HIST 400: Native Americans: Books

By using a proper search strategy, the library catalog is an effective tool for lcoating books that are primary sources. WorldCat Local will search for items at the Pepperdine University Libraries and over 70,000 libraries worldwide.

Search by people who witnessed or participated in an event:

• Edmund Nequatewa (a Hopi scholar)
• Queen Liliuokalani (last sovereign monarch of the Hawaiian Kingdom)
• Don C Talayesva (Hopi chief)
• Elias Boudinot (writer and leader of the Cherokee)
• John Ross (chief of Cherokees)

The Library of Congress assigns subject headings that are useful for restricting your search to primary sources:

• correspondence
• diaries
• early works to 1800
• interviews
• pamphlets
• personal narratives
• Sources (this subject heading appears to be most useful for locating primary sources on Native Americans)
• biography (An autobiography is a primary source. Check to see if the author's name also appears in the subject field.)
• oral history
• Anthologies

Please note: books with the phrase "documentary history" in the title often contain primary sources.

You can also restrict your search to books that were written at the time of the historical event to limit your results to primary sources.

There are many books that must be searched with name of a specific affiliation (e.g. Lakota) rather than the broader term "Native Americans."