Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

The Mexican Cession (red) and the Gadsden Purchase (orange). Part of the area marked as Gadsden Purchase near modern-day Mesilla, New Mexico was disputed after the Treaty

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is the peace treaty, largely dictated by the United States to the interim government of Mexico, that ended the Mexican-American War (1846–1848). The treaty provided for the Mexican Cession, in which Mexico ceded 1.36 million km² (525,000 square miles) (55% of its pre-war territory) to the United States in exchange for US$15 million (equivalent to $313 million in 2006 dollars) and the ensured safety of pre-existing property rights of Mexican citizens in the transferred territories. The United States also agreed to take over $3.25 million ($68 million in 2006 dollars) in debts Mexico owed to American citizens.

The Treaty took its name from what is now the suburb of Mexico City where it was signed on 2 February 1848.

The cession that the treaty facilitated included parts of the modern-day U.S. states of Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and Wyoming, as well as the whole of California, Nevada, and Utah. The remaining parts of what are today the states of Arizona and New Mexico were later ceded under the 1853 Gadsden Purchase.

Background

Under U.S. President John Tyler, The Republic of Texas was admitted to the Union on March 1, 1845. It became the 28th state later that year under President James K. Polk. The Mexican government had long warned that annexation meant war with the United States, and had never recognized the Republic of Texas as an independent state. Britain and France, which both recognized the independence of Texas, repeatedly tried to dissuade Mexico from declaring war against its neighbor. British efforts to mediate were fruitless in part because additional political disputes (particularly the Oregon boundary dispute) arose between Mexico, Britain and the United States. Before the outbreak of hostilities, on November 10, 1845, the United States president James K. Polk had sent negotiator John Slidell to Mexico to offer the country around $5 million for the territory of Nuevo Mexico, and up to $40 million for Alta California. Mexican members of government had simply dismissed Slidell, refusing to even meet with him because they were greatly insulted by such an offer. This is because earlier that year Mexico had broken off diplomatic relations with the United States over the annexation of Texas, which Mexico had warned would be considered an act of war if passed by the US Congress. Mexico's basis for this was partly a condition of the Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819 — which politically independant Mexico had inherited — in which the US had relinquished all claims to Texas against the Spanish crown.

After this snub Polk, an expansionist, himself took insult and actively sought to provoke war with Mexico.

After the Thornton Affair, a skirmish between Mexican and American troops which took place on disputed territory near the Rio Grande (see the Treaties of Velasco), President Polk signed a declaration of war into effect on May 13, 1846, almost two months before the Mexican congress was forced to formally declare war on July 1.

The war in Mexico's Northern territories largely ended on January 13, 1847, with the signing of the Treaty of Cahuenga. Mexico's subsequent defeat left them with little choice but to accept the United States' demands, or risk total annexation of Mexico. Nicholas Trist, Chief Clerk of the State Department under President Polk, negotiated the treaty with the Mexican deligation, despite having been recalled by the president. Notwithstanding that the treaty had been negotiated against his instructions, given its favorable terms President Polk passed it on to the Senate.

Part of the original treaty

Pre-Ratification Changes to Treaty

The treaty was signed by Nicholas Trist on behalf of the United States and Luis G. Cuevas, Bernardo Couto and Miguel Atristain as plenipotentiary representatives of Mexico on February 2 1848, at the main altar of the old Cathedral of Guadalupe at Villa Hidalgo (today Gustavo A. Madero, D.F.), slightly north of Mexico City as U.S troops under the command of General Winfield Scott were occupying Mexico City. It was subsequently ratified by the United States Senate by a vote of 38 to 14 on March 10, 1848 and by the Mexican government on May 19, 1848.

However, the version of the treaty ratified by the United States Senate eliminated Article X, which stated that the U.S. government would honor and guarantee all land grants awarded in lands ceded to the United States to citizens of Spain and Mexico by those respective governments. Article VIII guaranteed that Mexicans who remained more than one year in the ceded lands would automatically become full-fledged American citizens (or they could declare their intention of remaining Mexican citizens); however, the Senate modified Article IX, changing the first paragraph and excluding the last two. Among the changes was that Mexican citizens would "be admitted at the proper time (to be judged of by the Congress of the United States)" instead of "admitted as soon as possible," as negotiated between Trist and the Mexican delegation.

Protocol of Querétaro

On May 26 1848, when the two countries exchanged ratifications of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, they further negotiated a three-article protocol to explain the amendments. The first article stated that the original Article IX of the treaty, although replaced by Article III of the Treaty of Louisiana, would still confer the rights deliniated in Article IX. The second article confirmed the legitimacy of land grants pursuant to Mexican law.

The protocol further noted that said explanations had been accepted by the Mexican Minister of Foreign Affairs on behalf of the Mexican Government, and was signed in Querétaro by A. H. Sevier, Nathan Clifford and Luis de la Rosa.

Effects

In addition to the sale of land, the treaty also provided for the recognition of the Rio Grande as the boundary between the State of Texas and Mexico. The land boundaries were established by a survey team of appointed Mexican and American representatives, and published in three volumes as The United States and Mexican Boundary Survey. On December 30, 1853, the countries by agreement altered the border from the initial one by increasing the number of border markers from 6 to 53. Most of these markers were simply piles of stones. Two later conventions, in 1882 and 1889, further clarified the boundaries, as some of the markers had been moved or destroyed. The treaty extended U.S. citizenship to Mexicans in the newly-purchased territories, well before blacks, Asians and Native Americans were eligible. Between 1850 and 1920, the U.S. Census counted ethnic Mexicans in the white column.

Border disputes continued, leading to the Gadsden Purchase in 1854 and William Walker's Republic of Lower California filibustering incident in that same year. The treaty of Mesilla, which concluded the Gadsden purchase of 1854, also reaffirmed the property guarantees of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

The shifting of the Rio Grande would much later cause a dispute over the boundary between Purchase lands and those of the state of Texas. (See Country Club Dispute)

See also

• Gadsden Purchase
• Treaty of Cahuenga
• United States and Mexican Boundary Survey
• 1848 in Mexico
• Annexation Bill of 1866
• United States Court of Private Land Claims
• History of New Mexico#Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
• Mexican period of Arizona#Land grants
• Californio#Californios in literature

References

• Griswold del Castillo, Richard. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo: A Legacy of Conflict. University of Oklahoma Press, 1990
• Ohrt, Wallace. Defiant Peacemaker: Nicholas Trist in the Mexican War Texas A&M University Press, 1997
• Jesse S. Reeves, "The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo," The American Historical Review, 10 (Jan. 1905), 309-324, full text online at JSTOR

External links

• Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and related resources at the U.S. Library of Congress
• Text of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
• copy of Treaty, including sections stricken out by Senate
• U.S. General Accounting Office report on the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, June 2004
• Library of Congress Guide to the Mexican War