LibGuides: Historical primary sources for legal history: Databases

Primary source databases

Making of the Modern World
This collection follows the development of the modern western world through the lens of trade and wealth — the driving force behind many of the major events during the period (1450-1850). It can be used to support research in slavery, colonization, the Atlantic world, Latin American/Caribbean studies, social history, gender and more.
Empire Online
This project has been developed to encourage undergraduates, postgraduates, academics and researchers to explore colonial history, politics, culture and society. Material in the collection spans five centuries, charting the story of the rise and fall of empires; from the explorations of Columbus, Captain Cook, and others, right through to de-colonisation in the second half of the twentieth century and debates over American Imperialism.
Eighteenth Century Collections Online
ECCO includes a variety of materials — from books and directories, Bibles, sheet music and sermons to advertisements — and works by many well-known and lesser-known authors, all providing a diverse collection of material for the researcher of the eighteenth century. Included are works from women writers of the eighteenth century; collections on the French Revolution; and numerous editions of the works of Shakespeare.
Making of Modern Law Legal Treatises 1800 - 1926
This digital collection covers the watershed period of legal development during the 19th and early 20th centuries and is a full-text collection of Anglo-American legal treatises of the period. Covers almost every aspect of American and British law. Includes casebooks, local practice manuals, form books, works for lay readers, pamphlets, letters and speeches. Encompasses a range of analytical, theoretical and practical literature for research in United States and British legal history.
HeinOnline
Women and the Law (Peggy) is a collection that brings together books, biographies, and periodicals dedicated to the role of women in society and the law. It provides a convenient platform for users to research the progression of women's roles and rights in society over the past 200 years.
Early Encounters in North America
Early Encounters in North America contains 1,482 authors and over 100,000 pages of letters, diaries, memoirs and accounts of early encounters. Particular care has been taken to index the material so that it can be used in new ways. For example, you can identify all encounters between the French and the Huron between 1650 and 1700. The collection is centered on present-day Canada and the United States with some limited coverage of Mexico.
Place index

American Indian and Alaskan Native Documents in the Congressional Serial Set: 1817-1899
Created at the University of Oklahoma Law Library by digitization of US Serial Set items listed in "guide to American Indian Documents..." by Steven L. Johnson

Global Commodities: Trade, Exploration and Cultural Exchange
Provides a vast range of visual, manuscript and printed materials sourced from over twenty key libraries and more than a dozen companies and trade organisations around the world. These original sources will help scholars to explore the history of fifteen major commodities and to examine the ways that these have changed the world
Foreign Office Files for India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, 1947-1980
Sourced from the British Foreign Office files, this is a resource for the political and social history of India, Pakistan and Afghanistan from 1947-1980. There is an immense variety of material including diplomatic dispatches, telegrams, newspaper cuttings and transcripts, maps, photographs, political and economic reports, accounts of visits and tours, minutes of meetings, conference proceedings, letters, leaflets and other ephemera.
Frontier Life: Borderlands, Settlement & Colonial Encounters
This digital collection of primary source documents helps us to understand existence on the edges of the anglophone world from 1650-1920. Discover the various European and colonial frontier regions of North America, Africa and Australasia through documents that reveal the lives of settlers and indigenous peoples in these areas.
India, Raj and Empire
Drawing upon the wonderfully rich and diverse manuscript collections of the National Library of Scotland this resource will be of great value to all those teaching or researching into the History of South Asia between the foundation of the East India Company in 1615 and the granting of independence to India and Pakistan in 1947.