J. Kelly Robison


American Historical Documents


European Background

Homages Paid by the Counts of Champagne, 1143

The Manner of Doing Homage & Fealty, c. 1275

Magna Carta, 1215

Founding a Republic, Excerpt from Discourses I, 9 Niccolo Machiavelli

Address to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, Martin Luther, (1520)

European Exploration

Marco Polo, On the Tatars

Treaty of Tordesillas, 1494

Letter to the King and Queen of Spain - Christopher Columbus, (Undated, probably 1494)

King Ferdinand's letter to the Taino/Arawak Indians

The Requerimiento, 1512

Royal Instructions for the Viceroy Mendoza, 1535

Discourse of Western Planting - Richard Hakluyt, 1584

Voyages - Samuel de Champlain, 1604 (excerpt)

Thomas Hariot, "Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia

Arthur Barlowe on the first voyage to Roanoke

Jacque Cartier on the Micmac meeting the French

Colonial America

Laws of Burgos, 1512-1513

Sir Walter Raleigh's Charter

John Smith and the Founding of Jamestown, 1607

The Mayflower Compact, November 1620

Plymouth Charter

Charter of Massachusetts Bay Company, 1629

A Modell of Christian Charity, John Winthrop

William Bradford on Sickness Among the Natives, 1633

The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, 1639

Jesuit Observations on the "Enslavement" of Native American Women

Jesuit Comparison of Native and European Life, 1657-1658

Bacon's Declaration in the Name of the People, 30 July 1676

Governor William Berkely on Bacon's Rebellion, 19 May 1676

Commission of Sir Edmund Andros for the Dominion of New England. April 7, 1688

Bill of Rights, 1689

A Letter Concerning Toleration - John Locke

William Penn's Plan of Union, 1697

Eighteenth Century

A Puritan Prescription  for Marital Concord

Governor Gabriel Johnston's request to repeal the North Carolina Biennal Act

Jonathon Swift - A Modest Proposal

Disposition of the North Carolina Biennal Act, 1737

"Lines on Childbirth" - Jane Colman Tyrell, 1741

REASONS FOR MAKING BAR, AS WELL AS PIG OR SOW-IRON IN HIS MAJESTY'S PLANTATION ca. 1750

Reasons Offered Against Encouraging Making Iron In America

REASON AGAINST A GENERAL PROHIBITION OF THE IRON MANUFACTURE IN HIS MAJESTY'S PLANTATIONS, Ca. 1750

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God - Jonathon Edwards

Peter Kalm Indicts Wastefulness in American Land Use, 1750

Pennsylvania:  the Poor Man's Paradise - Thomas

On the Misfortune of Indentured Servants - Gottlieb Mittelberger, 1754

Servants and Slaves in Virginia

Olaudah Equiano Recalls the Horrors of the Middle Passage, 1756

Franklin's Advice on Choosing a Mistress

The Albany Plan of Union, 1754

Treaty of Paris, 1763

On Colonies - Adam Smith

Revolution and Constitution

Resolutions of the Stamp Act Congress, October 19, 1765

"Considerations on the Propriety of Imposing Taxes in the British Colonies, for the Purpose of rasing a Revenue, by Act of Parliament" - Daniel Dulany

Letters from a Farmer, letters 2 & 4- John Dickinson

Account of the Boston Massacre - Preston

Anonymous Account of the Boston Massacre

Novanglus - John Adams, February 6, 1775

The Objections to the Taxation of our American Colonies by the Legislature of Great Britain, briefly consider'd., Soame Jenyns

Liberty or Death Speech - Patrick Henry, 1775

Virginia Declaration of Rights

Speech on conciliation with America - Edmund Burke, March 22, 1775

The Charlotte Town Resolves, May 31, 1775

Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms, July 6, 1775

The True Interest of America Impartially Stated, 1776 - Charles Inglis

Commonsense - Thomas Paine, 1776

The Rights Of Man - Thomas Paine

Declaration of Independence

Yankee Doodle - American Traditional Song

Declaration and Resolves of the First Continental Congress, October 14, 1775

Articles of Confederation

Treaty of Paris, 1783

Constitution of the Iroquois

The Annapolis Convention, September 14, 1786

Variant Texts of the Virginia Plan - Text A

The Constitution

Proposed Amendments to the Constitution

Constitutional Amendments

Draft for a Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, by Jefferson 1779

Federalist #10

Early Republic

The Northwest Ordinance, July 13, 1787

Jay's Treaty, 1794

Treaty of Greenville, 1795

Treaty of Peace and Friendship, Signed at Tripoli November 4, 1796

Whiskey Rebellion Proclamation

The Sedition Act of July 14, 1798

Virginia Resolutions, 1798

Kentucky Resolutions, 1799

Authority Given to the President to Take Possession of the Territory of Louisiana, 1803

