Colonial Chart

This page offers an overview of primary sources published during the colonial era and of copies of archival material. It serves as an index to the more detailed and region-specific sources on the other pages of this guide. For original archival sources residing only in repositories in Britain and former colonies, see the left-hand side of the other pages of this guide, and the British and All Countries pages of the Library Research Guide for Finding Manuscripts and Archival Collections. 

Archival records includes not only the records of particular agencies and persons, but also the vast mass of correspondence between local officials and London.

Discovering sources for countries/regions in the formal and informal British Empire depends on knowing the administering agency in the British Government. and the  status of the country for your era (colony, protectorate, League of Nations mandate, informal control).

Administration of the Empire was largely conducted by the Colonial Office, the India Office, the Dominions Office (1925-  ) and the Foreign Office.

  • Colonial Office: Numerous Crown Colonies worldwide, League of Nations mandated territories
  • Dominions Office: Australia, New Zealand and others
  • India Office: India, Burma (to 1937 & the creation of the Burma Office), Aden, Yemen, Straits Settlements (until 1867).
  • Foreign Office: Numerous “Protectorates”, that is, countries with local rulers but with control by Britain under treaty

The respective purviews of the three Offices were not static. For example, the Straits Settlements were transferred from the India Office to the Colonial Office in 1867. Many African Colonial Office colonies were protectorates administered by the Foreign Office Consular Service until the late 19th century. You can determine the status of a particular country at a particular time in:

Sources for general annual summaries for each country

  • Statesman’s year-book, 1864- . London: Palgrave.
    Online Version (1864- )
    ---To see a chronological list of the volumes or to find a particular year, open Search (top right) and search “Statesman's Yearbook”. On the left Content Type, choose Book. Sort by: Oldest first.  For a particular year, Add the year to the search. 
    HathiTrust (1876-1923) HathiTrust (1864-1927)  --  Internet Archive (1985-2021)  --  Google Books (1864-1873)  --  HOLLIS Record
    • Includes bibliography sections, called Books of Reference, which include yearbooks. These sections are sometimes located at the end of the section for the country concerned, but sometimes appear as a group bibliography, e.g., Gambia, Gold Coast Sierra Leone (1923)
  • Whitaker's almanack. [before 1992 titled Almanack for the year of our Lord…) London: J. Whitaker, 1869- .
    HOLLIS Records  --  HathiTrust (1869-1922)  --  Internet Archive (1869-2016; most of the 48 volumes listed as 1869 are actually of later date)  --
    Google Books (1872-1907)  --  Internet Archive Full Text (1869-2016)

Outline of Resources for Primary Sources

Government Sources

Central Government Sources (London)

Parliamentary Papers

Prior to the 1920s vast numbers of documents and reports were submitted to Parliament and published in the House of Commons Parliamentary Papers . During the 1920s this practice was reduced, and largely, only documents related to current Parliamentary legislation or other concerns were submitted.

Departmental Lists

The Colonial, India, and Foreign offices produced (sometimes printed by a commercial publisher) annual books which included directory and other information about their officers and about countries with which they were involved. The Colonial Office list is of particular value because it contains brief annual descriptions of each colony. The India Office List and the Foreign Office List are limited to directory information.

  • Colonial Office List includes:
    • brief descriptions of each colony with officials and statistics (largely population and import/export),
    • brief biographical information on Colonial Office personnel,
    • “Imperial and Local Acts of General Interest",
    • colonial regulations,
    • “Papers Presented to Parliament relating to the Colonies since 1864” arranged by colony.
    • Initial table of contents and Index of Subjects and Appointments; terminal index of names
  • The India Office List includes
    • Personnel directory which offers overview of government  departments.
    • "Record of Service" which is a who’s who of India Office officials
    • List of ruling princes and chiefs of the princely states
    • "Official Publications relating to India" lists Parliamentary reports and selected Indian government documents
    • "India" offers descriptions of India as a whole and of individual provinces updated from the Imperial Gazetteer of India. Section covers roughly 40 pages.
    • Much additional information (regulations, wages, pensions, etc.
    • Title and content has varied over time.
  • The Foreign Office List includes
    • Directory information for personnel, legations, embassies and consulates
    • "Statement of Services", a roughly 230 page list of FO officers with service histories
    • Deaths and obituaries
    Annual Reports

    The Colonial Office directed colonial governors to send annual reports on conditions in their jurisdictions.  These were combined with information from the statistical Blue Books (see below) to form the Annual Reports published by the Colonial Office. The Colonial Reports were issued as Annual (on particular colonies) and Miscellaneous (on general colonial topics). For more details and instructions for finding them, see the Colonial Office page of this guide.

