The Latin American mss. Mexico II span the years 1560-1940 and complement the materials in the Latin American mss. The colonial period of Mexican history is covered extensively in the collection. There is a large number of land grants, land transfers, and title and boundary disputes, as well as documents referring to various other legal disputes. The many royal directives and cedulas and vice- regal documents contain information on the administration of the colony.
Several manuscripts are concerned with inheritances and descendants' estates.
Among these is a group of 102 documents from the Catedral of Mexico City from 1563-1604. The struggle for independence is covered in some depth. There is correspondence and documents by many of the leaders of the movement, among them Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, Ignacio Maria de Allende y Unzaga, Jose Maria Teclo Morelos y Pavon, Leonardo Bravo, Juan Nepomuceno Rosians, and Ignacio Lopez Rayon. There are several manuscripts dealing with the capture and trials of Hidalgo. This era was strongly influenced by Spain's internal politics, as several of the documents testify.