Language Statement

This statement is intended to provide context on the language and terminology that can be found throughout this resource.

We recognise that self-description differs across communities and acknowledge the limitations of any term that seeks to homogenise the varied Indigenous cultures within North America. We have made every effort to refer to individual communities where possible.

Editorial decisions relating to Indigenous Newspapers in North America have been made with great care, consideration and sensitivity. At Adam Matthew, our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion is embedded in everything we do. You can learn more about our policies on Diversity and Representation.

As part of our commitment to ensuring the discoverability of primary sources within our collections, we are grateful to receive metadata from source archives which is then supplemented and enhanced by our editorial team. We acknowledge that historic cataloguing processes may privilege the dominant narrative and recognise that language conventions and collection practices are in a state of continuous change, and terms which may have been considered acceptable at the time of publication may no longer be appropriate today. Metadata found in Adam Matthew collections may date from the time the records were originally created, acquired or processed by the source archives and, as such, these terms may reflect the biases of many different individuals and could include outdated language. Please see the Publication Details page found in the Introduction section for information on the original publication date of this resource and details of improvements and changes that may have been rolled out since. We welcome feedback on the language used in our sites and will use this feedback to implement specific changes and shape our use of language in future.

We believe that technology can play a positive role in redressing the imbalance of representation in historic materials such as these. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software has been applied to these documents enabling scholars to search the original text of the historic sources freely. The ability to search in this way can improve the discoverability of underrepresented narratives and help minimise historic or unintentional biases that could be present within metadata. When searching for marginalised groups or peoples within these sources, scholars should consider contemporaneous terms that may have been used to describe such groups in the period under study.

Please note, while the majority of the newspapers featured in this resource were published in English, several Indigenous language publications are featured. Where newspapers have primarily been written in an Indigenous language, it has been recorded in the metadata and is available as a filter on the Newspapers page; other articles and passages written in Indigenous languages may be available elsewhere in the collection.

If you are interested in learning more about the editorial considerations that shaped the list of sources available in Indigenous Newspapers in North America, please read the Selection Criteria.

We are committed to continually improving our editorial processes and welcome feedback on diversity and representation within our products. To contact us, please email support@amdigital.co.uk