Thread: Key parts of famed treaty with Mexico set for display

Guadalupe Hidalgo pact of 1848 defined US Southwest, West

Key parts of famed treaty with Mexico set for display

Mariana Alvarado ARIZONA DAILY STAR Arizona Daily Star
January 31, 2011 12:00 am

When the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed on Feb. 2, 1848, Mexico ceded about half of its territory to the United States, mainly parts of what are now Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas.

Experts say the treaty that ended the Mexican-American War (1846-1848) also created a new ethnic group - Mexican-American - and started a civil-rights struggle.

While the authors of the accord promised property and citizenship rights for the Mexicans who suddenly found themselves living north of the newly established border, none was granted.

The original document will be displayed in Tucson this month. It is a document that continues to shape people's perceptions of identity, said historian Michael Brescia, associate curator at Arizona State Museum. "The international border exists, in part, because of the treaty," he said.

Key original excerpts from the historic treaty can be seen at the Arizona State Museum starting Wednesday and until Feb. 28. The featured originals on display are on loan from the national archives and brought to Tucson by a local nonprofit, Amistades Inc.

The complete bilingual treaty is housed in the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

"The articles coming to us are the most important excerpts from the larger documents," Brescia said in a press release. "Visitors to this exhibit will see Article V, for example, that established the location of the international border."

THE TREATY

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was named for the town near Mexico City where it was signed. The peace treaty, historians say, was largely dictated by the U.S. to a military-occupied Mexico and ended the war.

There is the misconception that Mexico sold the territory to the U.S., but the 15 million pesos it received for the land wasn't a payment: "It was in compensation for war-related damage to Mexican property," according to the history book "Historia General de Mexico," published by Colegio de Mexico in 2000.

"It wasn't a payment for the land," the book says. "It had been conquered."

THE EFFECTS

Experts said the treaty benefited the United States because, for a relatively small cost, it acquired land that would help the country push industrial development.

"A very high percentage of the economic growth in the U.S. is based on the production from territories that belonged to Mexico, like California and Texas," said Oscar J. MartÃ*nez, regents professor in the history department at the University of Arizona.

He noted that much of U.S. mineral production comes from land obtained through the treaty. "It's a huge loss for Mexico and a huge gain for the United States," he said.

Effects were more than economic. In Texas, for example, Mexicans weren't allowed to vote; in New Mexico, some were targets of violence; and in California laws against Mexicans were passed - some known as the "greaser" laws.

THE PEOPLE

When the U.S. Senate ratified the treaty, it deleted Article X, guaranteeing the protection of Mexican land rights. It also modified Article IX, which guaranteed citizenship rights for Mexicans in the new land.

There were about 80,000 Mexicans living in the ceded territory - about 20 percent of Mexico's population. Most decided to stay and live in the southwestern U.S. By the end of the 19th century, most Mexicans had lost their lands and were forcibly removed.

Mexico had failed to set up a way to enforce the treaty, so there wasn't an international agency to monitor violations of the agreement.

"That would have been helpful," said Richard Griswold del Castillo, a treaty scholar and professor of Mexican-American studies at San Diego State University.

Contact reporter Mariana Alvarado at 573-4597 or malvarado@azstarnet.com

IF YOU GO

• What: Display of original pages from historic Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

• When: Feb. 2 through 28, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

• Where: Arizona State Museum, 1013 E. University Blvd. Phone: 621-6302.

• Cost: $5

DID YOU KNOW

Tucson, Yuma and Nogales were not included as part of the Arizona territory ceded to the United States in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848. Those cities were purchased in 1854 by the U.S. in a treaty signed by James Gadsden, the American ambassador to Mexico at that time. The treaty is known as the Gadsden Purchase, or Venta de La Mesilla.

http://azstarnet.com/news/local/article ... e34a6.html

Who the h---are these "Mexican-American studies" professors and why are we paying them? Mexico ought to be glad that the US promoted economic development in the region. which is why cities have sprung up in Mexican areas of the border attempting to get in on the benefits.

Mexico did not exist until 1821 and most of the people here were Indians who did not want to be part of Mexico. If you find people descended from Spaniards here before 1821 most of them do not want to be considered Mexicans either.