    League of Nations Reports (Mandated Territories)

    After World War I, territories held by the German and Ottoman empires were assigned for administration to, largely Great Britain and France by the League of Nations.  Britain submitted annual reports on these countries. More information Mandates of the League of Nations   --  Detailed maps

    HathiTrust (1920-1944 incomplete)

    Internet Archive: Reports [Great Britain] on Mandated Territories 1920-25 including Iraq 1920-22, 1922-23, 1923-24; Palestine 1923(x2), 1924(x2), 1920-1925; British Cameroons 1923, 1924; Tanganyika 1923, 1924; Togoland 1923, 1924; Miscellaneous reports

    League of Nations Archives: search, for example: Mandate Togoland report

    British India

    The India Office published annual reports from 1859-1935

    East India (progress and condition) Statement exhibiting the moral and material progress and condition of India.
    HOLLIS Record 
    HathiTrust Full Text  1959-1935

    Also issued as: India in the years ..  India. Bureau of Public Information.   Calcutta, 1919-  1917/1918- 
    HOLLIS Record
    Hathitrust Full Text 1917-1928

    Statistics Sources

    The Colonial Office and the Foreign Office reported country/colony statistics to the Board of Trade which published frequent "Statistical Abstracts" and "Statistical Tables" under varying titles. The Colonial Office and later the Commonwealth Office published the Digest of Colonial Statistics  and Digest of  Statistics (1952-?). For access see the Statistics page of this guide.

    For India see the South Asia page of this guide

    Blue Books

    The country Blue Books were statistical reports sent annually starting in the early 1820s  to the War and Colonial Office (-1854) and thereafter to the Colonial Office from each colony.. They contain statistical and other information on agriculture, education, transport, imports and exports, crime, hospitals, health, laws passed, expenditures and revenue, etc., together with the name, date appointed, and salary of colonial officials.  Initially there were handwritten in multiple copies on forms provided by the Colonial Office. By the end of the 19th century, most were printed in the dependency with multiple copies send to London.

    They are described in Royal Commonwealth Society Official Publications Project. They are not available in the House of Common Parliamentary Papers database.  Find them in HOLLIS by searching the country and the phrase “blue book” or look for them in CRL’s holdings (and order via Interlibrary loan).. Example

    Bibliography of official statistical yearbooks and bulletins, by Gloria Westfall. Alexandria, VA : Chadwyck-Healey, 1986, 247 p.
    HOLLIS Record
    Internet Archive Full Text
    --Largely currently published series

    Privy Council Acts

    The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London was the final court of appeal for cases originating in the colonies and the India Office lands.

    Consular and Diplomatic Reports

    Foreign Office personnel stationed abroad (largely consuls and secretaries of embassies and legations regularly sent reports on economics, trade, and sometimes political conditions.  These, from 1854 (some earlier) until around 1920, were submitted to Parliament as Consular and Diplomatic Reports.

    British consuls (part of the diplomatic service) are officials in foreign countries who look after the needs of British citizens resident in or visiting their assigned country. They promote British commercial interests and report on trade, among other duties.

