Correspondence, letterbooks, memoranda, writings, notes, reports, legal and financial papers, clippings, printed matter, and other papers relating to Trist's tenure as U.S. consul in Havana and his role in negotiating the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ending the Mexican War. Subjects include national politics, the presidential election of John Adams, political and military affairs in Mexico, John Slidell's mission to Mexico, Winfield Scott's command of the U.S. Army in Mexico, the Oregon boundary question, international trade, the slave trade, antislavery, secession, free press, sovereignty of the states, banks, government financial policy, economic conditions in the U.S., the Spanish archives relating to Florida, Trist's sugar plantations in Cuba and Louisiana, the establishment of the University of Virginia, publication of the Virginia Advocate, activities at Monticello and Charlottesville, Va., Thomas Jefferson and his estate, Martha Jefferson Randolph, Andrew Jackson at the Hermitage, personal affairs, and Randolph and Trist family affairs.

Family correspondents include Joseph Coolidge, David Meikleham, Thomas Jefferson Randolph, Thomas M. Randolph, Elizabeth House Trist, Hore Browse Trist, Virginia Jefferson Randolph Trist, and other members of the Trist and Randolph families. Other correspondents include Pedro M. Anaya, Charles Bankhead, Thomas Hart Benton, Arthur Brisbane, James Buchanan, Henry Clay, John A. G. Davis, F. M. Dimond, Andrew Jackson Donelson, Percy Doyle, Robley Dunglison, John P. Emmet, Andrew Jackson, Thomas Jefferson, Reverdy Johnson, Robert E. Lee, Edward Livingston, Louis McLane, Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, Dolley Madison, James Madison, James Monroe, Robert Dale Owen, José Ramón Pacheco, James Parton, Manuel de la Peña y Peña, Matthew Calbraith Perry, Gideon Johnson Pillow, James K. Polk, Henry Stephens Randall, Thomas Ritchie, William C. Rives, Antonio López de Santa Anna, Winfield Scott, Thomas Shankland, Persifor Frazer Smith, Edward Spalding, Edward Thornton, George Tucker, and Martin Van Buren.