NEW MEXICO’S OLD TIMES & OLD TIMERS by Don Bullis, New Mexico Author DonBullis.biz
New Mexico Borders, Then And Now
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ew Mexico lies between 103° and 109° General Santa Ana at the Battle of San A commission was established to resolve west longitude and 32° and 37° north Jacinto. Texas became independent and it the problem. John R. Bartlett represented latitude. It measures 390 miles from too began looking westward for expansion. the United States and General Pedro Conde north to south and 350 miles from east to In 1841, Texans claimed everything west to represented Mexico. They saw the problem west. Total land area is 121,666, or 121,594, the Rio Grande (which included Santa Fe, with the Disturnell map and moved the line square miles, depending on the source, then a major trading point on the Santa Fe about 100 miles west, but they left the which makes New Mexico fifth in area and Chihuahua trails) and north to present Mesilla Valley in Mexico while giving the among the fifty states (Alaska, Texas, Cali- day Wyoming. copper mines to the United States. Confornia and Montana are larger). How these Texas invaded New Mexico in the same gress failed to ratify the plan in 1852. borders were established is a convo- year with the so-called Texan-Santa Fe In the meantime, an armed conflict was luted story. Expedition. The effort failed when the shaping up in the Mesilla Valley. American In the 1600s, Nuevo Mejico had no spe- Texans got lost on the plains of eastern New settlers, mostly farmers, had been there for cific boundaries. It was then under Spanish Mexico and were captured by Mexican a number of years and as a result of the rule, and the Spaniards preferred it that way troops under the command of Governor Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo they were since they could then lay claim to all the Manuel Armijo and marched off to Mexico being deprived of their land by the Mexican lands north of Mexico, or New Spain, then City. After that, more moderate Texans sug- government. Open warfare was averted called la tierra incognita or the unknown gested that a better western boundary with the signing of the Gadsden Purchase land. This was a huge area. On the east it might be the Rio Pecos, but that never hap- in April of 1854. The United States acquired ran from the confluence of the Rio Grande pened, either. nearly 19,000,000 acres for payment to and the Rio Pecos, northeast across what is The Mexican War broke out in 1846, and Mexico of another $10,000,000. U. S. troops now Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. while it was fought almost entirely in Cali- entered the disputed area in November The northern boundary extended across fornia, Texas and Mexico, it had a profound 1854 and it became firmly a part of the Wyoming. The western limit was in central effect on New Mexico’s boundaries, and United States. Utah, Arizona and into Mexico. resulted in one of the great snafus in AmerThus was established the southern By 1700, Nuevo Mejico began to lose ican geography. boundary of modern New Mexico. There territory. El Paso was established as an The war ended with the signing of the were, of course, temporary changes during important trading point and river crossing. Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which estab- the Civil War when in 1861 Texas proclaimed It and the territory extending from what is lished the Rio Grande as the border the Confederate Territory of Arizona. That now Texas and Arizona, and south to Chi- between Texas and Mexico. It further only lasted until 1862 when the Texas Conhuahua became the Province of Nueva described the border thus: “[North] to the federates were driven out of New Mexico. Viscaya, which would itself be later divided point where it [the Rio Grande] strikes the New Mexico and Arizona were a single into the Mexican states of Chihuahua and southern boundary of New Mexico (which territory until the U. S. Congress created Durango. The northern boundary of Nueva runs north of the town called Paso [El Paso] Arizona in February 1863. The Robbins Vizcaya was somewhere north of the pres- to its western termination, until it intersects Survey finally established the western New ent-day Las Cruces. the first branch of the River Gila.” The treaty Mexico boundary in 1875. Boundary lines, both real and imagined, also provided that boundaries should be The Clark Survey established the eastern were established and withdrawn, and based on a map published by J. Disturnell New Mexico boundary in 1859. Because the redrawn, for the next 100 years. Arguments in 1847. Therein rested the problem. survey started at both the north and the raged between Spain and France about J. Disturnell did not know where El Paso south, there is a small glitch where New who owned what, and the young United was located. His map placed the city about Mexico borders on Oklahoma. The Darling States entered the fray with the Louisiana 100 miles east, and a little north, of where Survey established the northern border in Purchase in 1803. it was, and is, located. Albuquerque was 1868, but the exact line was not firmly Large numbers of Anglo-American set- placed northeast of the correct location drawn until 1960. tlers began pouring into Mexican-ruled and Santa Fe and Taos were in Colorado. Thankfully, future changes are unlikely Texas in the 1820s, initially at the invitation This caused a considerable problem. First although there are some who think New of the Mexican government. By 1830 some of all, President James K. Polk was not Mexico should make a trade with Texas in 20,000 Americans were firmly established, pleased with the treaty because he thought which everything east of the Pecos would and the Mexican government reconsidered the United States should get more territory go to the Lone Star state—Clovis, Portales, its policy, but too late. In 1836, a substantial from Mexico as a result of the war and Lovington, Hobbs et al—and New Mexico conflict arose between American Texans payment of $15,000,000; and second, the would acquire everything west of the Pecos. and the Mexican government. The result treaty gave Mexico the fertile farming area That would include El Paso. Not likely. was the battle at the Alamo, and the subse- in the Mesilla Valley south of Las Cruces and quent defeat of the Mexican Army under the rich copper mines at Santa Rita.
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NOVEMBER 2020
