Open Access Databases
The following databases are open access and are free to use by anyone with an internet connection.
A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation
This Library of Congress database provides a comprehensive archive of the legislative history of the United States. Journals of the Continental Congress, the Constitutional Convention, and the United States Congress are included, as are bills, resolutions, statutes, debates, private diaries, and letters of delegates. Also of interest are the American State Papers, which comprise documents presented to Congress by the executive and judicial branches.
A Colony in Crisis: The Saint-Domingue Grain Shortage of 1789
A Colony in Crisis provides digital access to French colonial documents related to Saint-Domingue and its 1789 grain shortage. Many of these primary sources have been transcribed into English and Haitian Creole translations.
AfriGeneas: African Ancestored Genealogy
AfriGeneas is an online database that focuses on African American genealogy. Its Slave Data Collection provides transcriptions of primary sources related to early American slavery, organized by state and surnames of the enslaved.
Alberta on Record
Alberta on Record is an online database sponsored by the Archives Society of Alberta. It provides digital access to archival collections and photographs held throughout the province.
The American Colonist’s Library
The American Colonist’s Library is a vast selection of colonial era documents, tracts, and other primary sources from across the Americas. Each entry is hyperlinked to an online version of the source. However, the website is nearly 20 years old and many of the links are broken.
American Journeys: Eyewitness Accounts of Early American Exploration and Settlement
American Journeys is a digital project from the Wisconsin Historical Society that provides digital access to 18,000 pages of firsthand accounts detailing the exploration and colonization of North America.
The American Presidency Project
The American Presidency Project is a searchable database that focuses on the public addresses and proclamations of the presidents of the United States.
A New Nation Votes
A New Nation Votes is a searchable database of election returns in the United States from 1787 to 1826. Created by Tufts University and the American Antiquarian Society from data compiled by Philip Lampi, this database provides information on early American elections at both the state and federal level. It is an invaluable source for political historians and scientists alike.
The Avalon Project
The Avalon Project is a free online database that provides digital transcriptions of diplomatic, economic, historic, legal, and political documents dating from 4,000 BCE to the present day. It is especially rich in early American sources from the 15th through 19th centuries.
Bexar Archives Online
Bexar Archives Online is a project from the Briscoe Center for American History that digitizes and translates political, military, economic, and social documents related to the Spanish province of Texas and the Mexican state of Coahuila y Texas.
BRASILHIS Database
The BRASILHIS Database is a project that maps the lives of thousands of individuals connected to both Brazil and the Hapsburg monarchy of Spain in the early modern period. It utilizes thousands of historical documents and biographies to chart these peoples’ lives.
British History Online
British History Online is a text-searchable database of British sources dating from ancient times to the modern day. The database includes transcriptions of a variety of documents, including tax records, journals of Parliament, trade union account books, private diaries, and much more. There are also several maps, datasets, and subject guides.
British Tars: 1740 - 1790
British Tars is an online blog that focuses on the fashion of British and American sailors from 1670 to 1790. Although not a traditional database, the blog functions as one. It focuses on modern photographs and 18th century images that depict various maritime fashions, with a solid selection of subjects based on specific styles and articles of clothing.
Civil War Collections at Michigan State University
Civil War Collections at Michigan State University is an online project that provides digital access to Michigan State’s vast holdings of Civil War letters, diaries, photographs, orderly books, and other documents.
Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System
The Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System (CWSS) is an online database sponsored by the National Park Service. It provides information about the enlisted men who served in both the Union and Confederate armies during the American Civil War.
Colonial North America at Harvard Library
Colonial North America is an ongoing project that seeks to catalog and digitize over 700,000 images of archival material related to North America held by Harvard Library.
Colonial Virginia Portraits
Colonial Virginia Portraits provides digital images and historical descriptions of dozens of oil paintings of early Virginians from the 17th and 18th centuries.
Colored Conventions Project
The Colored Conventions Project provides digital access to primary sources related to African American political meetings in the 19th century.
Connecticut Ship Database, 1789-1939
Operated by the Mystic Seaport Museum Collections Research Center, this database organizes data compiled by the Works Progress Administration from the United States Customs Service. Records from the customs districts of New London/Stonington, New Haven, Bridgeport/Fairfield, and Hartford/Middletown are represented in the database. Information is organized by vessel name, type of ship, where it was built, what year it was built, vessel tonnage, customs district, what type of trade, the years it was registered, and various other statistics.
