LibGuides: American Indian Studies: Databases, Journals, & Newspapers

CWU Libraries Collections

Early Encounters in North America: Peoples, Cultures and the Environment
Documents the relationships among peoples in North America from 1534 to 1850. The collection focuses on personal accounts and provides unique perspectives from traders, slaves, missionaries, explorers, soldiers, native peoples, and officials, both men and women. Contains a wide range of published and unpublished accounts, including narratives, diaries, journals, and letters. **Made possible by a grant from the Pendleton & Elisabeth Carey Miller Charitable Foundation
Indian Claims Insight
Provides resources on Native American migration and resettlement throughout U.S. history, as well as U.S. Government Indian removal policies and subsequent actions to address Native American claims. Content includes decisions, transcripts, docket books, journals of the Indian Claims Commission, and related publications from 1789-present.
Indigenous Cinema
The National Film Board (NFB) of Canada has compiled 200 indigenous-made films and made them accessible by online streaming free of charge. Films can be searched by title, director or subject.
Indigenous Peoples of North America
Enabling exploration of the political, social, and cultural history of native peoples from the sixteenth century well into the twentieth century. Content has been sourced from both American and Canadian institutions and has received direct-from-source permission to digitize newspapers from various tribes and organizations. This archive also features indigenous language materials, including dictionaries, religious texts, and primers. Indigenous Peoples of North America is available in two parts. Part I: This collection comprehensively covers the history of North American indigenous peoples and supporting organizations, enabling intelligent inquiry into the culture and heritage of more than seventy tribes within the United States and Canada. Part II: The Indian Rights Association, 1882-1986, provides a near complete record of the efforts of the first organization to address Native American interests and rights. This collection includes incoming and outgoing correspondence, organizational records, and printed material produced by the Indian Rights Association and other American Indian and Indian rights-related organizations.
North American Indian Drama, Second Edition
Full-text plays representing the stories and creative energies of American Indian and First Nation playwrights of the twentieth century. More than half of the works are previously unpublished, and hard to find, representing groups such as Cherokee, Métis, Creek, Choctaw, Pembina Chippewa, Ojibway, Lenape, Comanche, Cree, Navajo, Rappahannock, Hawaiian/Samoan, and others. Together, the plays demonstrate Native theater’s diversity of tribal traditions and approaches to drama.
North American Indian Drama, Second Edition
Full-text plays representing the stories and creative energies of American Indian and First Nation playwrights of the twentieth century. More than half of the works are previously unpublished, and hard to find, representing groups such as Cherokee, Métis, Creek, Choctaw, Pembina Chippewa, Ojibway, Lenape, Comanche, Cree, Navajo, Rappahannock, Hawaiian/Samoan, and others. Together, the plays demonstrate Native theater’s diversity of tribal traditions and approaches to drama.
North American Indian Thought and Culture
Contains more than 100,000 pages, many of which are previously unpublished, rare, or hard to find. The project integrates autobiographies, biographies, Indian publications, oral histories, personal writings, photographs, drawings, and audio files for the first time. The result is a comprehensive representation of historical events as told by the individuals who lived through them. The database is an essential resource for all those interested in serious scholarly research into the history of American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Canadian First Peoples. **Made possible by a grant from the Pendleton & Elisabeth Carey Miller Charitable Foundation
ProQuest History Vault: American Indians and the American West, 1809-1971
Collections from the U.S. National Archives and the Chicago History Museum join first-hand accounts on Indian Wars and westward migration. Coverage of American Indians in the first half of the 20th century includes Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Records from the Major Council Meetings of American Indian Tribes. Researchers will also find excellent collections, many previously unpublished, on American Indians in the 19th century, with a focus on the interaction among white settlers, the U.S. federal government and Indian tribes.
**Friends of the Library Endowment purchase

American Indian and Alaska native mental health research
American Indian and Alaska Native Mental Health Research is a professionally refereed scientific journal. It contains empirical research, program evaluations, case studies, unpublished dissertations, and other articles in the behavioral, social, and health sciences which clearly relate to the mental health status of American Indians and Alaska Natives.
American Indian Culture and Research Journal
In print since 1971, the American Indian Culture and Research Journal (AICRJ) is an internationally renowned multidisciplinary journal designed for scholars and researchers. The premier journal in Native American and Indigenous studies, it publishes original scholarly papers and book reviews on a wide range of issues in fields ranging from history to anthropology to cultural studies to education and more. It is published three times per year by the UCLA American Indian Studies Center. All submissions are peer-reviewed.
American Indian quarterly (Online)
A refereed interdisciplinary journal of the history, anthropology, literature and the arts of Native American Indians, book reviews and lists of recently published books.
Journal of American Indian Education
Founded in 1961, the Journal of American Indian Education (JAIE) is a refereed journal featuring original scholarship on education issues of American Indians, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and Indigenous peoples worldwide, including First Nations, Māori, Aboriginal/Torres Strait Islander peoples, and Indigenous peoples of Latin America, Scandinavia, Africa, and others.
Studies in American Indian Literatures
Studies in American Indian Literatures (SAIL) is the only journal in the United States that focuses exclusively on American Indian literatures broadly defined to include all written, spoken, and visual texts created by Native peoples. With a wide scope of scholars and creative contributors, this journal is on the cutting edge of activity in the field. SAIL publishes scholarly, critical pedagogical, and theoretical manuscripts focused on all aspects of American Indian literatures as well as works of poetry and short fiction, bibliographical essays, review essays, and interviews.

