Primary Sources

Primary Sources are immediate, first-hand accounts of a topic, from people who had a direct connection with it. Primary sources can include:

Newspaper reports, by reporters who witnessed an event or who quote people who did.
Speeches, diaries, letters and interviews - what the people involved said or wrote.
Texts of laws and other original documents (such as some government documents).
Datasets, survey data, such as census information.
Photographs, video, or audio that capture an event.
Original research.

UNM Libraries has over 50 databases/search engines that are focused on primary sources. You can browse through these via the UNM Libraries homepage tab labeled DATABASES and then clicking on the TYPE dropdown and choosing ARCHIVES & PRIMARY SOURCES.

Newspapers

Newspaper articles written at the time of an event are considered primary sources. UNM has access to over 62 subscription online news databases. to browse all of them, visit our Newspapers/News database list. TItles on this list include: African American Newspapers 1827-1998, American Indian Newspapers, American Race Relations 1941-1996, Apartheid: Global Perspectives 1946-1996, Civil War Era, Ethnic Newswatch, Global Newsstream, HIspanic American Newspapers 1808-1980, Late Qing and Republican Era Chinese Newspapers, New York TImes, and MANY MORE!

Government Document, Data, NGO/IGO Reports

Documents and data created at the time of an event (think of congressional testimony, legislative reports and documented daily chamber and committee activities, or surveys conducted at the time) are also considered primary source documents. To learn more about accessing government documents, visit the guides below and click on the GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS, DATA, or NEWS tabs....also check fr NGO/IGO reports from groups like UNHCR -- if they were written during an event, they could be a primary source.

International Studies
by Liz Cooper Last Updated Apr 5, 2024 425 views this year

Political Science
by Liz Cooper Last Updated Sep 13, 2023 441 views this year

Latin American Immigrants & Refugees in the U.S.
by Liz Cooper Last Updated Apr 24, 2024 48 views this year

Find Sources in the UNM Library

The following Library of Congress Subject Terms can be combined with keywords like "source," "document," "letters," "diaries" to identify printed primary sources in the library. There are many others. Consult your librarian to learn more.

Antislavery movements
Fugitive slaves
Plantation life
Slave insurrections
Slave narratives
Slave Trade
Slavery (you can add a country) History
Slavery in literature
Slaves -- Emancipation
Slaves -- Legal status, laws, etc.
Slaves -- Religious life
Slaves -- Writings
Women slaves

Find Other Library/Archives Primary Sources

Many university libraries host print and online archives with primary sources (e.g,. letters, diaries, interviews, posters or photographs) related to historical events. One way to identify archives is to search GOOGLE with a search string something like: site:edu cuban revolution archive (note that the site:edu tells Goolge to look for univerity websites) to see if there is anything digitized or to see who has big collections. Then you could then contact those archives to see if they have suggestions.

Visit these other UNM Libraries research guides related to archives with primary sources:

Latin American Collections (Archival)
by Margie Montanez Last Updated Feb 5, 2024 1362 views this year
Spanish Colonial and Mexican Documents
by Margie Montanez Last Updated Feb 5, 2024 313 views this year
Nineteenth Century Photography
by Stephanie Beene Last Updated Feb 6, 2024 44 views this year

Below are examples of archives related to the trans-atlantic slave trade:

Library of Congress Digital Collections This link opens in a new window
Primary source material such as letters, diaries, newspapers, maps and photographs, sound recordings of personal accounts of events, and streaming historic films. Subjects include American national and local history, African American history, world history, performing arts, government, law & politics, art & architecture, and extensive collection of New Mexico and Western materials. Coverage: 1580-current.
African American Experience This link opens in a new window
Digitized images, articles, documents, etc. exploring the African-American experience from African origins to the present in the United States. Coverage: 500CE-present.

Voyage of the Slave Ship Sally, 1764-1765 (Brown University)
Drawn from holdings of the John Carter Brown Library and the Rhode Island Historical Society, this site offers an example of "the triangle trade." It documents the voyage of a Rhode Island ship to Africa, where it loaded Africans, to the Caribbean, where the Africans where traded for sugar and molasses and then to Rhode Island, where the ingredients were distilled into rum and shipped to Africa.
African American Women
This digital collection of the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Duke University offers first hand accounts from women who experienced slavery and its aftermath
African Origins
African Origins contains information about the migration histories of Africans forcibly carried on slave ships into the Atlantic. Using the personal details of 91,491 Africans liberated by International Courts of Mixed Commission and British Vice Admiralty Courts, this resource makes possible new geographic, ethnic, and linguistic data on peoples captured in Africa and pulled into the slave trade. Through contributions to this website by Africans, members of the African Diaspora, and others, we hope to set in motion the rediscovery of the backgrounds of the millions of Africans captured and sold into slavery during suppression of transatlantic slave trading in the 19th century.
Avalon Project
This transcribed and translated collection of documents offers information pertaining to law, diplomacy and history.
Born in Slavery:Federal Writers' Project Narratives
From the Library of Congress American Memory Project, this collection offers more than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves
Geography of Slavery in Virginia
The Geography of Slavery in Virginia is a digital collection of advertisements for runaway and captured slaves and servants in 18th- and 19th-century Virginia newspapers. Building on the rich descriptions of individual slaves and servants in the ads, the project offers a personal, geographical and documentary context for the study of slavery in Virginia, from colonial times to the Civil War.
Georgetown Slavery Archive
"A repository of materials relating to the Maryland Jesuits, Georgetown University, and slavery," supported by the Georgetown University Working Group on Slavery, Memory, and Reconciliation.
In Motion: African American Migration Sources
From the New York Public Library offers a searchable database of mages, maps and texts related to the transatlantic and domestic slave trade, runaway slaves, and emigration.
Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database
Information on almost 36,000 slaving voyages that forcibly embarked over 10 million Africans for transport to the Americas between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. The actual number is estimated to have been as high as 12.5 million. The database and the separate estimates interface offer researchers, students and the general public a chance to rediscover the reality of one of the largest forced movements of peoples in world history.