Primary Sources: America (U.S.A.): Colonial America & Early Republic

Coverage Dates 1774-1875
Contains:

• Journals of the Continental Congress
• Letters of Delegates to Congress
• Elliot's Debates (collects the documents pertinent to the discussions on ratification)
• Farrand's Records (discussions of the Constitutional Convention)
• Bills & Resolutions
• Statutes at Large
• American State Papers
• U.S. Serial Set (selected items)
• House Journal
• Senate Journal
• Senate Executive Journal
• Maclay's Journal (1891 edition)
• Annals of Congress
• Register of Debates
• Congressional Globe
• Congressional Record

This site from the National Archives provides access to and information about the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the U.S., and the Bill of Rights.

Access to the Virginia Gazette Newspaper 1730-1780. Also provides access to York County Probate Records (17th/18th century,) transcripts and images of selected historical documents, as well as Research Reports "documenting the study of the eighteenth-century town since the establishment of the Foundation. "

"Diary of John Harrower, 1773-1776" is an article from The American Historical Review, Volume 6.

"Document Bank of Virginia (DBVa) is the Library of Virginia’s initiative to get documents into classrooms. Using primary sources, teachers can make history relevant to students while helping them learn and understand state standards. DBVa will teach students to be critical thinkers as they analyze the original documents and draw their own conclusions about Virginia’s past."

a collection of electronic texts and links to texts originally written in or about the Americas from 1492 to approximately 1820. Open to the public for research and teaching purposes, EADA is published and supported by the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH) under the general editorship of Professor Ralph Bauer, at the University of Maryland at College Park. Description from site

Online texts of books, pamphlets, and broadsides known to have been printed in the U.S. between 1640 and 1821.

"This web-friendly presentation of the original text of the Federalist Papers (also known as The Federalist) was obtained from the e-text archives of Project Gutenberg. For more information, see About the Federalist Papers."

"In this unique anthology, Philip B. Kurland and Ralph Lerner draw on the writings of a wide array of people engaged in the problem of making popular government safe, steady, and accountable. The documents included range from the early seventeenth century to the 1830s, from the reflections of philosophers to popular pamphlets, from public debates in ratifying conventions to the private correspondence of the leading political actors of the day."

"Now, for the first time, users can freely access the written record of the original thoughts, ideas, debates, and principles of our democracy. You can search across the records of all six Founders and read first drafts of the Declaration of Independence, the spirited debate over the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and the very beginnings of American law, government, and our national story. You can compare and contrast the thoughts and ideas of these six individuals and their correspondents as they discussed and debated through their letters and documents."

"The twenty-six volumes of the Letters of Delegates to Congress, 1774-1789 aims to make available all the documents written by delegates that bear directly upon their work during their years of actual service in the First and Second Continental Congresses, 1774-1789. "

"Contains 277 documents relating to the work of Congress and the drafting and ratification of the Constitution. Items include extracts of the journals of Congress, resolutions, proclamations, committee reports, treaties, and early printed versions of the United States Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Most broadsides are one page in length; others range from 1 to 28 pages. A number of these items contain manuscript annotations not recorded elsewhere that offer insight into the delicate process of creating consensus. In many cases, multiple copies bearing manuscript annotations are available to compare and contrast."

- Publishing and Publicizing the Declaration of IndependenceA Colonial Williamsburg Foundation digital project that contains images of various documents

A digital version of this historic Virginia newspaper "published weekly in Williamsburg, 1736-1780; the news covered all Virginia and included some information for other colonies, Scotland, England etc. Not all the issues survived, and some have surfaced since they were first reproduced on microfilm in the mid-twentieth century that is the basis for the digital version. "