Corporate Reports Online
A project of the Lippincott Library at the University of Pennsylvania, Corporate Reports Online provides PDFs of various annual reports of American companies from 1800 to 1955. The entire collection is text-searchable.
The Crisis of the Union: Causes, Conduct and Consequences of the U.S. Civil War
The Crisis of the Union is an online database that consists of various books, broadsides, cartoons, maps, paintings, pamphlets, and other printings related to the American Civil War.
Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery
The Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery is a mass collaboration project that brings together the findings, field notes, site maps, and other information of archaeological fieldwork on slaves and slavery throughout the Atlantic World.
Digital History
A project of the University of Houston, Digital History is a hodgepodge of transcribed documents and excerpts covering all eras of American history, including hundreds of early American sources.
Digital Index of North American Archaeology
The Digital Index of North American Archaeology (DINAA) brings together numerous archaeological and historical datasets, particularly those created by state and federal agencies.
Digital Library of the Caribbean
The Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC) is a cooperative project that brings together digitized materials from over 60 institutions related to the Caribbean and circum-Caribbean.
Digital Library on American Slavery
The Digital Library on American Slavery (DLAS) brings together digital projects focused on race and slavery in the American South. They include People Not Property: Slave Deeds, North Carolina Runaway Slave Notices, 1750-1865, and the Race & Slavery Petitions Project.
Digital Paxton
Digital Paxton is an online project that digitizes manuscripts, books, broadsides, newspapers, pamphlets, political cartoons, artwork, and various other documents related to the Paxton Boys, their massacre of 20 members of the Conestoga, and their place within Great Britain’s growing imperial crisis of the 1760s.
Digital Public Library of America
The Digital Public Library of America provides online access to tens of millions of digitized images from libraries and other cultural institutions from across the United States.
Documenta Palmares: Um Instrumento De Pesquisa
Documenta Palmares (Documents Palmares) provides digital access to thousands of primary sources written between 1695 and 1800 that mention the quilombo, or community of escaped slaves, of Palmares in Brazil. It also includes an interactive mapping project of early Palmares.
Documenting the American South
Documenting the American South (DocSouth) is a digital library that provides digitized images of various primary sources related to southern history, literature, and culture.
Documents for the Study of American History
Documents for the Study of American History is a digital collection of primary source transcriptions related to all periods of American history. Early America is well represented.
Early California Population Project
Administered by the Huntington Library, the Early California Population Project (ECPP) provides public access to population datasets compiled from California mission registers from 1769 to 1850. Information includes baptism, marriage, and burial records of soldiers, colonists, and indigenous peoples.
Early Caribbean Digital Archive
The Early Caribbean Digital Archive is a collection of pre-20th century documents, maps, and images related to the history and culture of the Caribbean. Materials that make up the archive focus not just on Europe’s imperial domination of this space, but also the lives and experiences of the African and indigenous peoples who shaped it.
Early Visions of Florida
Early Visions of Florida is a “student-driven project” that provides analysis and transcripts of literature devoted to the exploration and colonization of the Florida borderlands between 1513 and 1843.
Electronic Enlightenment
Electronic Enlightenment provides digital transcriptions of thousands of documents written by Enlightenment thinkers between the early 17th century and the mid-19th century. The Americas are well represented.
Envisaging the West: Thomas Jefferson and the Roots of Lewis and Clark
Envisaging the West is a joint project between the University of Nebraska and the University of Virginia that provides text-searchable transcriptions of primary source documents related to American westward expansion.
Founders Online
A collaborative project between the National Archives and Records Administration and various university presses, Founders Online provides text-searchable transcriptions of over 185,000 documents. Most of these records come from the papers of America’s leading early statesmen, including George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison. Each document is annotated to provide the reader with historical context, as well as further reading suggestions.
Freedmen’s Bureau Search Portal
The Freedmen’s Bureau Search Portal is an online database administered by the National Museum of African American History & Culture. It allows scholars to search various data sets generated by the millions of records created by the Freedman’s Bureau held by the National Archives and Records Administration.
Freedom on the Move
Freedom on the Move is a text-searchable database of over 30,000 runaway slave advertisem*nts printed in North America. Each advertisem*nt includes a full transcript and is text-searchable.
