Research Guides: Slavery and the Slave Trade: Primary Sources

Primary Source Databases

Accessible Archives
Archives of searchable historical primary source materials. Note: This content has moved to the History Commons platform, but still contains the Accessible Archives collections subscribed to by Rowan University.
African Newspapers, Series 1
Diverse African newspapers from 1800-1922.
African American Newspapers, Series 1
African American newspapers published in the U.S. from 1827-1998.
Provides access to U.S. newspapers chronicling a century and a half of the African American experience.
Civil War Collection
Online archive of newspaper articles published in and books during the U.S. Civil War.
Contains the full text of major articles from The New York Herald, The Charleston Mercury and the Richmond Enquirer, published between November 1, 1860 and April 15, 1865. Included are descriptive news articles, eye-witness accounts and official reports of battles and events, editorials, advertisements and biographies.
Eighteenth Century Collections Online
Primary source documents from the Eighteenth Century.
Contains English and foreign language titles printed in the United Kingdom in the Eighteenth Century, including thousands of works from the Americas.
Empire Online
Primary source materials in world history.
This resource brings together manuscript, printed and visual primary source materials for the study of 'Empire' and its theories, practices and consequences. The materials span across the last five centuries and are accompanied by a host of secondary learning resources including scholarly essays, maps and an interactive chronology.
Global Commodities
Primary source materials for the study of global commodities in world history.
Global Commodities brings together manuscript, printed and visual primary source materials for the study of global commodities in world history. The commodities featured in this resource have been transported, exchanged and consumed around the world for hundreds of years. They helped transform societies, global trading operations, habits of consumption and social practices.
Nineteenth Century Collections Online (Gale Primary Sources)
Primary source materials about the Nineteenth Century.
Includes books, newspapers, periodicals, diaries and personal letters, manuscripts, photographs, pamphlets, maps and musical scores.
Sunday Times Historical Archive (Gale Primary Sources)
Archive of the London newspaper The Sunday Times 1822 - 2016.
Thoughtful analysis and commentary on the week's news and society at large.
Times Digital Archive (Gale Primary Sources)
Archive of The Times (London) newspaper from 1785-2019.
Spans over 220 years, from 1785 through 2014. Search the complete digital edition of The Times (London) using keyword searching and hit-term highlighting to retrieve full images of either a specific article or a complete page. The entire newspaper is captured, with all articles, advertisements and illustrations/photos divided into categories to facilitate searching. View contemporaneous coverage of the world's historical events from the French Revolution to the Iraq War.