LibGuides: HIST 6800: Atlantic World Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade: Government Documents

Start With These Databases

BGSU Libraries Catalog
Start by searching this catalog to see if BGSU owns the document. All of the documents in our Canadian, Ohio, and Bowling Green documents collections have been cataloged. However, not all U.S. government documents have been cataloged. You will also find links to online government information in the catalog.
OhioLINK Central Catalog
If BGSU doesn't own the document, try the OhioLINK Central Catalog. It contains the holdings of the libraries at more than 80 colleges and universities throughout Ohio, many of which have government documents collections. You will also find links to online government information in the catalog.

Other Useful Databases & Internet Sites

American State Papers, 1789-1838
Important executive and legislative documents issued between 1789 and 1838, including every legislative and executive document of the first fourteen U.S. Congresses.
Coverage: 1789-1838

Checklist of United States Public Documents, 1789-1909
Checklist is arranged by classification number and is useful for examining the scope of a particular agency's publishing from the time it was established through 1909.

HeinOnline U.S. Statutes at Large
Full-text searchable images of every page of the Statutes at Large in PDF format, beginning in 1789. Also includes earlier Federal Codes, Compilations of Statutes, and other related documents.

ProQuest Congressional Publications 1789-present
This includes the American State Papers, the Serial Set 1789-2015 (Senate and House Documents and Reports), the Congressional Record and precursors 1789-present, and Congressional hearings 1980-2010.

Finding Documents in the Library

U.S. government publications are arranged on the shelf by an alphanumeric system called the Superintendent of Documents Classification Scheme (SuDocs).

Letters stand for the publishing agency, for instance

A for Agriculture
C for Commerce
L for Labor
PR for Presidential documents

and so forth

The number following the period is a whole number NOT A DECIMAL.

C 3.9 (9 files as the number nine)
C 3.44 (44 files as the number forty-four)
C 3.223 (223 files as the number two hundred twenty-three)

The government documents collection is next to Periodicals (south side, first floor)

U.S. Serial Set

The Serial Set includes various Congress working papers such as:

Documents
Reports
Early agency publications (pre-1860)

It does not usually include hearings. The collection does include a small number of older hearings that were considered so important that they were republished as House or Senate Documents.

All U.S. Serial Set documents, 1789-present, are included full text in ProQuest Congressional!

A sample of a few Serial Set documents:

Slave trade, despatches from American minister at Brazil (1845)

Quakers of Pennsylvania, memorial on foreign slave trade (1840)

Persons arrested, and names and number of vessels arrested and bonded in southern district of New York, from 1852-62, charged with being engaged in slave trade (1862)

Papers relative to slavery in Peru (1913)

Legislature of Virginia, against interference by general government with institution of slavery, and declaring determination to resist enforcement of Wilmot Proviso (1849)

On attempts to circulate through mail inflammatory appeals to excite slaves to insurrection (1836)

Rebellion Records, series 2, Prisoners of War and State, vol. 1, pt. 4: Military treatment of captured and fugitive slaves (1894)

Reports of assistant commissioners of freedmen, and synopsis of laws on persons of color in late slave states (1867)

Other databases and paper indexes that can be used to identify the House and Senate documents and reports that might be useful:

Useful Print Indexes

Cumulative Subject Index to the Monthly Catalog of United States Government Publicationis 1900-1971
MAIN GOV DOCS INDEXES Z 1223 .A 1973x v.1-15

Cumulative Title Index to United States Public Documents 1789-1976
MAIN GOV DOCS INDEXES Z 1223 .Z7L47J83 v.1-16

Index to U.S. Government Periodicals, 1975 - 1987
GOV DOCS REF Z 1233 .Z915

Monthly Catalog of United States Government Publications, 1895 - 1976
MAIN GOV DOCS INDEXES GP 3.8: