ASD Libraries: G08: Colonial America, Colonization or the Americas: Personal Research

Where to find information

CultureGrams
Reference resource for reliable cultural information on the countries of the world.

NYTimes Times Machine
TimesMachine is a searchable interface of digitized pages of New York Times issues published between 1851 and 2002. Articles published between 1851 and 1980 are available to download as PDF files.
Download an article as a PDF by clicking on the article, and click on "PDF" in the left menu. (See "Continue Reading: PDF"):
List of online newspaper archives
This Wikipedia list shows newspaper archives from around the world, the dates that are available, the languages the paper is in and whether they are free or not.

Economic Data

The World Economy
Angus Maddison here offers a rare insight into the history and political influence of national accounts and national accounting. He demonstrates that such statistical data can shed light on the analysis of economic phenomena such as growth, market formation and income distribution.
The economic impact of colonialism
The immense economic inequality we observe in the world today is the path-dependent outcome of a multitude of historical processes, one of the most important of which has been European colonialism.

Migration

Migration
Hundreds of millions of people live in a country that is different from the one in which they were born. In some countries, the majority of the population are immigrants.

Migration has played a crucial role in economic development, education and mobility. The transfer of money from migrants working overseas to family or friends in their home country – remittances – can be an important source of income in many countries.
On this page you can find all our data and visualizations relating to migration.

Primary, Secondary & Tertiary Sources

European overseas colonies and their colonizers over time

Use both the map and the data table to get information on colonizers and colonized countries.

Bastian Becker (2023) – with major processing by Our World in Data. “European overseas colonies and their colonizers over time” [dataset]. Bastian Becker, “Colonial Dates Dataset (COLDAT) 3.0” [original data]. Retrieved December 10, 2024 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/european-overseas-colonies-and-their-colonizers

Number of European overseas colonies by region

Bastian Becker (2023) – with major processing by Our World in Data. “Number of European overseas colonies by region” [dataset]. Bastian Becker, “Colonial Dates Dataset (COLDAT) 3.0” [original data]. Retrieved December 10, 2024 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-european-overseas-colonies-by-region

Religion

Colonial rationale and resistance
Colonial powers justified their conquests by claiming they had a legal and religious obligation to control the land and culture of Indigenous peoples. Conquering nations cast their role as civilizing “barbaric” or “savage” nations, and argued that they were acting in the best interests of those whose lands and peoples they exploited.
The religious legacy of slavery and colonisation
What role did Christian missionaries play in slavery? And how did they influence the contemporary religious experience of descendants of enslaved and colonised people? VU anthropologist Amisah Bakuri is investigating this historical legacy and how people of Afro-Caribbean and West African descent deal with it. "For many people, it felt like they were not free to choose their religion. They had to decide: either accept this religion or life will become even harder for you.”