This page brings together free online books, topic searches and Open Access resources related to the exploration of North America and early American history, including expeditions, explorers, mapping, colonization, and frontier encounters. The materials range from older public domain works to modern scholarly studies.
The Topics section below helps readers find books and documents within the huge Internet Archive collection, which includes periodicals and other materials, from older historical works to recent publications. Each topic link generates an Internet Archive search focused on that subject. Browsing the topics and selecting those of interest is usually easier and more effective than searching Internet Archive directly.
The section below Topics provides links to related modern Open Access books. See that section for more information.
U.S. History Book Pages on Century Past
Topics – Exploration of America Free Books PDF – Explorers
The topic links below lead to Internet Archive search results related to the exploration of North America and early American history. Each link opens a books-and-documents search focused on a particular topic.
Search results generally include fully readable books, periodicals, and other documents. For some subjects, Internet Archive also contains other media, such as images, audio, or video files. These can be selected from the media options above the search results. Filters on the left side of Internet Archive pages can help narrow search results by year, language, or related subjects.
- America Discovery and Exploration
- Antiquities
- Cabot, John
- Cabot, Sebastian
- Canada – Discovery and exploration
- Cartier, Jacques, 1491-1557
- Champlain, Samuel de, 1574-1635
- Colonization – History
- Columbus, Christopher
- Coronado, Francisco Vásquez de, 1510-1554
- Discoveries in Geography
- Discovery and Exploration
- Discovery and exploration – British
- Discovery and exploration – Dutch
- Discovery and exploration – Early works to 1800
- Discovery and Exploration – French
- Discovery and Exploration New France
- Discovery and exploration – Norse
- Discovery and Exploration North America
- Discovery and exploration – Portuguese
- Discovery and exploration – Pre-Columbian
- Discovery and exploration – Spanish
- Discovery of America and early exploration
- Early accounts to 1600
- Explorers
- Explorers – Biography
- Explorers – Biography – Juvenile literature
- Explorers Central America
- Explorers North America Biography
- Explorers Northwest Passage
- Explorers South America
- Explorers – Spain – Biography
- Exploring Expeditions
- Hudson, Henry
- La Salle, Robert Cavelier, sieur de, 1643-1687 – Juvenile literature
- Mississippi River – Discovery and exploration
- New France – Discovery and exploration
- Ponce de León, Juan
- Pre-Columbian America
- Samuel de Champlain
- Soto, Hernando de
- Southwest, New – Discovery and exploration
- Vikings
- Virginia Company
- West Indies – Discovery and Exploration
Open Access Exploration of America Books PDF Free Download
The Open Access books and other materials below are modern works made freely available online by universities, academic publishers, the Library of Congress, and other organizations. Many reflect current scholarship and research.
Some works may only be read online, but many can also be downloaded as PDF or EPUB files.
Related Pages on Century Past
See our Century Past directories for hundreds of webpages of Books; Magazines; Articles, maps, & photos; and Newspapers. You’ll find the same directories on the top Menu. Here are a few suggested pages: