These manuscripts include dictionaries, grammars, catechisms, prayers, and Bible tales prepared by French Sulpician missionaries in New France in the languages of Nipissing-Algonquin, Mohawk, Huron, and Onondaga.

These materials are comprised of grammars, glossaries, and books of prayers and hymns, in various Native American languages. Includes Huron, Mohawk, miscellaneous Iroquoian languages; Abenaki, Algonquin, Montagnais, Micmac, Ottawa; Slave, and unidentified Northwest Coast languages. Most were written by Jesuit missionaries before 1760. Also included is a register of Indian baptisms and marriages, and a brief history of the Huron Indians.

The library has 10 volumes of grammars, vocabularies, sermons, and other religious writings in the Kaqchikel and K'iche' languages of Guatemala. Several have been studied, notably by Daniel G. Brinton in APS Proceedings 21 (1884): 345, and Nora B. Thompson, "Algunos manuscritos guatemaltecos en Filadelfia", Anales de la Sociedad de Geografia e Historia 23 (1948), Nos. 1 2: p. 3; and all have been described by John F. Freeman, "Manuscript Sources on Latin American Indians," APS Proceedings 10 (1962): 530, and in Freeman's Guide to Manuscripts relating to the American Indian (1966).