    Reports from Her Majesty's consuls on the manufactures, commerce, &c. of their consular districts.
    HathiTrust Full Text 1862-1886

    Diplomatic and Consular Reports. Annual Series
    HathiTrust Full Text 1886-1914

    Treaties

    In protectorates, Indian princely states, and some other countries, British influence was often exerted through treaties with local rulers. Several sources are available for accessing treaties

    Archival Sources

    Foreign/Colonial Office Correspondence

    Correspondence, Colonial Office and Foreign Office, consisted of letters exchanged between Foreign and Colonial Office personnel and other government departments and exchanges between London and officials overseas. It is archival (not public documents). In the 19th Century through the early 1920s much correspondence was printed for intraoffice and often submitted to Parliament. It therefore overlaps with the Confidential Prints. The material submitted to Parliament is available in the Parliamentary Papers database.  Most of the rest can only be viewed at the National Archives, but a considerable amount is available online or microfilm format.

    Online

    HathiTrust: Colonial Office   ---   Foreign Office

    Internet Archive: Colonial Office   ---   Foreign Office

    Print and microfilm versions in HOLLIS and WorldCat (available via Interlibrary Loan)

    CRL Holdings: Colonial Office --- CRL Holdings: Foreign Office

    Confidential prints (CO, FO)

    From late 1820s, the Colonial Office and the Foreign Office made printed copies of most significant  documents for distribution, as needed, to Parliament, the Cabinet Office and to FO and CO officials in London and abroad. They appeared in several regional series and Misc. series.

    Digital collections of confidential prints are available for Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and North America, not for much of Asia and for the numerous miscellaneous prints. Sources fro these are listed on the Colonial Office and Foreign Office pages.

    Unpublished Archival Sources

    Archival material is largely held in the National Archives (Colonial Office & Foreign Office) and the British Library (East India Company/India Office). See the guides listed under the Guides and Bibliographies column of the pages in this guide and the Library Research Guide for Finding Manuscripts and Archival Collections.

    Local Government Sources

    The local colonial administrations published their own documents.

    For the organization of the government of British India, see the South Asia page of this guide.

    The Government Documents/Microforms Collection holds a collection of paper government documents on Level D in Lamont. You can fill out an online form to request the documents. These can be browsed online. For HOLLIS, use the “Starts with/Browse …” link on the basic search screen and browse Old Widener Call Number: Afr Doc 3200.  

    To find the proper call number for such a browse and to find government documents elsewhere at Harvard, search your country as an author. In HOLLIS Library Catalog Advanced Search, change menu to: Keywords anywhere to Author.  You can further refine your search in the right hand column of the Results page. Also try: Subject contains: "government publications" and Uganda.

    More resources for finding local government documents are listed in Library Research Guide for History: Foreign Government & International Organization Documents.

    List of the serial publications of foreign governments, 1815-1931. ed. by Winifred Gregory for the American council of learned societies, American library association, National research council. NY: The H. W. Wilson company, 1932, 720 pages. HOLLIS Record  --  HathiTrust Full Text  --  Internet Archive Full Text

    A valuable source. Lists government departments for each country (and colony) and titles and dates of their serials. Separate sections for the Indian provinces.

    Archival Sources

    Archival material is largely held in archives in the colonized country.. See the guides listed under the Guides and Bibliographies column of the pages in this guide and the Library Research Guide for Finding Manuscripts and Archival Collections.

    Major classes of colonial government documents include:
    Yearbooks

    Most countries issue yearbooks with directory, statistical and other information.

    Find them through a HOLLIS search: Example. They are often listed in the Books Of Reference sections of the annual Statesman’s Yearbook. 

    Legislative

    LLMC Digital is a rich source of legislative documents and laws. To view available resources for a particular country, go to Online Services, then Browse Collections.

    Legislative documents for a particular county are difficult to find in HOLLIS. Best to find the name of the country's legislative body for your era in a general reference source (above), and search the name as exact phrase.

    Legislative (Council)

    Include legislative proceedings (Debates, Journals)  About (National Archives site). For crown colonies usually called the Legislative Counsil

    Acts

    HOLLIS (example for Uganda) and CRL: search Law AND your country

    Sessional Papers

    Sessional papers are papers and reports submitted to the legislative body.

    HOLLIS (Example for Uganda) and CRL (Example for Singapore): search “Sessional papers” AND your country

    Judicial
    Law Reports report the opinions of appellate courts (often a country’s supreme court) on law cases.

    LLMC Digital is a rich source of judicial documents. To view available resources for a particular country, go to Online Services, then Browse Collections.

    Find them in HOLLIS and CRL by searching: “Law reports, digests” AND [country name]. Example: Keyword: Ghana AND Keywords anywhere contains “Law reports” digests.

    Gazettes

    Government Gazettes are periodicals published by the government, which report its administrative, judicial and legislative actions. Content varies considerably among governments.  Find them in HOLLIS by searching: Gazettes AND [country name]. Some are here at Harvard, some must be obtained via Interlibrary Loan from the Center for Research Libraries (CRL) in Chicago. More information.

    Census

    Published censuses can be found in HOLLIS, CRL Catalog and WorldCat. HOLLIS example.

    Statistics
    See Statistics Sources, above

    Non-Governmental Sources

    Bibliography

    Modern European imperialism; a bibliography of books and articles, 1815-1972, by John P. Halstead and Serafino Porcari. Boston, G. K. Hall, 1974. 2 v.
    HOLLIS Record
    Internet Archive Full Text
    --v. 1. General and British Empire.-- v. 2. French and other empires

    Find regional bibliographies in HOLLIS.

    Personal Accounts

    Encyclopedia of life writing : autobiographical and biographical forms, ed. by Margaretta Jolly. London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2001. 2 v.
    HOLLIS Record
    Entries on countries (India) and regions (Africa, Eastern). Descriptions of traditions of life writing and references to individual works.

    Find personal accounts in HOLLIS and WorldCat with searches of the form:

    "Colonial administrators" Kenya
    AND
    sources OR narratives OR diaries OR correspondence OR biography OR interview* OR oral

    Replace Colonial administrators with other subject terms listed under each category of person. Remember that a personal account may be published long after the events happened; aged Mau Mau fighters may be writing their autobiographies now.

    It is difficult to systematically isolate personal accounts. You can browse through likely HOLLIS records from a country's colonial era. Example for Nigeria.   List of country codes (nr for Nigeria)

    Find personal accounts in Google Advanced Search with searches of the form:

    • all these words: colonial [or other appropriate search term] AND any of these words: interview interviews "oral history" "oral histories"
    • any of these words: narratives diaries diary memoir correspondence;  "digital archives" "digital collection" "digital library" "online collection" "primary sources" etc. 
    • site or domain: .edu  [or ac.uk or country domain, etc.] List of country domain names.
    Local/native voices

    The voices of colonized people can be powerful and useful sources. They may offer a counterbalance to the government perspective in British colonial sources. 

    To find: 

    • Search in HOLLIS for [country/region name or demonym] AND Subject: (sources OR narratives OR correspondence OR diaries OR interviews OR “oral histor*”)
    • We list regional anthologies and bibliographies on the regional pages of this guide: Africa
    • Search the Harvard Library Databases page for your country/region name, then use the filters under “Content Type” to limit down to primary source databases, such as “Archival materials,” “News, Current and Historical,” “Video and Sound”, “Harvard digital collections,” etc. 

    Personal accounts by participants in colonial resistance movements and events are often published and may include local/native voices. Subject terms include:

    • Anti-imperialist movements
    • Autonomy and independence movements
    • Decolonization
    • Government, resistance to
    • Insurgency
    • Malayan Emergency, 1948-1960
    • Mau Mau Emergency, 1950-1960
    • National liberation movements
    • Rebellions
    • Separatist movements

    Subject terms may also include specific names for specific resistance movements, such as the following:

    • Sepoy Rebellion -- (India : -- 1857-1858)
    • Malayan Emergency, 1948-1960
    • Mau Mau Emergency, 1950-1960

    National Liberation Primary Sources

    Personal Accounts of colonial wars.