It is always very entertaining for me when Mexicans try to claim that the Southwest belongs to them. First, US paid for the land. They can try to rewrite the Guadalupe Hidalgo treaty if they want....but US bought the land. Second, and almost more important, they are whining that we "conquered" the land...LLLLLOOOOLLLL! How did they get the land? Didn't the Spanish (their ancestors) "conquer" the land from the Indians? So US made a big mistake paying Mexicans for that land. By their criteria, it was not theirs to sell....was it? LOL. Lastly, by saying that US "conquered" the land, they are saying that they are losers who can not even hold on to their territory. But that is quite obvious since it is now taken over by drug cartels.

http://www.danielnpaul.com/AcadienExpulsion-1755.html

ACADIAN EXPULSION FROM NOVA SCOTIA: July 28, 1755

Though these French authorities could not imagine such an inhuman act, the English could. The event made famous by the American poet Longfellow in his poem "Evangeline" was soon under way. In early 1755 the Acadian Deputies were summoned to Halifax by Governor Lawrence and ordered to swear an oath of allegiance to the British Crown. They refused, contending, as they had with Cornwallis in 1749, that if they did so the French would set the Indians against them and they would be massacred.

The English lost no time in responding. On July 28, 1755 Lawrence got the full approval of Nova Scotia's Colonial Council to start dispersing the Acadians among the American Colonies. He sent Colonel Robert Monckton to Chignecto and Chepody, Lieutenant Colonel John Winslow to Minas, Pisiquid, and Cobequid, and Major John Handfield to Annapolis Royal to carry out the orders.

Colonel Robert Monckton rounded up the Acadians in Chignecto, while Colonel John Winslow ordered those at Minas to assemble at Grand Pré. They were loaded into the holds of ships and scattered to the four corners of the world. Families were separated, never to see one another again, and untold numbers died in transport. This included those who had sworn allegiance to the British Crown, there were no exceptions.

The Mi'kmaq faithfully stuck by their Acadian allies to the bitter end. Some of the Acadians tried to escape and were aided and protected by them to the best of their ability. They also joined forces with them to drive back the British, as was reported by the French Governor:


The British burned the Village, including the Church at Chipoudy and was responded
to thus. Mr. Boishebert, at the head of 125 Indians and Acadians, overtook them at
the River Pelkoudiak, attacked and fought them for three hours, and drove them
vigorously back to their vessels. The English had 42 killed and 45 wounded.
Mr. Gorham, a very active English Officer, was among the number of the wounded.
We lost 1 Indian, and had three others wounded.
Many Acadians went into hiding among the Mi'kmaq and remained with them until the British and French ended their hostilities in 1763. A group of several hundred were hidden by the Mi'kmaq in the area known today as Kejimkujik National Park..


This happened to some of my ancestors and sure as you-know-what, we got over it and just learned to move forward, we cannot ever get back the lost lands and a century of effort to tame the saltwater marshes into fertile lands, the lost families and the last is the brutality in which some were treated (left in holds of ships in port in places such as Maryland, simply left to die).

It is ok to know about these conquests and treaties, and the history of the people within it, but they need to just stop whining and get over it.

There is the misconception that Mexico sold the territory to the U.S., but the 15 million pesos it received for the land wasn't a payment: "It was in compensation for war-related damage to Mexican property," according to the history book "Historia General de Mexico," published by Colegio de Mexico in 2000.

"It wasn't a payment for the land," the book says. "It had been conquered."

The above is another mexican distortion of the truth ( I know shocking)! The peace treaty which formally ended the war, was signed in February 1848, called the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. In terms of the settlement, the United States paid Mexico $15 million and agreed to pay out the claims for damages instituted by American citizens against Mexico (amounting to some $3.2 million), in return for the secession of half of Mexico's claimed territory: this land would form the future US states of Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, and Utah, as well as portions of the states of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Wyoming. The defeated Mexicans had little choice but to agree (that's what happens when you lose a war).

Mexico got off lucky for invading the United States and then losing the war. General Zachary Taylor and his men marched all the way to mexico city, where Santa Anna fled like the lying coward he always was. There was not a single thing that could have stopped the United States from taking that entire country if we had wanted to, as the American flag flew over mexico city in victory!!

There is the misconception that Mexico sold the territory to the U.S., but the 15 million pesos it received for the land wasn't a payment: "It was in compensation for war-related damage to Mexican property," according to the history book "Historia General de Mexico," published by Colegio de Mexico in 2000

.

Pesos?? are we rewritting history at the University of Arizona?



