This is a report on an examination of translated official documents from two inspections of the Onate expedition conducted in 1596 and 1597 in New Spain: present day Mexico. Its principal objective is to describe the purpose, the nature, and the quality of verification practices used in the Spanish-Americas at that time. The findings include: (1) verification of contract compliance was an established practice in sixteenth century New Spain, (2) the two inspections differed substantially in the care and thoroughness of the work done, and (3) generally, the practices showed rapid adoption of Spanish methods in the frontiers of its empire
