Native American History - New York - Researching - Research Guides @ Fordham at Fordham University Libraries

Background Research with Reference Books

Encyclopedia of New York Indians
Somerset Publishers, 1998.
[Reference Area at RH & LC] E78.N7 E63 1998
Two volumes with an A-Z encyclopedia as well as treaty commentary and documentation.
Encyclopedia of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy) by Bruce Elliott Johansen; Barbara Alice Mann
Greenwood Press, 2000.
Call number [RH Reference Area] E99.I7 E53 2000
The Columbia Guide to American Indians of the Northeast by Kathleen Bragdon
Columbia University Press, 2001.
Call number [RH Stacks] E78.E2 B72 2001

Search the library catalog for additional options.

America: History & Life This link opens in a new window
Index to history of U.S. and Canada comprising nearly 2,000 journals since 1910.
Ethnic NewsWatch This link opens in a new window
Includes Native American newspapers, magazines and journals since 1991.
AnthroSource This link opens in a new window
Online portal serving the research, teaching and practicing needs of anthropologists from the American Anthropological Association.

American Indian Community House
Founded in 1969 to improve and promote the well-being of the American Indian Community in and around NYC.
National Museum of the American Indian in New York
New York location of the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) of the Smithsonian offering exhibitions, research, educational activities, and performing arts programs.

Indigenous Digital Archive Treaties Explorer
Provides digital access to 374 Ratified Indian Treaties with the U.S. alongside additional primary sources that offer context to the agreements.

Nexis Uni (formerly LexisNexis Academic) This link opens in a new window
Major U.S. news including federal and state level legal cases as well as Supreme Court decisions back to 1790. ** Turn off browser pop-up blockers and create an account with your Fordham email for best results.**
A user will be able to download 250 titles/headlines from the search results list at a time. Checking the box next to each search result allows users to download the full document. The system will allow downloading of 100 documents or 1,000 pages at a time. There are no overall total download limits.
ProQuest Legislative Insight This link opens in a new window
Covers full text, primary source Congressional legislative history. Includes all enacted and related bills, Congressional Record excerpts, and related committee documents.
Making of Modern Law: U.S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs 1832-1978 This link opens in a new window
Millions of pages of records and briefs brought before the U.S. Supreme Court between 1832-1978.

Government & Historical Documents
See page on this guide for Dutch & Colonial New York laws and records.

By subscription

Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans Digital Edition This link opens in a new window
Books, pamphlets, and broadsides published during the 17th and 18th centuries.
Early American Imprints, Series II: Shaw-Shoemaker This link opens in a new window
Books, pamphlets, and broadsides published during the early 19th century.

Newspapers at Fordham University Libraries
Provides a listing to Fordham's electronic newspaper subscriptions and databases with both historical and current newspapers.

Open Access

New York State Archives
Offers selected digital collections from New York state and preceding colonial government.
New York State Library
Offers digitized Native American materials.
Digital Public Library of America
Search across many digital archives and collections to locate items relating to Native American history in NY.
Library of Congress Digital Collections
Includes a range of items relating to indigenous history in New York.
Smithsonian Online Virtual Archives (SOVA)
Search across the Smithsonian's archival collections and select Digital to see items that have been digitized.
American Indian Digital History Project
A "digital history cooperative" at the University of Kansas and the University of Nebraska at Omaha offering digitized materials including issues of Akwesasne Notes.

HathiTrust Digital Library This link opens in a new window
Partnership of academic and research libraries offering reading access to millions of digitized books (primarily in the public domain and/or published before 1925).

The State of New York hosted (3) residential boarding schools for Native Americans.

Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative
Resources from the U.S. Department of the Interior.
National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition
Promotes public awareness and healing for American Indian and Alaska Native Nations resulting from the individual and collective trauma of these institutions.
Catholic Truth & Healing : Catholic-Operated Native Boarding Schools in the U.S.
Compiled by a group of archivists, historians, and concerned Catholics documenting Catholic-operated Native Boarding Schools in the United States before 1978.

Image credit: Map of Ho-De-No-Sau-Nee-Ga : Or the territories of the People of the Long House in 1720 by Lewis Morgan via the Library of Congress

Manhattan to Minisink : American Indian Place Names in Greater New York and Vicinity by Robert S. Grumet
University of Oklahoma Press, 2013.
[RH Stacks] F117 .G78 2013

Native Land Digital
Interactive digital map from showing indigenous lands before colonization searchable by territory, language, and treaty.

Lenape Talking Dictionary
A digital dictionary database of Lenape from the Lenape Language Preservation Project. Searchable by English or Lenape words along with audio pronunciation examples.

English-Cayuga/Cayuga-English Dictionary by Carrie Joan Dyck; Frances Froman; Alfred J. Keye; Lottie Keye
University of Toronto Press, 2002.
Call number [RH Reference Area] PM757.Z5 E54 2002
Schmick's Mahican Dictionary by Carl Masthay
American Philosophical Society, 1991.
Call number [RH Oversize Stacks] PM1671 .S24 1991
Onondaga-English/English-Onondaga Dictionary by Hanni Woodbury
ISBN: 080203733X
University of Toronto Press, 2003.
Call number [RH Reference Area] PM2076.Z5 W66 2003
Seneca Morphology and Dictionary by Wallace L. Chafe
Smithsonian Press, 1967.
Call number [RH Oversize Stacks] PM2296 .C43

To cite Indigenous elders and knowledge keepers in APA or MLA, consult the guidance in this paper:

MacLeod, Lorisia. "More Than Personal Communication: Templates For Citing Indigenous Elders and Knowledge Keepers." KULA: Knowledge Creation, Dissemination, and Preservation Studies 5, no. 1 (2021): 1-5.