Explore five centuries of journeys across the globe, scientific discoveries, the expansion of European colonialism, conflict over territories and trade routes, and decades-long search and rescue attempts in this multi-archive collection dedicated to the history of exploration.

This collection includes digitized material from the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. There are two modules with Module 1 covering the years 1493-1859 - Colonial American Settlement, Commerce, Revolution and Reform.

The BAO Collections are divided into twelve broad topics including British Records on the Atlantic World, (1700-1900) and Colonial & Missionary Records.

This product contains digitized copies of 1,450 files of the CO 5 class of Colonial Office files held at The National Archives External in London and consists of the original correspondence between the Board of Trade and Secretaries of State and the British colonies in North America and the Caribbean. This product has 5 modules the first two of which are available: Module 1 includes Early Settlement, Expansion and Rivalries; Module 2 includes Towards Revolution; Module 3 includes The American Revolution; Module 4 includes Legislation and Politics in the Colonies; and Module 5 includes Growth, Trade and Development. Adam Matthew offers a brief video External with more information.

Stretching from Jamaica and the Bahamas to Trinidad and Tobago, Colonial Caribbean makes available materials from 27 Colonial Office file classes from The National Archives, UK. Covering the history of the various territories under British colonial governance from 1624 to 1870, this extensive resource includes administrative documentation, trade and shipping records, minutes of council meetings, and details of plantation life, colonial settlement, imperial rivalries across the region, and the growing concern of absentee landlords.

This database contains full-text of more than 36,000 printed works covering American history and literature through the Colonial period up to the eighteenth century; (coverage is 1639 to 1800). It contains a wide range of genres, including advertisements, broadsides, maps, trade catalogs, etc. This is a subscription database that the Library of Congress does subscribe to, but access is limited to onsite researchers, so check your local or university library for availability.

This database contains unpublished and published materials that describe the interaction of peoples and events between 1534 and 1860 in North America documenting the impressions of the first European traders, missionaries, explorers, soldiers, and officials.

ECCO and ECCO Part II contains digital images of over 150,000 books, broadsides, pamphlets, sermons, sheet music, and ephemera published during the 18th Century and covers diverse topics that include Business practices, covering banking, taxation and lotteries, manufacturers and merchants, artisans and skilled workers.

Empire Online is a powerful and interactive collection of over 70,000 images of primary source documents, sourced from leading archives around the world. This project has been developed to encourage 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. There is a good balance between highly indexed manuscript and full text printed material, with a broad range of document types written by women and men from the European and non-European perspective. The Image Gallery also showcases stunning color photographs and illustrations from the collection.

Global Commodities: Trade, Exploration and Cultural Exchange provides a vast array of visual,manuscript and printed primary sources from over twenty key libraries and more than a dozen companies and trade organizations around the world. The 15 major commodities explored in this resource are: Chocolate, Coffee, Cotton, Fur, Opium, Oil, Porcelain, Silver and Gold, Spices, Sugar, Tea, Timber, Tobacco, Wheat, Wine and Spirits. The large selection of original material offers information on subjects such as: Advertising and Consumption Cultivation and Production Exploration and Discovery Ecology and the Environment Global Trade and Commerce Health and Welfare Politics and Empire Social Practice Transportation and Exchange. The types of material represented include: business accounts, mercantile papers and correspondence, government reports, rare pamphlets, dock records, prices current, bills, entry and trade returns, historical maps, advertising memorabilia and ephemera, including posters and packaging, photographs, paintings and prints.

A compendium of statistics from over 1,000 sources containing over 37,000 data series and covering the social, economic, and political life of the United States. Topics range from American Indians, slavery, outlying areas, poverty, non-profit organizations, race and ethnicity to migration, health, crime and the Confederate States of America. Chapters are preceded by essays that introduce the quantitative history of their subject, provide a guide to the sources, and offer expert advice on the reliability of the data and the limits that might be placed on their interpretation.

U.K. Parliamentary Papers provide a forum for the ideas of hundreds of thinkers in the UK, among them Jenner, Arnold, Trollope, Mill, Faraday, Babbage, Telford, and Brunel. Parliamentary Papers cover all areas of social, political, economic, and foreign policy, not only for the United Kingdom, but for the whole of the British Empire. Topics covered include: British Imperialism; the move from an agrarian society to an industrial society; social conditions of the British working class; public health issues; removal of the American Indians; agriculture; travel; and immigration. There will be ongoing regular releases of papers from current sessions of Parliament. The main collections are:
-House of Commons Parliamentary Papers, 1715-2015
-House of Lords Parliamentary Papers, 1714-1910
-Public Petitions to Parliament, 1833-1918

This database is a collection of full-text, keyword-searchable academic journals dating back to the late 17th century. It includes journals like: The William and Mary Quarterly, Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography,The Business History Review, The Journal of Economic History, The Economic History Review, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, etc.

This resource contains the published records of the American colonies, documents published by state constitutional conventions, state codes, city charters, law dictionaries, digests, and other resources in American legal history. There is a complimentary database Making of Modern Law: Trials 1600-1926 also from Gale.

This database provides digital facsimile images of unique primary sources that track the development of the modern, western world through the lens of trade and wealth. It allows for full-text searching across millions of pages of works from 1450-1850.

Oxford Bibliographies Online (OBO) is a tool designed to help busy researchers find reliable sources of information quickly by directing them to exactly the right chapter, book, website, archive, or data set they need for their research. OBO is a library of disciplined-based subject modules. In each subject module, leading scholars have produced a literary guide to the most important and significant sources in an area of study they know best. The guides feature a selective list of bibliographic citations supported by direct recommendations about which sources to consult. Each topic has a unique editorial commentary to show how the cited sources are interrelated. The citations promote discoverability as they link out to the sources via your library collection or through Google books and more. Samples include:
Atlantic Trade and the European Economy
Atlantic Slavery
Slavery in Dutch America and the West Indies
African Retailers and Small Artisans
Economy and Consumption in the Atlantic World
Europe and the Globe, 1350–1700
French American Port Cities

Sabin Americana contains books, pamphlets and other documents about society, politics, culture, religious beliefs, and contemporary opinions for North, Central and South America, the Arctic and Antarctica and the West Indies. This resource offers original accounts of exploration, pioneering, settlement, the western movement, military actions, Native Americans, slavery and abolition.

This collection brings together all known legal materials on slavery in the United States and the English-speaking world. Coverage begins in the 15th century, so it includes every statute passed by every colony and state on slavery.

State Papers Online, 1509 -1714, is published in four Parts and offers researchers an online resource for understanding two hundred years of British and European history.

This database includes digitized materials that cover the founding and economic development of Virginia as seen through the papers of the Virginia Company of London (1606-1624) and is predominantly the Ferrar family papers held by Magdalene College (Cambridge). See also the internet link which may have some or all of the same content.