Gadsden Purchase

It's really hard to judge the age of a cottonwood, but they're really large trees.

You know, at 250 years old, it'd be about as old as the Gadsden Purchase, meaning about as old as the border itself here.

Yeah, so people have taken up calling them the grandmother trees.

So they're grandmothers.

And the reservation has also historically extended into Sonora, Mexico.

And it was during the Gadsden Purchase in 1853 or 1854, I never remember which, that sort of cut the Tohono O'odham Nation in half.

But until now, there hasn't really been

like a big physical border wall.

However, there were ambiguities in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, so while the settlers in the Mesilla colony believed themselves to be firmly Mexican, the United States still considered their area to be part of US territory.

And this led to a lot of confusion and diplomatic disputes, making Mesilla a no man's land until the matter was officially settled in 1853 with the Gadsden Purchase, also known as the Venta de la Mesilla, or the Mesilla Sale.

The purchase officially made Mesilla part of the United States, with the agreement being ratified in 1854.

After the signing of this agreement, the town of Mesilla quickly became a cultural hub in the region, as it was perfectly situated to facilitate trade along the El Camino Real and the Santa Fe Trails.

Not because it is hidden necessarily, but because the medium in which it might be hidden is a three-dimensional maze of volcanic rock that actively resists systematic exploration.

The first American military surveys of the region, conducted in the 1850s and 1860s after the Gadsden Purchase brought the land under United States sovereignty, described the Superstition range in terms that combined geographical precision with a kind of bewildered frustration.

The surveyors were professionals.

They had mapped the Great Basin, the Colorado Plateau, the Sierra Nevada.

Beneath Waltz's story, beneath the deathbed directions and the maps and the gold ore samples lies an older narrative or what claims to be an older narrative.

The Peralta legend is the foundation myth of the Lost Dutchman story, the backstory that gives the mine a history before Waltz and a provenance that extends into the colonial period.

According to this legend, a wealthy Mexican mining family named Peralta operated rich gold mines in the Superstition Mountains during the first half of the nineteenth century before the Gadsden Purchase of 1853 transferred the region from Mexico to the United States.

The Peralta story goes like this.

During his administration, the Kansas-Nebraska bill, leaving slavery to popular vote, was passed.

The Gadsden Purchase from Mexico added some 45,000 square miles of territory in what is now Arizona and New Mexico.

And Japan opened its doors for the first time to trade with the United States.

If you don't have his name by now, here's one more important clue.

You imagine a desert, a line drawn in sand, and a railway that needs flat ground.

The Gadsden Purchase of eighteen fifty-four added nearly thirty thousand square miles to the United States, a strip of land along the southern border of present-day Arizona and New Mexico, acquired from Mexico for ten million dollars.

The official reason was to facilitate a southern transcontinental railroad route.

The flattest terrain between Texas and California ran through Mexican territory, and rather than negotiate permanent right-of-way, the Pierce administration negotiated permanent ownership.

Or, as another historian states it, territory equal in area to Germany, France, and Spain added together.

the gadsden purchase and the battalion route commenting on the battalion's march and the map he made of it colonel cook says a new administration this was the pierce administration eighteen fifty three eighteen fifty seven in which the southern interests prevailed with a great problem of the practicability and best location of a pacific railroad under investigation had the map of this wagon route before them with its continuance to the west and perceived that it gave exactly the solution of its unknown element that a southern route would both avoid the rocky mountains and sierra nevadas with their snows and would meet no obstacle in this great interval The new Gadsden Treaty was the result.

It was signed December 30, 1853.

This purchase added to the territory of the United States 45,535 square miles, for which was paid $10 million.

The purchase was made by James Gadsden of South Carolina, Minister to Mexico, hence the name Gadsden Purchase.

in addition to the wagon road opened westward through southern new mexico arizona and california we have seen that it was a detachment of twenty-five discharged members of the battalion which brought the first wagon through from the coast by a cajon pass to salt lake valley following what is now the general course of the san pedro los angeles and salt lake railroad and which became known in the early utah california times as the southern california route to the coast also as we have seen the battalion members returning from the gold fields of the american river region cut a new wagon road much of the way for there's seventeen wagons and two cannons from the western side of the sierra across the summit of that lofty range thence down to the eastern sloping deserts of nevada and so to salt lake valley The conquest of northern Mexico, including, of course, California and Utah, as well as New Mexico, and, bracket, transcriber's note, text is missing in the original, end bracket, lengths of their conduct, not only on the march to the Pacific Fleet of the American Navy and the Army of the West, the main division of which was under the command of General Stephen W. Kearney, the battalion's part in the conquest is detailed in the foregoing narrative and also is acknowledged in the military order by colonel cook referred to several times and given in full in a preceding page of this book in addition to all this the battalion reflected great credit upon the community of utah pioneers of whom it never ceased to be a part by reason of the excellence of their conduct not only on the march to the pacific coast but also when doing garrison duty in southern california the efforts to secure the reenlistment of the battalion and failing that the effort to secure the enlistment of a second mormon battalion were the conscious confessions of both california and federal officials since both participated in such efforts to the worth of these united states soldiers They religiously respected their rights and feelings of the conquered people of California.

Not a syllable of complaint of a single insult offered or any outrage done by a Mormon volunteer is the record of the battalion and the re-enlisted volunteers according to the report of them by Governor Mason.