Letters, decrees, order books, reports, instructions, dispatches, printed material, and miscellaneous legal documents concerning the history and culture of colonial Spanish America including Florida and other territories now part of the U.S. Subjects include exploration of the New World; the government of New Spain, especially Mexico; the Catholic Church in Mexico and the administration of the Mexican Inquisition; taxation and economic conditions in the colonies; Spanish relations with Native Americans and the French; loss of portions of the Spanish empire to American expansion; and the New Laws of the Indies, 1542.

Individuals represented in the collection include Lope de Aguirre, Antonio de Arredondo, Antonio de Calderón, Bartolomé de las Casas, Pedro de Céspedes Vallejo Diaz, members of the Gourgues family including Dominique de Gourgues, Diego de Landa, Antonio de Mendoza, Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Simón Pereyns, Diego Quiroga y Losada, Pedro de Ursa︢, Luis de Velasco, Giovanni da Verrazzano, Amerigo Vespucci, and Juan de Zumárraga.