Barbary Treaty, 1805

Proposed Amendments made at the Hartford Convention

Dartmouth College v. Woodward

McCulloch v. Maryland, 1819

Adams-Onis Treaty, 1819

The Monroe Doctrine

Cherokee Nation V. Georgia

A Challenge to European Stereotypes of Native American Gender Relations, 1819

The Harmony of Interests: Agricultural, Manufacturing & Commercial - Henry Carey

Andrew Jackson on Nullification

Address to the Free Persons of Colour in the United States - Richard Allen, 20 September 1830

Thomas Jefferson on Slavery

The Transcendentalist - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Declaration of Sentiments of the American Anti-Slavery Society, 1833

Report No. 12 of the Massachusetts School Board (1848), Horace Mann

Seneca Falls Declaration, 1848

Crisis of Union - the Mexican-American War to Reconstruction

The Leg I Left Behind Me - Parody from the Mexican-American War

The Kearney Codes

Civil Disobedience - Henry David Thoreau

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, 1848

Fugitive Slave Act of 1850

Kansas-Nebraska Act, 1855

The Dred Scott Decision, 1856

A Plea for Captain John Brown - Henry David Thoreau - 1858

Constitution of the Confederate States of America

The Emancipation Proclamation, 1862

Gettysburg Address - Abraham Lincoln

The Gilded Age

Chief Seattle's Treaty Oration, 1854

Ft. Laramie Treaty, 1869

Standing Bear v. Crook

U.S. v. Joseph, 1876

U.S. v. Sandoval, 1914

First Open Door Note - [John Hay to Andrew D. White], 1899

Kellogg - Briand Pact

Edison's Electric Light

The Gospel of Wealth - Andrew Carnegie

To the Person Sitting in Darkness, Mark Twain - North American Review 172 (Feb. 1901)

1601, Mark Twain

Life in the Tenements of New York City (1890) - Jacob Riis

The Significance of the Frontier in American History - Frederick Jackson Turner

Statement of the Immigration Restriction League

Atlantic Exposition Speech - Booker T. Washington

People's Party Platform, 1896

"The Wabash Cannonball" - American Traditional Song

World War I to The Great Depression

In Support of Prohibiton - Hobson

"A Glimpse behind the Mask of Prohibition" - Percy Andreae, 1915

Espionage Act of 1918

"The State" - Randolph Bourne

Absurdities of the Bible - Clarence Darrow

"Brother Can You Spare A Dime" - song from the Great Depression

Indian Reorganization Act, 1934

Marijuana Tax Act of 1937

World War II

Peace in Our Time (excerpt) - Neville Chamberlain, 1939

Lend-Lease Act, 1941

"Four Freedoms Speech" - Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1941

"A Day Which Will Live in Infamy" - Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1941

Atlantic Charter, 1941

Casablanca Conference, Feb 12, 1943

Lilli Marlene (in English) - song from World War II

Lilli Marlene (in German) - song from World War II

The Yalta Conference

The Japanese Surrender Documents - WWII

Cold War to the Reagan Era

United Nations Charter

Declaration on Human Rights - United Nations

The Sinews of Peace - Winston Churchill, March 5, 1946
Also called the "Iron Curtain Speech"

Truman Doctrine Speech, March 12, 1947

The "Long Telegram" - George Kennan

Soviet Conduct - X (George Kennan)

The U-2 Incident, 1960

1st Inaugural Address - John F. Kennedy, January 20, 1961

Letter from a Birmingham Jail - Martin Luther King, Jr.

"I Have a Dream" - Martin Luther King, Jr.

THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT: FRAUD, SHAM, AND HOAX, George Wallace - July 4 1964

"The Problem That Has No Name" - Betty Friedan, 1963

The Alcatraz Proclamation

Letters to Ngo Dinh Diem, Premier of South Vietnam from President Eisenhower, 1954 and President Kennedy, 1961

Gulf of Tonkin Resolutions, 1964

Controversy on Campus - Glenn S. Dumke, 1969

Vietnam Veterans Against the War Statement, John Kerry - 1971

War Powers Resolution, 1973

"AGGRESION FROM THE NORTH": STATE DEPARTMENT WHITE PAPER ON VIETNAM, February 27, 1965

Timeline of the Watergate Affair

Ronald Reagan, First Inaugural Address - January 20, 1981

Democracy and Foreign Policy (1990)

Bob Dole's Republican Presidential Nomination Acceptance Speech, 1996

National Hymn of the Bundesrepublik Deutschland (West Germany)

National Hymn of the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (East Germany)

Amazing Grace