Adam Matthew launches vitally important research collection on early American history

Award-winning digital publisher Adam Matthew has today announced the launch of ‘Colonial America’ – the complete CO5 files from The National Archives, UK, 1606-1822.

A ‘game-changing’ development for historians and researchers of early America, the Atlantic world, the Caribbean and the nascent British Empire, Colonial America enables online access to the vast archive of c70,000 documents of manuscript material for the first time.

Seasoned scholars and researchers have clamoured for access to this material for years. Extensive cataloguing of the high-quality, colour digital images by Adam Matthew’s editorial team has instantly elevated discoverability, providing new research opportunities previously only available to visitors accessing the raw materials in London.

Managing Director, Khal Rudin said: “It has been a long-held ambition of ours to make this essential content available to the academic community. It is immensely satisfying to see our hard work and major investment realised and the significant contribution to research this collection will offer”

This resource covers all aspects of seventeenth and eighteenth-century American history, including:

• Early settlers
• Relationships with Native Americans, the Dutch, French and Spanish
• Trade 
• Wars
• Piracy and privateering
• Religion
• Tobacco, sugar and other commodities
• Slavery and the slave trade

Colonial America will be released over five years starting with Module 1: Early Settlement, Expansion and Rivalries, which is available for free 30-day trial now.

Colonial America joins Adam Matthew’s growing portfolio of more than 70 titles of digital primary source collections for the Humanities and Social Sciences.