the online catalog
- enter the keyword sources or personal narratives or diaries
- enter terms related to your topic
- Find Subject Headings in the "details" of relevant books related to your topic that include words such as "sources, "personal narratives," "pictorial," or "diaries". Click on those headings for more books on that topic.
Mexican Codices
- Codices de MexicoA collection of digitized Mexican Codices with temporal and spatial visualization tools. From the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia de Mexico.
- Codice MendozaDigitized Mendoza Codex, created around the year 1541 containing both the history of Aztec rulers and their conquests and descriptions of pre-conquest daily life in Aztec society. Pictograms with interpretation in Spanish.
- Florentine CodexDigitized Florentine Codex, created by Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún and a group of Nahua elders, authors, and artists. Written in parallel columns of Nahuatl and Spanish texts and hand painted with nearly 2,500 images, this codex covers topics of Mexica culture, the Aztec Empire, and the conquest of Mexico. Upon completion in 1577 at the Imperial Colegio de la Santa Cruz in Tlatelolco (today Mexico City), the manuscript was sent to Europe where it entered the Medici family’s library in Florence.
- Compiled list of codices from Newberry LibraryThe following resource list of databases for the the study of codices and Latin American colonial documents was compiled by Claudia Brittenham, co-instructor for the workshop for New Spain at the Newberry: Demystifying Colonial Documents from the Ayer Collection, offered on 16 February 2018 at the Newberry Library in Chicago, IL. Made accessible here by Arizona State University Libraries.
- Codex BorbonicusDigitized Codex Borbonicus from the Bibliothèque de l'Assemblée Nationale Paris.
Primary Resource Collections
- Oxford Bibliographies This link opens in a new windowLiterary guide to significant sources on a variety of subjects. Works as an annotated bibliography and a high-level encyclopedia.
- Sabin AmericanaBooks, pamphlets, serials and other works about the Americas, through the early 1900s. Original accounts of exploration, trade, colonialism, slavery and abolition, the western movement, Native Americans, military actions, etc. 1500-1926
- EEBO - Early English Books Online This link opens in a new windowDigital facsimile page images of virtually every work printed in English from 1473-1700.
- Eighteenth-Century Collections Online (ECCO)English and foreign-language titles printed inthe UK and works from the Americas from 1701-1800.
- Making of the Modern World This link opens in a new windowDigital facsimile images of unique primary sources that track the development of the modern, western world through the lens of trade and wealth. History, political science, social conditions, technology and industry, economics, area studies, etc.
- New Iberian World: A Documentary History of the Discovery and Settlement of Latin America to the early 17th centuryAvailable at the Central Library, F1411 .I18 1984 Armistead 4th floor.
- Colonial America This link opens in a new windowManuscript material from the Colonial Office files at the UK National Archives that documents all aspects of life in colonial America. Includes original correspondence between the British government and the governments of the American colonies.
- Archives of Latin American and Caribbean History, Sixteenth to Twentieth Century This link opens in a new windowPrimary source documents about Latin America and the Caribbean covering current issues and events as well as historical events back to the colonial period.
- PARES - Portal de Archivos EspañolesThe Spanish Archives Portal (PARES) is the main platform used to disseminate Spain's Historical Document Heritage, created and managed by the State Archives Department of the Ministry of Culture.
It contains information sheets and digitised images of many of the historical documents held in the State Archives, including the Archivo General de Indias.
Destruction of the Indies
A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies by ISBN: 1420963201Publication Date: 2019-09-30Written in 1542 and first published in 1552, "A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies" by Bartolome de Las Casas, a Dominican friar, is a moving and shocking account of the atrocities and mistreatment suffered by the indigenous people of South America under Spanish colonial rule. Bartolome de Las Casas, believed to have been born in 1484, immigrated to the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean from Spain in 1502 with his father and was ordained as a priest in 1510. His work with the Church gave him a startling glimpse into the cruelty and inhumanity that the native peoples were subjected to by the powerful Spaniards. Bartolome de Las Casas was determined to advocate for these oppressed people and traveled back and forth between Spain and the New World several times to bring the plight of the indigenous peoples to the attention of the King. Bartolome de Las Casas documented the ravages of the disease and greed the Spanish brought with them across the sea. "A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies" is an important and remarkable work, as well as the earliest documentation of a concerted effort to advocate for better and more humane treatment of the native people of the New World.
Latin American Travelogues
The goal of this project is to create a digital collection of Latin American travel accounts written in the 16th-19th centuries. The works selected are linked to critical essays produced by undergraduate students who are enrolled in Prof. Green's courses on Latin American history. This site will serve as a free-access visual and research tool for students and scholars alike.
