Pick a research topic

• Read your assignment instructions carefully
• Try to pick a topic that interests you and meets the assignment criteria
• Identify key concepts of your research topic
  • If you need extra help, click on Choosing an essay topic
• Do some background reading on your topic using Wikipedia
  • Using Wikipedia wisely (video)

Explore your topic

Begin your research with Summon. It searches across many of the library's collections simultaneously. It will find books, ebooks, journal titles, games, music, videos, government information, maps, and more.

Use the following resources to obtain an overview of your topic or to find definitions of key terms and concepts.

• Encyclopedia of contemporary Latin American and Caribbean cultures
• Encyclopedia of Latin America
• Encyclopedia of slave resistance and rebellion
• Historical dictionary of ancient Mesoamerica
• Historical dictionary of United States-Latin American relations
• Notable twentieth-century Latin American women : a biographical dictionary
• Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures
• A Political and economic dictionary of Latin America

Finding primary sources in the library collection

1. Original documents can be found by consulting the Archives and Research Collections (ARC) website.
2. Reproductions can be found by using the main search box on the library's homepage.

• Use specific keywords to locate primary sources:

    [PERSON’S NAME] and correspondence
    [PERSON’S NAME] and diaries
    [PERSON’S NAME] and letters
    [KEYWORD] and sources

Latin America:

• Avalon Project / Documents in law, history and diplomacy (Yale Law School)
• Biblioteca Americana - digital collections on early Latin America
• Biblioteca Digital Hispanica - digital collections from the National Library of Spain includes
• Caribbean Views (British Library) - 18th and 19th century images, maps and text, contrasting life experiences in former British colonies
• Colonial Bank Correspondence 1837-1885 - incoming correspondence to the Colonial Bank in Trinidad from its inception in 1837 to 1885
• Early Americas Digital Archive (University of Maryland) - texts originally written in or about the Americas from 1492 to approximately 1820
• Ecclesiastical sources in slave society (Vanderbilt University) - digital archive of ecclesiastical sources for Africans and those of African descent in Cuba, Brazil and Spanish-controlled areas of the Caribbean, covering 16th century - 19th century
• Expeditions and discoveries (Harvard University) - maps, photographs, and published materials, as well as field notes, letters, and manuscript materials on selected expeditions between 1626 and 1953 to Latin America and Asia
• Latin American Data Base (LADB) - University of New Mexico's premier English language Latin America news service
• Latin American pamphlets digital collection (Harvard University)
• Latin American posters collection (Princeton University)
• Linking the Americas (Stanford University) - more than 100 Latin American Studies titles from the Stanford University Press
• New York Public Library Digital Collections - Luso-Hispanic New World in Early Prints and Photographs - more than 600 images taken from 19th Century books
• MOXLAD - Montevideo-Oxford Latin American Economic History Database - demographic, social and economic statistics on 20 Latin American countries 1900-2000
• National Security Archive: Sources on Latin America
• Official documents of the UN
• Precolumbian portfolio - more than 2,000 photographs of artifacts, buldings and images
• Vistas: Visual Culture in Spanish America, 1520-1820
• Women in world history: primary sources (George Mason University)

Argentina:

• Death of Che Guevara- provides a brief narrative and a selection of declassified documents.
• Nunca más (Never Again): Report of Conadep (National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons) - 1984 - testimonies of 881 victims of Argentina's "Dirty War," official documents, reports, verdicts, list of detention centers, and a bibliography
• Digital Collection of Argentinian Presidential Messages (1810-present)

Caribbean:

• Aaron Thomas: The Caribbean journal of a Royal Navy seaman
• Biblioteca Digital Puertorriquena - includes thousands of historic photographs, maps, posters, manuscript material and more
• British Library - Caribbean Views - over 1,200 images, maps and texts from the 18th and 19th centuries reveal contrasting experiences of life in the former British colonies
• dLOC: Digital Library of the Caribbean - provides access to digitized versions of Caribbean cultural, historical and research materials currently held in archives, libraries, and private collections

Cuba:

• Castro speech database
• Cuban Heritage Collection
• Deena Stryker Photographs, 1963-1964, undated

Data and Statistics

• Electoral Data Sets
• Political Database of the Americas
• Latin American Data Bank
• CEPALSTAT (Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean)
• Latin American Election Statistics (University California, San Diego)
• Statistical Institute of Jamaica

Guatemala:

• CIA and Assassinations: The Guatemala 1954 documents

Mexico:

• Archivo de Lucas Alaman - more than 300 Spanish language documents regarding colonial Mexico
• Archivo Fransiscano
• Bracero history archive-
• Colecciones Mexicanas - collection of documents, journals, photographs and bibliographies on the history of Mexico
• Digital collection of Mexican presidential messages (1821-present)
• Mexican American War and the Media, 1845-1848
• Mexican Political Pamphlets (University of Toronto)
• Mexico - 65 years of photography in Mexico
• Tlatelolco Massacre - part of the National Security Archive at George Washington University
• Zapatistas! Documents of the New Mexican Revolution

Newspapers

• Latin American Press Links
• The Guardian (1821-2003) [U.K.]
• New York Times Archives (1851-2007)
• The Observer (1791-2003) [U.K.]
• Times Digital Archive (1785-1985) [U.K.]
• Wall Street Journal (1889-1993)
• Washington Post (1877-1994)

Search the Centre for Research Libraries catalogue by country to find historical newspapers for individual countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.  Most are available in microform and can be ordered through your RACER account.  See also the Latin American Studies Topic Guide.

Panama:

• Make the Dirt Fly (building the Panama Canal) - Smithsonian Institution

ARCHIVES

• Archivo General de la Nacion (Mexico)
• Arquivo Nacional (Brazil)