Slavery in the Americas, 16th through 19th Centuries: Primary Documents

"Primary sources are original records created at the time historical events occurred or well after events in the form of memoirs and oral histories. Primary sources may include letters, manuscripts, diaries, journals, newspapers, speeches, interviews, memoirs, documents produced by government agencies such as Congress or the Office of the President, photographs, audio recordings, moving pictures or video recordings, research data, and objects or artifacts such as works of art or ancient roads, buildings, tools, and weapons. These sources serve as the raw material to interpret the past, and when they are used along with previous interpretations by historians, they provide the resources necessary for historical research." From the American Library Association

William Cronon of the University of Wisconsin-Madison created this excellent guide to primary document research: Learning to Do Historical Research: A Primer for Environmental Historians and Others