Research Guides: Native American Indian Heritage Month: Primary Source Collections

Primary Sources

Primary sources are documents from the time period, people, and events of the time under consideration. Primary sources can be:

diaries or correspondence
photographs
illustrations
newspaper articles (from the time period)
manuscripts
pamphlets, broadsides, or other ephemera

Publicly Accessible Collections

American Indian
Primary sources and teaching materials from the National Archives.
Indigenous Peoples of the Americas: A Guide to Resources at the Library of Congress
This guide brings together resources at the Library of Congress that relate to Indigenous communities in the Americas. Content includes research guides, digital collection material, Story Maps, and event video recordings.
The American Indian Movement, 1968-1978
From the Digital Public Library of America, this primary source set uses documents, photographs, videos, and news stories to tell the story of the first decade of the American Indian Movement.
The Doris Duke Collection of American Indian Oral History
Provides access to typescripts of interviews (1967 -1972) conducted with hundreds of Indians in Oklahoma regarding the histories and cultures of their respective nations and tribes.
IDA Treaties Explorer
Created by the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in partnership with the National Archives, this collection conserved and digitized the 374 Ratified Indian Treaties in its holdings.
National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI)
Part of The Smithsonian, the NMAI cares for one of the world's most expansive collections of Native artifacts, including objects, photographs, archives, and media covering the entire Western Hemisphere, from the Arctic Circle to Tierra del Fuego.
Native Communities Program
The National Archives holds hundreds of thousands of records related to interactions between Native American and Alaska Native communities and the Federal Government. This program is an educational resource providing step-by-step instructions for locating these important records.
Native American Artists
View some digitized images of contemporary Native American art from the National Gallery of Art.