Bound in Béxar County: Slavery in San Antonio

Helpful General Websites 

• Bexar Archives Online

"the official Spanish documents that preserve the political, military, economic, and social life of the Spanish province of Texas and the Mexican state of Coahulia y Texas." Documents range from 1717-1805. Includes thousands of documents translated into English. The physical collection is archived at the University of Texas at Austin Briscoe Center.

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• Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936 to 1938
  
  This is a collection of first person narratives sharing the lives of more than 2,300 former enslaved people in the US. These stories were collected as part of the Federal Writers' Project and put on micofilm. In the early 2000s these were digitized along with 500 photographs so they could be made freely available to the public. 
• Civil Rights Digital Library

Searchable databases of online digital collections, and educational material, on the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s.

• Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers

"Search America's historic newspaper pages from 1789-1963 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present."

• Cornerstone Documents

Some items on this website include the Articles of Confederation , The Bill of Rights - the first ten amendments to the Constitution, A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, The Constitution of the United States of America, The Declaration of Independence, Documents from the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention, The Emancipation Proclamation, The Federalist Papers, and The Gettysburg Address.

• Digital Public Library of America (DPLA)

"Offers a single point of access to millions of items—photographs, manuscripts, books, sounds, moving images, and more—from libraries, archives, and museums around the United States." Some material is freely available; access to copyrighted material is limited to in-person use at the member institution.

• Documenting the American South

"Documenting the American South includes fourteen thematic collections of primary sources for the study of southern history, literature, and culture."

• Federal Writers' Project

"The Federal Writers' Project materials in the Library of Congress Manuscript Division are part of a larger collection titled The U.S. Work Projects Administration Federal Writers' Project and Historical Records Survey. The holdings from Federal Writers' Project span the years 1889-1942 and cover a wide range of topics and subprojects. Altogether, the Federal Writers' holdings number approximately 300,000 items and consist of correspondence, memoranda, field reports, notes, graphs, charts, preliminary and corrected drafts of essays, oral testimony, folklore, miscellaneous administrative and miscellaneous other material."

• HathiTrust Digital Library

Collection of millions of titles digitized from libraries around the world. Note: some full-text items, some limited access titles.

• Last Seen Database 
  
  The Last Seen project's goal is to help families find information about ancestors lost and separated through the US slave trade. Formerly enslaved people placed ads looking for loved ones and as of today 4,966 of those ads have been recovered. 

• Library of Congress Digital Collections: Search

"A gateway to the Library of Congress’s vast resources of digitized American historical materials." This portal includes the content from the old American Memory site and additional digital sources. LOC.

• National Archives Catalog

Locate records, and limited digitized materials, from the National Archives. Search and then choose "Available Online" to find digitized materials.

• Network to Freedom Listings
  
  This website created by the National Park Service shows locations related to the Underground Railroad. The interactive map is currently unavailable but the database is searchable. Doing a search for Mission, since the Mission at San Jose was a spot, one can locate the information about the historical site. 
  
  
• Portal to Texas History

"The Portal is a gateway to Texas history materials. From prehistory to the present day, you can explore unique collections from Texas libraries, museums, archives, historical societies, genealogical societies, and private family collections."

• Texas Archival Resources Online (TARO)
  
  TARO is an open access database of archival resources available across the state of Texas. The site mainly consists of finding aids to help users find information in the archives, libraries and museums across the state of Texas. Many collections are not available online unless they have been digitized but the archive or library associated with the finding aid is clearly labeled so contact can be made.
• United States Census Slave Schedules
  
  There were two slave schedules in the US census. One in 1850 and one in 1860. Going through the slave schedules provides researchers with primary source information about enslaved people. 
• Texas State Library and Archives Commission: Online Collections

List and links to online collections available via the TSLAC website.