Colonial Lives & Records
Avalon Project
Yale Law School Lillian Goldman Law Library – Colonial charters, grants and related documents.
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Belgique, Congo, Rwanda et Burundi : Guide des sources de l'histoire de la colonisation
Resource Guide for the History of Belgian Colonization of Congo, Rwanda, and Burundi. Descriptions and contextualization of colonial archives kept in Belgium and their links with other collections.
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Capital and the Bay: Narratives of Washington and the Chesapeake Bay Region | 1600 – 1925
Library of Congress – First-person narratives, early histories, historical biographies, promotional brochures, and books of photographs in an attempt to capture in words and pictures a distinctive region as it developed between the onset of European settlement and the first quarter of the twentieth century.
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Colonial and Revolutionary Boston | 1631 – 1805
Digital Commonwealth, Boston Public Library – The collection documents the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, as well as the ensuing political, social, and financial crises that led to the American Revolution and the formation of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
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Diary of Samuel Sewall | 1674 – 1729
Merchant, colonial magistrate, member of the Governor's Council, and diarist, Samuel Sewall (1652-1730) played a major role in the activities of the Massachusetts Bay Colony for 56 years.
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DoHistory – Martha Ballard's Diary | 1785 – 1812
Explore the process of piecing together the lives of ordinary people in the past. It is an experimental, interactive case study based on the research that went into the book and film A Midwife's Tale, which were both based upon the remarkable 200-year-old diary of midwife/healer Martha Ballard.
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Early Caribbean Digital Archive
Northeastern University – pre-twentieth-century Caribbean texts, maps, and images. Texts include travel narratives, novels, poetry, natural histories, and diaries that have not been brought together before as a single collection focused on the Caribbean. The texts and images collected here tell the story of European imperial domination, and of the enslaved African and Indigenous American people whose lives, labor, and land shaped the culture and development of the Atlantic world.
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The Elizabeth Murray Project: A Resource Site for Early American History
Biographical resource site exploring themes in early American history, including letters, portraits, newspaper articles, and maps examining the documentary record of Elizabeth Murray.
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Enslaved: Peoples of the Historical Slave Trade
Browse datasets and interconnected data, generate visualizations, and explore short biographies of enslaved and freed peoples.
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French and Indian Wars Manuscripts
American Ancestors and New England Historic Genealogical Society – Diaries, letters, military records, and other materials that provide details about the experiences of men from Massachusetts, New Hampshire, England, and other locations who fought in the French and Indian Wars in North America. Most of these collections focus on the Crown Point Expedition, the Québec Campaign, and the Battle of Ticonderoga.
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Friendly Association Papers
TriCollege Libraries Digital Collections – Accounts of behind-the-scenes treaty negotiations; historical documents dating back to the early years of Pennsylvania related to work with Indigenous groups; the correspondence of Pemberton and others relating to fund-raising and the exigencies of Pennsylvania politics; and missives from Indian leaders, transcribed or otherwise transmitted by an intricate network of Indian "go-betweens" who maintained almost constant contact with the Association.
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Georgia Archives
Colonial Will Books
- Wills recorded in the Royal Colony of Georgia. These records are
from Record Group 049-01-005, Colony of Georgia – Will Books.
After Georgia became a royal colony in 1754, the governor acted as
ordinary or appointed an official to carry out such duties. The
ordinary probated wills, provided instructions to administrators
for the inventory and appraisal of an estate, and ensured that
administrators followed all legal requirements in settling the
estate. These wills are the official record copy transcribed into
volumes by the Ordinary.
Colonial Wills
- Wills probated in the Colony of Georgia. These records are from
Record Group 049-01-002, Colony of Georgia — Wills.
People Not Property: Stories of Slavery in the Colonial North
Historic Hudson Valley – Interactive documentary about the history of Northern colonial enslavement, cross-section of human stories emblematic of the lived experience of slavery in colonial America.
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Indian Converts
Experience Mayhew's history of the Wampanoag Indians on Martha's Vineyard provides a rare look at the lives and culture of four generations of Native Americans in colonial America. Dividing his treatment into four sections—Indian Ministers, Good Men, Religious Women, and Pious Children—Mayhew details the books that different age groups were reading, provides insights into early New England pedagogy and childrearing practices, and describes each individual in terms of genealogy, religious practice, way of life, and place of residence.
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Investigating Indentured Servitude: Visualizing Experiences of Colonial America | 1771 – 1773
Details of indenture contracts, information about working people and immigrants who came to Philadelphia in the lead-up to the American Revolution. Interactive visualizations of data to examine indentured servitude in Colonial British North America through three themes: distance, gender, time. Personal stories of individual apprentices who entered into contracts to work as servants and apprentices.
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James Glen Papers | 1738 – 1777
University of South Carolina – The papers of colonial governor James Glen (1701-1777), who served as Governor of South Carolina from 1738 to 1756, include official government documents, papers concerning relations with Native American Indians, business papers relating to his ownership of a South Carolina rice plantation, and correspondence between Glen and South Carolina planter, John Drayton (1713-1779).
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North Carolina
>State Archives - Historically significant archival materials relating to North Carolina; of note is their transcription project on African American Education before 1950. >Colonial and State Records | 1886 – 1907 - Documents and materials from throughout the country and from several European repositories covering the earliest days of North Carolina's settlement by Europeans through the ratification of the United States Constitution.
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Slavery in New Netherland
New Netherland Institute – Digital exhibition of records on New Netherland's enslaved population and New York's history.
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Worlds of Change: Colonial North America
Harvard Library – Archival and manuscript materials in the Harvard Library that relate to 17th- and 18th-century North America.
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