General Land Office Automated Records Project
The General Land Office Automated Records Project is an online database administered by the United States Bureau of Land Management. It provides information on all federal land surveys, grants, and sales from the inception of the federal government to the end of public land sales. Although not exhaustive, details on most federal land titles are provided, including digitized copies of patents, surveys, and field notes.
Georgian Papers Programme
Georgian Papers Programme is an online project that catalogs and digitizes documents related to the British monarchy’s House of Hanover dating from the reigns of George I to William IV. To date, it has digitized over 200,000 images from the Georgian papers held at the Royal Archives and Royal Library at Windsor Castle. These items can be searched and viewed through Georgian Papers Online.
The Geography of Slavery in Virginia
The Geography of Slavery in Virginia is an online database that provides digital images of runaway and captured slave and servant advertisem*nts from 18th and 19th century Virginia newspapers.
Great Lakes Maritime Collection
The Great Lakes Maritime Collection is an online database that compiles data and digitized documents related to 18th, 19th, and 20th century ship traffic on the Great Lakes. Over 14,000 individual vessels are represented. This database is administered by the Alpena County George N. Fletcher Public Library.
The Haskell Monroe Collection: Life in the Confederacy
The Haskell Monroe Collection is an online database that provides digital access to the University of Missouri’s Haskell Monroe Collection. This collection is made up of the extensive resources related to the American South during the Civil War that were collected by Professor Haskell Monroe.
Heritage Documentation Programs
The Heritage Documentation Programs is a National Park Service agency that administers the federal government’s Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER), and the Historic American Landscapes Survey (HALS). Its online collections feature digitized images of thousands of federal buildings and properties.
Historic Indentures
Historic Indentures is an online database that describes and digitizes thousands of indentures, deeds, and other early American documents related to land, property, and financial investments. The items in this collection stem mostly from the Philadelphia region, but much of early America is well represented.
Historic Mexican & Mexican American Press
The Historic Mexican & Mexican American press is a database administered by the University of Arizona Libraries. It preserves and provides digital access to Mexican and Mexican American prints published throughout the American Southwest.
Immigrant Ship Transcribers Guild
The Immigrant Ship Transcribers Guild is a crowdsourcing database that provides transcriptions of over 20,000 passenger manifests of ships bound for the Americas.
Impressões Rebeldes
Translated as Rebel Impressions, this digital project provides online access to various documents related to protest and independence movements in colonial Brazil.
Indigenous Digital Archive
The Indigenous Digital Archive (IDA) has collected and annotated over 500,000 documents from the 19th and 20th centuries related to Indian Boarding Schools in the United States.
Indigenous Digital Archive Treaty Explorer
The Indigenous Digital Archive Treaty Explorer provides free online access to the 374 ratified Indian treaties made between the United States and various indigenous peoples held at the National Archives and Records Administration.
Jefferson’s 3 Volumes
Jefferson’s 3 Volumes is a digitization project centered on Thomas Jefferson’s “3. volumes bound in Marbled paper.” These volumes were compiled by Jefferson and chronicle his tenure as the United States Secretary of State, including his correspondence, reports, and other memoranda.
Journals of the Lewis & Clark Expedition
Journals of the Lewis & Clark Expedition is an online database that provides over 5,000 pages of text-searchable transcriptions of the journals of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.
Lee Family Digital Archive
The Lee Family Digital Archive provides digital access to documents related to Virginia’s Lee Family.
Le Marronnage dans le Monde Atlantique: Sources et Trajectoires de Vie
Translated as Marronage in the Atlantic World: Sources and Life Trajectories, this database includes over 20,000 runaway slave advertisem*nts, prison lists, and other materials that document African and African American resistance towards racialized violence.
Louisiana Colonial Documents Digitization Project
The Louisiana Colonial Documents Digitization Project makes available online thousands of 18th century manuscripts related to Louisiana, particularly those of the French Superior Council (1714-1769) and various Spanish Judicial Records (1769-1803).
Magazine of Early American Datasets
The Magazine of Early American Datasets (MEAD) is a collaborative repository that compiles various datasets related to the early Americas. These datasets are volunteered by historians and are presented in their original formats and provide scholars with a wealth of quantitative information.
Mark E. Mitchell Collection of African American History
The Mark E. Mitchell Collection of African American History is one of the nation’s largest private collections of African American artifacts, manuscripts, ephemera, and material objects. It consists of 5,000 unique items spanning 500 years.
Medical Heritage Library
Medical Heritage Library offers online access to thousands of primary sources on the history of medicine spanning seven centuries.