    Indian voices of the Great War: soldiers' letters, 1914-18, ed. by David Omissi. Basingstoke; MacMillan; NY: St. Martin's Press, 1999, 382 p.
    World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives, Indian   [Note standard Subject terms: World War, 1914-1918 for World War I, and Personal narratives for personal accounts of wars.
    HOLLIS record

    Sources for lists of wars:

    Be sure to locate the proper Subject term for your war

    For the Indian Freedom Movement see the Library Research Guide for HISTORY 1036: Modern South Asia

    Colonial government officials: British officials, serving the Colonial government in England.
    Local government officials: British or native government figures, serving on the local level. 
    • HOLLIS/WorldCat subject terms: Civil service, Legislators, Officials and employees, Statesmen
    • Search by Author name for major figures
    • See the Biography sections of the regional pages of this guide (Africa) and the regional pages of Finding Biographical Information
    Missionaries:

    Missionaries often recorded detailed accounts of peoples and places, including everyday non-religious life. They can offer an outsider's non-governmental perspective on the time and place. There are periodicals, annual reports and memoirs

    • HOLLIS/WorldCat subject terms: Missionaries
    • See the Missionary Records page on the Library Research Guide for History for various missionary resources. 
    • Missionaries, especially in Africa,  sometimes had their converts write memoirs and autobiographies. Discussed in:
      • Trained to Tell the Truth’: Missionaries, Converts, and Narration, by Gareth Griffiths. Chapter 8 in:  Missions and empire, ed. by Norman Etherington. Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2009. 1 online resource (xiii, 332 p.).
        HOLLIS Record
    Anthropologists:

    Accounts by visiting anthropologists give descriptions of indigenous people from a European point of view.

    Periodical indexes for anthropology  --  Bibliographies of anthropology

     

    Travelers, European residents:

    Travel books (first person accounts of travels) and guidebooks offer descriptions of particular places at particular times.

    For travel accounts and descriptions on a place, use HOLLIS and WorldCat searches of the form:

            Subject contains: "Africa West" OR Ghana
            AND
            Subject exact phrase: Description and travel

    You can also use the subject term: Travelers' writings

    Women and empire, 1750-1939 : primary sources on gender and Anglo-imperialism, ed. by Susan K. Martin et al. Abingdon, UK ; NY: Routledge, 2009., 5 v.
    HOLLIS Record

    Periodicals and Newspapers (London and non-local)

    General Periodicals Published in Britain

    Periodicals about the Empire published in Britain

    19th Century UK Periodicals Online, 1800-1900 includes:
    Part 1 - "New Readerships": Women's, Children's, Humour, and Leisure/Sports periodicals
    Part 2 - "Empire": periodicals on the British empire published in Britain

    Local Periodicals and Newspapers

    Periodicals of Queen Victoria's empire: an exploration, ed. by J. Don Vann and Rosemary T. VanArsdel. London: Mansell, 1996, 371 p.
    HOLLIS Record
    Internet Archive Full Text
    --Divided by region. Historical/bibliographical essays with lists of periodicals

    For digitized papers from the colonies see the Guide to Newspapers and Newspaper Indexes

    Also check:

  • ICON: International Coalition on Newspapers - Newspaper digitization projects.
  • List of online newspaper archives.(Wikipedia)
  • Historical Newspapers Online: A guide to free Internet sources of historical newspapers (BGSU)

Most colonial newspapers will not be available online. Find the titles of newspapers for particular countries in Willing's Press Guide and the Newspaper press directory. Instructions for obtaining microfilm

Pamphlets

Pamphlets are typically small, cheaply produced publications often produced by individuals or organizations in response to current, local issues. Many were produced in Britain and in the colonies which treated colonial issues.

Example of a HOLLIS search for pamphlets. Country code list. (ii for India). In WorldCat Advanced Search use searches of the form

Keyword: Pamphlet*
AND
Keyword: cp:India     [cp: = Country of publication]

Pamphlets are not always tagged as such and may be difficult to isolate.

19th Century British Pamphlets (JSTOR) Over 26,000 pamphlets

Images

Images of Empire (British Empire & Commonwealth Museum)

HOLLIS Image search

Literature

In HOLLIS the following terms are found on literary works and works of literary scholarship.


Authors, African
Korean American literature -- United States.
India – Fiction (or Drama, or Poetry) refers to literary works
India -- In literature refers to literary scholarship
India -- Literary Collections