Primary Sources

A collaborative project of the Wisconsin Historical Society and National History Day, this site contains eyewitness accounts of North American exploration.

"It explores the history of the Dutch presence in America and the interactions between the United States and the Netherlands...The initial stage of this online project... focuses on the period between 1609 and 1664, when the Dutch established the colony of New Netherland, located in parts of present-day New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Connecticut."

"Correspondence and Other Writings of Six Major Shapers of the United States:George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams (and family), Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison. Over 178,000 searchable documents, fully annotated, from the authoritative Founding Fathers Papers projects."

"A bilingual digital library made available by the Library of Congress. It explores the history of the French presence in North America from the first decades of the 16th century to the end of the 19th century."

Provides access to wide-ranging materials digitized, from business ledgers to personal correspondence and government documents, from business ledgers to personal correspondence and government documents. "While documenting life in New England, the collection also extends well beyond those boundaries to Canada, other areas of North America, and South America. It also contains materials related to the Atlantic islands and across the Atlantic Ocean to Great Britain, continental Europe, and parts of Africa. Curated features on the Colonial North America collection site provide a deeper look at several topics—such as food, medicine, slavery and more—and suggest ways of approaching different kinds of materials to gain new insights."

Specialized in primary historical sources pertaining to the Americas, both North and South, before ca. 1825. "Extensive holdings in the literature of European exploration and travel in the Western Hemisphere, from the first Latin edition of the Columbus letter of 1493, through nearly all of the contemporary narratives of Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch, and English discovery, exploration, and settlement."

"Explores the interactions between Spain and the United States in America from the fifteenth to the early nineteenth centuries." Most of the content focuses on the period of Exploration and early settlement.