Meeting of Frontiers
Meeting of Frontiers is an English-Russian digital library that focuses on the dual colonization of eastern Siberia and western North America, and the meeting of these two processes in what is today Alaska.
Mémoire St Barth
Mémoire St Barth is a digital history project that provides transcriptions of colonial era documents related to the Caribbean island of Saint-Barthélemy.
Memoria Chilena
Memoria Chilena is a nation-wide digital project that provides online access to primary source documents from various cultural institutions in Chile. Much of the material available relates to the pre-conquest era of the Andean Mountains, as well as the Spanish colonization of western South America and the early national history of Chile.
Memorica: México, Haz Memoria
Memorica is a nation-wide digital project that provides online access to primary source documents from various cultural institutions in Mexico. Much of the material available relates to the Spanish colonization of central America and the early national history of Mexico.
Mexico: Photographs, Manuscripts, and Imprints
Mexico: Photographs, Manuscripts, and Imprints is an online database created by Southern Methodist University’s DeGolyer Library. It provides digital images of thousands of photographs and other materials related to 19th century Mexico and the western United States.
Mount Vernon’s Midden Project
Mount Vernon’s Midden Project provides digitized images of archaeological discoveries at the South Grove Midden, a refuse feature at George Washington’s Virginia plantation.
Native Bound Unbound
Native Bound Unbound is an upcoming website that will provide a digital archive of materials related to the experiences of enslaved indigenous peoples.
Native Northeast Portal
The Native Northeast Portal is a digitization project that re-inscribes indigeneity into the historical record. It provides access to primary source materials about or created by indigenous peoples of the northeastern United States. Thousands of records are available and are presented with historical context.
New England's Hidden Histories: Colonial-Era Church Records
New England’s Hidden Histories is a collaborative effort between the Congregational Library & Archives and the Jonathan Edwards Center to collect, preserve, and digitize New England’s early church records.
The New Jersey Early Land Records Project
The New Jersey Early Land Records Projects makes available more than 80,000 colonial-era land records held by the New Jersey State Archives.
North Carolina Land Grant Images and Data
North Carolina Land Grant Images and Data provides searchable data for over 200,000 land grants issued in North Carolina and Tennessee from 1663 to 1960. The database also provides over one million digitized images of grants, patent books, entry books, deeds, warrants, and other land documents.
The Papers of Martin Van Buren
The Papers of Martin Van Buren is a digital project that makes accessible approximately 13,000 documents belonging to Martin Van Buren, the eight president of the United States. Documents include Van Buren’s letters, speeches, notes, and miscellaneous materials.
Papers of the War Department: 1784 - 1800
Papers of the War Department is a free online database that has digitized more than 42,000 documents of the United States Department of War. Materials highlight the War Department’s role not just in military affairs, but also its management of Indian affairs, veteran affairs, naval affairs, and military contracting.
Passenger Search
Passenger Search is an online database of approximately 65 million records of immigrants who arrived at the Port of New York from 1820 to 1957. There is a Ship Search function as well.
Philadelphia Congregations Early Records
Philadelphia Congregations Early Records is a project to digitize some 80,000 pages of records related to Philadelphia’s oldest congregations. These documents are drawn from the archives of Christ Church, St. George’s Methodist Church, Gloria Dei, Mikveh Israel, the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas, the Episcopal Dioceses Archives, the Presbyterian Historical Society, St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, and the American Baptist Historical Society.
Picturing the New World: The Hand-Colored De Bry Engravings of 1590
Picturing the New World features digitized images of Theodore De Bry’s hand-colored engravings of North America that were published in A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia.
The Plymouth Colony Archive Project
The Plymouth Colony Archive Project provides text searchable access to various court records, colonial laws, private writings, probate records, maps, town plans, and other materials related to the seventeenth century Plymouth Colony.
Primeros Libros de Las Americas
Primeros Libros de Las Americas is a collaborate project that seeks to digitized all known publications printed in the Americas during the 16th century. A list of surviving titles is available here.
PRINT - Migration in the Early Modern World
People, Religion, Information Networks, and Travel (PRINT) is a digital history project that traces the communication networks of European religious minorities during the early Modern period.
Prize Papers Project
The Prize Papers Project is a digital archive of documents related to British and German prize ships.
Probing the Past: Virginia and Maryland Probate Inventories, 1740-1810
Probing the Past provides text-searchable transcriptions of hundreds of probate inventories from early Maryland and Virginia.
Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg provides free online access to transcribed copies of the world’s great literature, including early American works.
Quakers and Slavery
Quakers and Slavery is a database that provides links to various digitized sources related to Quakers and the abolition of slavery.
Race & Slavery Petitions Project
Organized by the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, the Race & Slavery Petitions Project offers a searchable database of personal information about slaves, enslavers, and free people of color. Data comes from petitions filed in courts or legislatures throughout the fourteen slaveholding states in the U.S and the District of Columbia. The Petitions can be searched by keyword, name, and subjects.
Reclaiming Heritage: Digitizing Early Nipmuc Histories from Colonial Documents
Reclaiming Heritage is a digitization project from the American Antiquarian Society that provides online access to Algonquian-language printed books and pamphlets, as well as manuscript collections related to Europeans’ expropriation of Nipmuc homelands.
The Revised Dred Scott Case Collection
The Revised Dred Scott Case Collection is a digital project from Washington University St. Louis that provides images of various records related to the freedom suit of Dred and Harriet Scott.
Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and Transcription Project
This University of Virginia project digitizes and transcribes various materials relating to the Salem witch trails of 1692, including a new transcription of the trials’ court records.
The Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection
The Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection provides digitized copies of over 10,000 anti-slavery pamphlets and publications held by Cornell University Library, as well as letters and manuscripts of prominent abolitionists.
Scottish Court of Session Digital Archive Project
The Scottish Court of Session Digital Archive Project is an international collaboration to digitize the papers of Scotland’s Court of Session. This court held vast jurisdiction over economic, social, and political affairs throughout the British Atlantic and early Americans are well represented in its cases. So far, the digitized archive encompasses printed petitions, answers, replies, and case summaries from the late 1750s to the late 1830s.
Slave Societies Digital Archive
Formerly Ecclesiastical and Secular Sources for Slave Societies, the Slave Societies Digital Archive provides digitized access to endangered ecclesiastical and secular documents related to Africans and African-descended peoples in slave societies across the world, including the Americas. It encompasses more than 700,000 digital images of documents and volumes from the 16th to 20th centuries and documents the lives of millions of individuals. Although focused on the history of Africans in the Atlantic World, it provides insights into the indigenous, European, and Asian peoples who lived alongside them.
SlaveVoyages
SlaveVoyages is a collaborative project that documents the capture and transportation of enslaved Africans throughout the Atlantic World. Both the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database and the Intra-American Slave Trade Database comprises information on tens of thousands of slaving expeditions, including points of departure and arrival, owners and captains of slaving vessels, and the number of slaves transported. The People of the Atlantic Slave Trade databases provides the personal details of over 90,000 persons of African Origins who were captured and sold into slavery, as well as the corporate and individual Enslavers responsible for the trade itself.
Southern Campaigns Revolutionary War Pension Statements & Rosters
Southern Campaigns Revolutionary War Pension Statements & Rosters is a database of transcribed Revolutionary War pension statements and rosters. Included are 408 roster transcriptions and 27,286 pension applications and land bounty claims. These transcriptions were completed using the bounty claims, pension claims, and military rosters held by the Library of Virginia and the South Carolina Department of Archives & History.
Stolen Relations: Recovering Stories of Indigenous Enslavement in the Americas
Stolen Relations is an extensive database that documents instances of indigenous enslavement in the Americas from 1492 to 1900.
The Supreme Court Database
The Supreme Court Database provides raw data about each case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States from 1791 to the present.
Three Decks - Warships in the Age of Sail
Three Decks is an online database that provides historical statistics about crews, dockyards, naval actions, shipyards, and vessels during the Age of Sail. It currently features information on nearly 27,000 ships, nearly 44,000 seamen, and over 1,000 battles.
Unknown No Longer
A project started by the Virginia Museum of History & Culture, Unknown No Longer makes accessible biographical details of enslaved Virginians from various unpublished historical records. Since 2019, Unknown No Longer has been hosted by the Virginia Untold portal operated by the Library of Virginia.
Whaling History
Whaling History is a collaborative project between the New Bedford Whaling Museum and the Mystic Seaport Museum. It combines various data sets about American and British shipping in the 18th and 19th centuries, particularly information on whaling. Databases include American Offshore Whaling Voyages, American Offshore Whaling Logbooks, American Offshore Whaling Crew Lists, and many others.