Indigenous Histories and Cultures in North America
Contains primary and secondary documents such as artwork, speeches, petitions, diaries, journals, and correspondence, early linguistic and ethnographic accounts, photographs, maps, rare books and newspapers, ranging from the 16th to the 20th century.
Indigenous Newspapers in North America
Indigenous Newspapers in North America presents the publications of a range of communities, with an extensive list of periodicals produced in the United States and Canada, including Alaska, Arizona, British Columbia, California, Nevada and Oklahoma, from 1828 to 2016.
Indigenous Peoples of North America
Enabling exploration of the political, social, and cultural history of native peoples from the sixteenth century well into the twentieth century. Content has been sourced from both American and Canadian institutions and has received direct-from-source permission to digitize newspapers from various tribes and organizations. This archive also features indigenous language materials, including dictionaries, religious texts, and primers. Indigenous Peoples of North America is available in two parts. Part I: This collection comprehensively covers the history of North American indigenous peoples and supporting organizations, enabling intelligent inquiry into the culture and heritage of more than seventy tribes within the United States and Canada. Part II: The Indian Rights Association, 1882-1986, provides a near complete record of the efforts of the first organization to address Native American interests and rights. This collection includes incoming and outgoing correspondence, organizational records, and printed material produced by the Indian Rights Association and other American Indian and Indian rights-related organizations.

Audio, Lectures, and Oral Histories

Chinook Jargon: A interview by Eugene Harrison with Mrs. A.E. Shaw and Dr. Arthur J. Damman. Recorded at the home of Mrs. A.E. Shaw on June 7, 1955. The two Central Washington pioneers share their knowledge of the Chinook Jargon language, stories about its use, and their experiences with it.
Entering the Promised Land: Bruce Leroy speaks about first contact between Native Americans and white settlers in central Washington state. He describes linguistic and cultural differences between the two groups.
A Pow Wow in Nicholson Pavillion: Nearly two hours of footage capturing a Pow Wow at Central Washington University.
To the Honored Past, Days of the Indians and the First Contacts with the Soldiers: In this lecture, an unknown speaker outlines the history of first contact between Yakamas and white settlers in the Kittitas Valley.
Oral history Interviews (Suncadia Collection)

John Allen Nicholson Pictures

Suncadia Collection (photos)

California Indian History
The California Indian History website makes available online, in one place, primary sources from various archival and historical collections that were authored or reported by non-Indian witnesses, and oftentimes perpetrators, who documented Euro-American violence against California Indigenous people. The scope of the website is statewide from the Gold Rush period into the second half of the 19th century. The website also provides a growing body of educational resources, allowing anyone the ability to review, evaluate, and draw their own conclusions about the history experienced by California Indigenous people.
DocsTeach: Native American
Search photos, documents, and treaties in the National Archives from Native American history. Brooks Library has several of the microfilm sets and newspapers. You may wish to begin your research here and narrow down to have we have in our collection. What we do not have, we may be able to obtain through our Summit partners.
Hathi Trust Digital Library: Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The Hathi Trust has various documents, images, and books about Indigenous people, most of which are available for free online.
Indian-Pioneer Papers Collection (U of Oklahoma)
"The Indian-Pioneer Papers oral history collection spans from 1861 to 1936. It includes typescripts of interviews conducted during the 1930s by government workers with thousands of Oklahomans regarding the settlement of Oklahoma and Indian territories, as well as the condition and conduct of life there. Consisting of approximately 80,000 entries, the index to this collection may be accessed via personal name, place name, or subject."
Kapler’s Indian Affairs, Laws & Treaties (Okstate Library)
The print version is available in the Brooks Library on 3rd floor in GovPubs E94. U6 1904 (microfiche MH-351)
Western History Collections - Native American Manuscripts (U of Oklahoma)
Curated digital collections containing primary sources regarding Native American interactions.

