PEACE

After American forces occupied Mexico City, the remnants of the Mexican government fled northwest to Queretaro. A period of political instability followed. No Mexican wanted to take responsibility for admitting defeat and signing away territory.

Polk had sent Nicholas Trist, the chief clerk of the State Department, to Mexico along with Scott’s force. Trist, whose position today would be called under-secretary of state, was authorized to negotiate a peace treaty. Polk’s negotiator, who spoke Spanish and had served as U. S. consul in Havana, carried with him a draft treaty that made demands similar to those made by Slidell. He could offer $15 million for California and New Mexico, the minimum territorial concession acceptable to Polk. If Baja California and transit rights across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec were also ceded, he could offer $30 million. Before the transcontinental railroad and the Panama Canal, the Isthmus of Tehuantepec provided a relatively easy way to cross from the Caribbean to the Pacific.65

On October 5, 1847, given the unwillingness of any Mexicans to begin the negotiation process, Polk ordered Trist to return home. Polk’s order did not arrive in Mexico until six weeks later. Just as he received his recall order, a new Mexican political party was formed for the express purpose of negotiating a peace treaty. Trist decided to remain and negotiate since he feared that if he did not negotiate then, the central government might collapse. When Polk learned of Trist’s disobedience, he called him “an impudent and unqualified scoundrel.”66

The Mexican delegates negotiating the peace treaty did their best to minimize territorial loss. They held Trist to his minimal demand and preserved for Mexico a land bridge between Baja California and Sonora. Given that the United States could have taken whatever it wanted, limiting U. S. acquisitions constituted a triumph for Mexican diplomacy.67

Mexican negotiators not only had to defend Mexican interests against Trist, but had to contend with the puro (pro-war) faction in Mexico, which advocated continued war against the United States, not only to avoid loss of territory but to bring about economic and political reforms. The propeace faction finally prevailed, arguing that failure to ratify a peace treaty would result in continued American military occupation, the probable loss of additional territory, and prolonged financial disaster for the Mexican government, which received no customs receipts from American-occupied ports.68

On February 2, 1848, a peace treaty was signed in the village of Guadalupe Hidalgo, four miles north of Mexico City. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo established a new U. S.—Mexican boundary that started at the mouth of the Rio Grande. It ran up that river until it met the southern border of New Mexico. It then ran west along that line and turned, following the western border of New Mexico north until it intersected the Gila River or reached the closest point to that river. No one knew if the Gila crossed into New Mexico. Then the border ran down the Gila to its junction with the Colorado River. From there the boundary ran to a point on the Pacific Coast one marine league south of San Diego, forming the present southern boundary of California.

Mexico received $15 million, and, in addition, the Mexican government was relieved of responsibility for meeting past damage claims filed by U. S. citizens. Throughout the war, Polk had insisted that Mexico should cede territory to the United States to pay for the war it forced the United States to fight. At the same time, the United States wanted to avoid the appearance of stealing land, so it paid for the territory it acquired. U. S. historian Glenn Price noted, “It was all

Figure 11.2 Mexican border with the United States c.1855 Source: Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers

Very odd logic.” At the time, Mexican President Manuel de la Pena y Pena commented that Mexico did not cede California and New Mexico for $15 million but rather to get U. S. troops out of Mexican cities and ports.69

British bondholders, who ultimately received $2.5 million of the $15 million indemnity payment, supported the settlement. Agiotistas, wanting to be paid in hard cash, also supported a settlement. One of the agiotistas who had the biggest stake in the settlement was British consul Ewen MacKintosh, who received $600,000 of the first $3 million indemnity payment.70

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo gave the roughly 85,000 Hispanics in the area transferred to the United States the option of moving to Mexico to keep their Mexican citizenship. If they remained for more than a year in the territory acquired by the United States, they automatically became U. S. citizens and were guaranteed possession of any property they owned.

Mexicans were lucky to retain as much territory as they did. A strong “all of Mexico” movement in the United States advocated taking the entire country. Advocates of the “all of Mexico” position were not confined to the United States. Some Mexican liberals who admired the United States proposed to General Scott that he should become dictator of Mexico. They wanted that to be the first step towards annexation by the United States.71

Proponents of seizing “all of Mexico” did not prevail for a variety of reasons. Former ambassador Poinsett warned that taking all of Mexico would require a large occupation force and would inflame Mexican nationalism, increasing resistance to the United States. Since the legality of slavery in any Mexican territory acquired had not been settled, abolitionists opposed absorbing Mexico since they feared that all the land annexed would become slave territory. Others opposed annexation because they did not want 7 million Mexicans of mixed race to be cast into the U. S. racial melting pot. William Prescott, author of the classic account of the Spanish conquest of Mexico, commented, “The Spanish blood will not mix well with the Yankee.”72