Primary Sources - World History Digital Collections

A collection of cultural heritage items from Latin America and the Caribbean, including books, manuscripts, maps, photographs, and films contributed by partner institutions worldwide.

Consists of links to primary documents on relations between the United States and Latin America across topics ranging from early Spanish explorations and the Amistad affair to the Mexican American War, the Spanish American War, imperialism, interventions, human rights, and trade agreements such as NAFTA and CAFTA.

A curated index of links to primary sources, archives, and other resources for researching Latin American history.

Declassified U.S. government records and curated briefings on Guatemala, including the 1954 coup, the “Death Squad Dossier,” and security force files.

Digitized newspapers and magazines from Tucson, El Paso, Los Angeles, and other communities.

Declassified U.S. government documents on human rights abuses in Argentina from 1975 to 1984, with online access via the Intelligence Community’s Argentina Declassification Project portal and related releases from the National Archives.

Presents transcribed and contextualized primary sources on Jamaica in the Age of Revolution, especially the Simon Taylor correspondence

Digitized, scarce pamphlets primarily from Chile, Cuba, Bolivia, and Mexico published in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Features pamphlets, posters, and other campaign materials from political parties across Mexico, Central America, and South America between 1980 and 2009, documenting elections, political movements, and government transitions.

Access to nearly 300 digitized manuscripts, documents, and artifacts spanning twelve centuries, with strengths in K’iche’, Yucatec, and Nahuatl.

Declassified U.S. and Mexican government documents from the 1960s to the present on topics such as the Dirty War, Ayotzinapa, and CIA Mexico intelligence ties, with searchable briefings and document sets.

Showcases books, pamphlets, maps, and prints that narrate the Haitian Revolution’s major turning points, key personalities, and Atlantic context.

A collaborative digital collection that brings together multilingual primary sources from across the Americas including Canada the Caribbean and Latin America from the colonial era to the present.

Provides a wide range of digitized materials from the Panama Canal Museum Collection and partners that document life in the Canal Zone and the history of the canal, especially during the U.S. era.

Provides digitized U.S. government documents that record the administration, engineering, and operation of the Panama Canal from its construction through the late twentieth century.

Compiles CIA, DIA, and State Department records on Augusto Pinochet’s repression, U.S. support for his regime, and the Letelier-Moffitt assassination, providing PDFs and context posted in December 2006.

An interactive cartographic narrative that maps the 1760 to 1761 uprising in Jamaica, pairing an animated timeline with documentary sources to show how geography shaped the revolt.

Gathers primary documents and context on slavery in Saint-Domingue and the Haitian Revolution, featuring laws like the Code Noir, images, pamphlets, and newspaper accounts that trace abolition, revolt, and independence.

Historical images that document the African slave trade and the lives of enslaved people and their descendants across the Atlantic world.

Presents digitized primary sources created in collaboration with the National Library of Brazil.

The materials mostly date from 1976 to 1989 and include reports by Raúl Castro on aid to Angola, memoranda of Fidel Castro’s conversations with Soviet leaders, and other official sources.

Contains declassified U.S. records from 1988 to 2002 on guerrillas, paramilitaries, drug policy, human rights, and the evolution of U.S. assistance including Plan Colombia.

Brings together EZLN communiqués, early newspaper reports, a timeline, and the full text of the anthology for studying the 1994 Chiapas uprising.