LibGuides: Latin America: Primary Sources

Websites & Databases for Primary Sources

Latin American & Caribbean Studies, by Archives Unbound This link opens in a new window
Historical documents and other primary sources focusing on Latin America and the Caribbean through topics ranging from Mafia activities in Cuba to the Mexican Revolution, and from political instability in Latin America to foreign relations in Caribbean states.
Revolution and Protest Online This link opens in a new window
A primary source archive that examines how revolutions, protests, resistance, and social movements have shaped and transformed the human experience globally from the 1700s to today. Includes documentaries, original footage, personal accounts, and many other archival materials.
Border and Migration Studies Online This link opens in a new window
Historical documents and other primary sources focusing on both personal and institutional perspectives in the growing fields of border(land) studies and migration studies, as well as history, law, politics, diplomacy, area and global studies, anthropology, medicine, the arts, and more.

Latin American Network Information Center: Digital Initiatives
Through partnerships with organizations in Latin America and globally, LANIC's mission is to facilitate access to online information on, from, or about Latin America. To this end, LANIC hosts an extensive set of digital collections covering many different topics and content areas.
Digital Library of the Caribean
Digitized versions of Caribbean cultural, historical and research materials currently held in archives, libraries, and private collections.
World Digital Library
Search 16,561 items about 193 countries between 8000 BCE and 2000.
Trans-Atlantic Slave Voyages
The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database has 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. Covers Africa, Europe, North America, the Caribbean, and Brazil.
Bibliotecha Digital Mexicana
Brings together digitized content from multiple institutions in Mexico surrounding Mexican history and culture.
Archivo General de la Nacion de Columbia
The National Archives of Columbia.
Early Americas Digital Archive
Translated transcripts of primary source documents originally written in or about the Americas from 1492 to approximately 1820.
Latin American Pamphlets
Harvard's Widener Library is the repository of many scarce and unique Latin American pamphlets published during the 19th and the early 20th centuries.
MOxLAD (Latin American Economic History Database)
Contains statistical series for a wide range of economic and social indicators covering twenty countries in the region for the period 1900-2000.
Biblioteca Naioncal De Brazil
The national library of Brazil, includes digitized books, newspapers, and images.
Ancient Americas at LACMA
The Program for the Art of the Ancient Americas at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is happy to announce the launch of www.ancientamericas.org, a stand-alone website devoted to Pre-Columbian scholarship.

Digital Public Library of America
A vast project that works with many cultural heritage institutions to bring together the riches of America’s libraries, archives, and museums, freely available to the world. It strives to contain the full breadth of human expression, from the written word, to works of art and culture, to records of America’s heritage, to the efforts and data of science. The portal provides innovative ways to search and scan through the united collection of millions of items, including by timeline, map, virtual bookshelf, format, subject, and partner.
The Internet Archive
A nonprofit digital library of public domain material, including the Way Back Machine.
Library of Congress American Memory Project
Written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience.
The National Archives
Search by topic, time period, or place. Useful research guides available to help you.
New York Public Library Digital Collections
NYPL Digital Gallery provides free and open access to over 800,000 images digitized from the New York Public Library's collection.

Online Archive of California (OAC)
Free public access to searchable collection guides (also known as finding aids) for primary resource collections in repositories maintained by more than 200 institutions throughout California, including many digitized collections.
Calisphere
Calisphere provides free access to unique and historically important artifacts for research, teaching, and curious exploration. Discover over 750,000 photographs, documents, letters, artwork, diaries, oral histories, films, advertisements, musical recordings, and more.
Los Angeles Public Library Images
The Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection emphasizes the history of Los Angeles, Southern California, and California. This Internet-accessible collection is one of the treasures of the Central Library.
Los Angles Public Library Visual Collections
The LA Public Library visual collections include both local history collections and other historical collections. Includes maps, images, drawings, posters, menus, and other types of ephemera.
County of Los Angeles Public Library Local History Web Sites
With funding from the Library Services and Technology Act administered by the California State Library, the County of Los Angeles Public Library has created local history Web sites for fifteen of its libraries. These local history Web sites provide answers to frequently asked community history questions twenty-four hours a day via the Internet. The Web sites provide information on Native Americans who lived in the area in prehistoric times, local missions and the early history of the community as well as other historical topics. They also contain images of historic community photographs and other documents, and links and citations to additional community history resources.
The Lawrence de Graaf Center for Oral and Public History
Established in 1968, the Lawrence de Graaf Center for Oral and Public History is a teaching, training, research, publication, and public service archive located at CSU Fullerton's Pollak Library. It contains more than 5,500 oral histories covering a wide range of people and topics from California and beyond.

Latin American Drama This link opens in a new window
Includes plays written by Latin American playwrights from the 1800s-2000s, with most from the period spanning from the Chicano Renaissance to present day.
Latin America in Video This link opens in a new window
Original-language documentaries from some of the most important producers and independent filmmakers in Latin America. The videos were produced in Latin America, by Latin Americans, about Latin American issues, such as human rights, violence, immigration, illiteracy, popular culture, and political history.

Primary Sources in Books

Primary sources such as autobiographies, diaries, letters, photographs, and other documents are often reprinted in books search the library with OneSearch and combine your topic with descriptions like these.

Primary Sources at CSULA

Mesoamerica and Colonial Mexico Rare Book Collection

Comprised of three collections: Ruwet, Glass and Nicholson. The three collections amount for approximately 7,000 books and documents that include the papers and research works of three donors.

The collection is divided into three large groups:

The Mesoamerican,
the Colonial
Independent periods of Mexican history from the 16th to 20th century.

The collection includes facsimile editions of the Pre-Columbian Codices, such as the Borgia, Nuttall, Fejervary-Mayer, Vaticanus A and B, Selden, Borbonicus, Boturini, Mendoza, De la Cruz-Badiano, Florentine Codex.

Cal State LA MesoAmerican Rare Book Collection Search

More Latin American Collections at Cal State LA

Central American Solidarity Collection
The collection was created based on publications and materials related to Central American Solidarity Networks in Los Angeles from the late-1970s to mid-1990s. The collection is based on material housed in the Latin American Studies Center of Cal State LA. The materials were acquired by a number of different faculty members and students in the Latin American Studies program over the course of three decades.
Salvadoran Refugees Audio Cassette Collection
The material was recorded in Mesa Grande by the members of the Latin American folk music group Sabiá (Cindy Harding, Libby Harding, Mari Riddle, and Ericka Verba), who also performed for the refugees during their visit to the camp.
The Mesa Grande refugee camp was located 30 miles from the border of El Salvador in Honduras. Over 10,000 refugees lived there in 1983 who fled into Honduras to escape Salvadoran Army counter-insurgency tactics.