Digital Collections Based on Region

American Indians of the Pacific Northwest Collection
This site, by the University of Washington, provides access to original photographs and documents about the Northwest Coast and Plateau Indian cultures, as well as essays written by anthropologists, historians, and teachers about particular tribes and cross-cultural topics.
C. Hart Merriam Collection of Native American Photographs
This collection comprises images taken by C. Hart Merriam (1855-1942) as he documented the languages of California Indian tribes.
First Nation Collection
Provided by Southern Oregon University, this collection comprises documents, books, and articles relating to the indigenous peoples of southwestern Oregon and northern California. Some of the nations represented include the Coos, Hupa, Karuk, Klamath, Modoc, Takelma, Shasta, Siuslaw, Cow Creek Band of Umpqua, Yahooskin, and Yurok nations.
In the Beginning Was the Word: The Russian Church and Native Alaskan Cultures
The Library of Congress worked collaboratively with Russian linguist Vyacheslav Ivanov to assemble this collection of photographs and documents taken from the Alaskan Russian Church Archives. The exhibit documents exchanges between priests of the Russian Orthodox Church and native Alaskans from 1794 to about 1915.
Native Peoples of Northern Great Plains
This database includes photographs, paintings, ledger drawings, documents, serigraphs, and stereographs created between 1874 and the 1940s, documenting the culture of tribes on the northern Great Plains.
Richard Throssel Papers
This collection includes 2,481 photographs, glass plate negatives and lantern slides created by Richard Throssel while on the Crow and Northern Cheyenne reservations from 1902-1933. Photographs show daily life, villages, ranching, and scenery in southern Montana and northern Wyoming.

Manuscripts Relating to Samson Occom and Eleazar Wheelock's Early Indian Students, 1740s-1790s
This collection by Dartmouth College Library documents the work of Samson Occom, a member of the Mohegan nation, who worked to found a Christian Indian community in the Oneida territory at the end of the eighteenth century. The collection comprises letters, diaries, sermons, prose, and annotated books that touch on topics like the Great Awakening, attitudes toward Indians in the 18th century, missionary work among the Indians, the education of Indians, and Mohegan language and culture.

AIM and Wounded Knee Documents
This site presents newsletters, treaties, flyers, and chronologies relating to the history of Wounded Knee and the American Indian Movement (AIM). Documents were provided by Michigan State University Library.
Ayer Ojibwa Collection
This collection, created by Jeannette O. and Harry D. Ayer, contains many examples of traditional Ojibwa objects such as bandolier bags, moccasins, belts and bands. Objects are searchable by keyword and topic.
Camping with the Sioux: Fieldwork Diary of Alice Cunningham Fletcher
This site presents two journals kept by Alice Fletcher during a six-week venture into Plains Indian territory in 1881. For convenience, the diary has been divided into daily entries.
Dakota Conflict Trials of 1862
Douglas O. Linder, of the School of Law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, has created this website, which features photos, maps, and excerpts of first-person accounts relating to the Sioux uprising and trials of 1862.
Lakota Winter Counts
The Lakota once marked the passage of time by drawing pictures of memorable events on calendars known as winter counts. This exhibit by Smithsonian Institute features a searchable database of winter counts as well as a documentary about Lakota history and video interviews with Lakota people.
Missions to Native North Americans
Provided by Harvard University Library, this collection documents the work of the Dakota Mission, which worked to Christianize the eastern Sioux beginning in 1835. The collection covers 1844-1859 and 1882, with annual reports, school reports, correspondence from missionaries, items in the Dakota language (including the Constitution of Minnesota), and other materials that document missionary efforts to teach English to members of the tribe.
Omaha Indian Heritage
This site aims to provide an online catalog of Omaha artifacts and photographic images drawn from sources around the world. Partners in the project include the University of Nebraska State Museum, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, and the Nebraska State Historical Society, in consultation with the Omaha tribe. Also included on the website are essays by ethnographers and scholars of Omaha history and culture, including works from the late nineteenth century.
Omaha Indian Music
This exhibit, by the Library of Congress, presents sound recordings that document Omaha culture. Included in the collection are wax cylinder recordings made in the 1890s, songs and spoken-word segments recorded in the 1980s, and photos of celebrations during the 1980s.
Plains Indian Ledger Art
This site from UC San Diego makes available Plains drawing created during the 1860-1900 period. Twenty-seven ledgers are currently available for viewing.

Duke Collection of American Indian Oral History
This site provides access to interviews (1967 -1972) conducted with hundreds of Indians in Oklahoma regarding the histories and cultures of their respective nations and tribes. Related are accounts of Indian ceremonies, customs, social conditions, philosophies, and standards of living.
Traders: Voices from the Trading Post
Offered by Northern Arizona University, this site provides access to oral interviews with members of the United Indian Traders Association (UITA), a non-profit organization formed In 1931 to promote improved business practices among Indian traders, arts and crafts dealers.

American Indian Studies

Digital Government Collections for Research

CWU Libraries Collections

Digital Collections Based on Region

Ask the Libraries