Native American Heritage Month

History U 

History U offers free, self-paced courses for high school students.

• The American West with Professor Elliott West, University of Arkansas
• American Indian History Since 1900 with Professor Donald L. Fixico (Shawnee, Sac and Fox, Muscogee Creek, and Seminole), Arizona State University
• American Indian History: Recasting the Narrative with Professor Ned Blackhawk (Western Shoshone), Yale University
• American Environmental History with Professor Catherine McNeur, Portland State University

Self-Paced Courses

Self-Paced Courses offer graduate-level online instruction in American history by eminent historians. Courses are available to watch or listen to on your own time and at your own pace. Teachers can also get certificates for CEU credits.

• American Indian History: Recasting the Narrative led by Professor Ned Blackhawk (Western Shoshone), Yale University
• American Colonies led by Alan Taylor, University of Virginia
• Warfare in Early America led by Timothy Shannon, Gettysburg College
• American Indian History: Case Studies led by Professor Colin Calloway, Dartmouth College
• The American West led by Elliott West, University of Arkansas
• American Indian History: 1900 to the Present led by Professor Donald L. Fixico (Shawnee, Sac and Fox, Muscogee Creek, and Seminole), Arizona State University

History Now

History Now, the online journal of the Gilder Lehrman Institute, features essays by the nation’s leading historians.

Full Issues

• History Now 28 (Summer 2011), “American Indians”
• History Now 59 (Winter 2021), “American Indians in Leadership”

Essays

• “A New Era of American Indian Autonomy” by Ned Blackhawk (History Now 9, “The American West,” Fall 2006)
• “A New Look at the Great Plains” by Elliott West (History Now 9, “The American West,” Fall 2006)
• “Native American Discoveries of Europe” by Daniel K. Richter (History Now 12, “The Age of Exploration,” Summer 2007)
• “The Indians’ War of Independence” by Colin G. Calloway (History Now 21, “The American Revolution,” Fall 2009)
• “The Indian Removal Act” by Elliott West (History Now 22, “Andrew Jackson and His World,” Winter 2009)
• “Amateurism and Jim Thorpe at the Fifth Olympiad” by Kate Buford (History Now 23, “Turning Points in American Sports,” Spring 2010)
• “Indian Slavery in the Americas” by Alan Gallay (History Now 25, “Three Worlds Meet,” Fall 2010)
• “Change and Crisis: North America on the Eve of the European Invasion” by Christopher L. Miller (History Now 25, “Three Worlds Meet,” Fall 2010)
• “American Indians and the Transcontinental Railroad” by Elliott West (History Now 38, “The Joining of the Rails: The Transcontinental Railroad,” Winter 2014)
• “Archaeology as History in the North Cascades Mountains” by Robert R. Mierendorf (History Now 49, “Excavating American History,” Fall 2017)
• “Jack Cleveland Montgomery: Peace to War and Back Again” by Tom Holm (History Now 70, “World War II: Portraits of Service,” Spring 2024)
• “Madeline Traces: Confronting the Marks of History” by Lauret Savoy (History Now 76, “The Natural Resources of the United States in the Shaping of History, Fall 2025)

Other Gilder Lehrman Essays

• American Indians by Elliott West, University of Arkansas
• US Treaties with American Indian Nations by Gautham Rao, American University
• The Development of the West by Ned Blackhawk, Yale University

Online Exhibitions

The Gilder Lehrman Institute has more than eighty online exhibitions that cover American history from the colonial era to the present day.

• Timeline: The Americas to 1620
• Joe Morris Sr.

Spotlights on Primary Sources

Each Spotlight on a document from the Gilder Lehrman Collection provides explanatory text, a transcript, and an image of the featured document.

• Bartolomé de Las Casas debates the subjugation of the Indians, 1550
• Secotan, an Algonquian village, ca. 1585
• Map of the New World, with European settlements and American Indian tribes, 1730
• Receipt for land purchased from the Six Nations, 1769
• Davy Crockett on the removal of the Cherokees, 1834
• American Indians' service in World War I, 1920

Elementary School Students

• Native American Removals and the Cherokee Trail of Tears, 1835-1840

Middle and High School Students

• The US Government and Indigenous Peoples before the Trail of Tears, 1770–1839

High School Students

• Dawes to Burke to McGirt: Tribal Sovereignty, 1887–2020

Book Breaks

Book Breaks is a free weekly public program where hosts interview scholars about their new books.

• Native Nations: A Millennium in North America by Kathleen DuVal
• Taking Manhattan: The Extraordinary Events That Created New York and Shaped America by Russell Shorto
• Covered with Night: A Story of Murder and Indigenous Justice in Early America by Nicole Eustace
• Tecumseh and the Prophet: The Shawnee Brothers Who Defied a Nation by Peter Cozzens
• Choctaw Confederates: The American Civil War in Indian Country by Fay Yarbrough
• Blood Memory: The Tragic Decline and Improbable Resurrection of the American Buffalo by Dayton Duncan & Ken Burns

Inside the Vault

Inside the Vault highlights unique primary sources from the Gilder Lehrman Collection each month.

• The Overland Trail
• Twentieth-Century Voting Rights