The American West Center also works with tribes to develop historical and ethnographical documentation to support legal claims. It has assisted fifteen tribes with developing tribal archives relevant to their land, water and culture.

• Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Archive
• "The Rivers and Fisheries of the Shoshone-Bannock Peoples"
• The Tohono O'odham Tribal Archives
• Interviews

The American West Center has aided numerous tribes in the establishment of tribal archives. This activity usually involved going to the various repositories of the the National Archives to extract and copy documents relative to the history of the respective tribes. Usually researchers from the tribe as well as from the center would go in order to educate the tribal representative as to the collection process. Staff members of the center would then help to catalogue the collection and create card files to identify the documents and to reference them according to subject. The following are the tribes or tribal groups for which archives have been established: Acoma; All-Indian Pueblo Council; Hupa; Lummi; Nevada Inter-Tribal Council; Santa Ana; Shoshone-Bannock; Southern Ute; Tesuque; Tohono O'odham; Uintah-Ouray; Utah Navajo Development Council; Ute Mountain Ute; White Mesa Ute; Zuni.