From the National Archives (Documents at link)

The Treaty of Guadalupe HidalgoBackground The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (gwah-dah-loop-ay ee-dahl-go), which brought an official end to the Mexican-American War (1846-184 was signed on February 2, 1848, at Guadalupe Hidalgo, a city north of the capital where the Mexican government had fled with the advance of U.S. forces. To explore the circumstances that led to this war with Mexico, visit the Teaching with Documents lesson, "Lincoln's Spot Resolutions."

With the defeat of its army and the fall of the capital, Mexico City, in September 1847 the Mexican government surrendered to the United States and entered into negotiations to end the war. The peace talks were negotiated by Nicholas Trist, chief clerk of the State Department, who had accompanied General Winfield Scott as a diplomat and President Polk's representative. Trist and General Scott, after two previous unsuccessful attempts to negotiate a treaty with Santa Anna, determined that the only way to deal with Mexico was as a conquered enemy. Nicholas Trist negotiated with a special commission representing the collapsed government led by Don Bernardo Couto, Don Miguel Atristain, and Don Luis Gonzaga Cuevas of Mexico.

In The Mexican War, author Otis Singletary states that President Polk had recalled Trist under the belief that negotiations would be carried out with a Mexican delegation in Washington. In the six weeks it took to deliver Polk's message, Trist had received word that the Mexican government had named its special commission to negotiate. Against the president's recall, Trist determined that Washington did not understand the situation in Mexico and negotiated the peace treaty in defiance of the president. In a December 4, 1847, letter to his wife, he wrote, "Knowing it to be the very last chance and impressed with the dreadful consequences to our country which cannot fail to attend the loss of that chance, I decided today at noon to attempt to make a treaty; the decision is altogether my own."

In Defiant Peacemaker: Nicholas Trist in the Mexican War, author Wallace Ohrt described Trist as uncompromising in his belief that justice could be served only by Mexico's full surrender, including surrender of territory. Ignoring the president's recall command with the full knowledge that his defiance would cost him his career, Trist chose to adhere to his own principles and negotiate a treaty in violation of his instructions. His stand made him briefly a very controversial figure in the United States.

Under the terms of the treaty negotiated by Trist, Mexico ceded to the United States Upper California and New Mexico. This was known as the Mexican Cession and included present-day Arizona and New Mexico and parts of Utah, Nevada, and Colorado (see Article V of the treaty). Mexico relinquished all claims to Texas and recognized the Rio Grande as the southern boundary with the United States (see Article V).

The United States paid Mexico $15,000,000 "in consideration of the extension acquired by the boundaries of the United States" (see Article XII of the treaty) and agreed to pay American citizens debts owed to them by the Mexican government (see Article XV). Other provisions included protection of property and civil rights of Mexican nationals living within the new boundaries of the United States (see Articles VIII and IX), the promise of the United States to police its boundaries (see Article XI), and compulsory arbitration of future disputes between the two countries (see Article XXI).

Trist sent a copy to Washington by the fastest means available, forcing Polk to decide whether or not to repudiate the highly satisfactory handiwork of his discredited subordinate. Polk chose to forward the treaty to the Senate. When the Senate reluctantly ratified the treaty (by a vote of 34 to 14) on March 10, 1848, it deleted Article X guaranteeing the protection of Mexican land grants. Following the ratification, U.S. troops were removed from the Mexican capital.

To carry the treaty into effect, commissioner Colonel Jon Weller and surveyor Andrew Grey were appointed by the United States government and General Pedro Conde and Sr. Jose Illarregui were appointed by the Mexican government to survey and set the boundary. A subsequent treaty of December 30, 1853, altered the border from the initial one by adding 47 more boundary markers to the original six. Of the 53 markers, the majority were rude piles of stones; a few were of durable character with proper inscriptions.

Over time, markers were moved or destroyed, resulting in two subsequent conventions (1882 and 1889) between the two countries to more clearly define the boundaries. Photographers were brought in to document the location of the markers. These photographs are in Record Group 77, Records of the Office of the Chief Engineers, in the National Archives. An example of one of these photographs, taken in the 1890s, is available online through the Archival Research Catalog (ARC) database, identifier: 519681 .
The Documents
http://www.archives.gov/education/lesso ... e-hidalgo/

Also read:
Monuments, Manifest Destiny, and Mexico - Includes sonme information on the the Gadsden Purchase that gave Mexico and additional 10Milllion.
http://www.archives.gov/publications/pr ... ico-1.html

So we took California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and parts of Nevada, Colorado and Idaho from Mexico?
We aren't giving it back.
So why don't they just shut up about it?