New Mexico’s Old Times & Old Timers

NEW MEXICO’S OLD TIMES & OLD TIMERS

by Don Bullis, New Mexico Author DonBullis.biz

New Mexico Borders, Then And Now

New Mexico lies between 103° and 109° west longitude and 32° and 37° north latitude. It measures 390 miles from north to south and 350 miles from east to west. Total land area is 121,666, or 121,594, square miles, depending on the source, which makes New Mexico fifth in area among the fifty states (Alaska, Texas, California and Montana are larger). How these borders were established is a convoluted story.

In the 1600s, Nuevo Mejico had no specific boundaries. It was then under Spanish rule, and the Spaniards preferred it that way since they could then lay claim to all the lands north of Mexico, or New Spain, then called la tierra incognita or the unknown land. This was a huge area. On the east it ran from the confluence of the Rio Grande and the Rio Pecos, northeast across what is now Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. The northern boundary extended across Wyoming. The western limit was in central Utah, Arizona and into Mexico.

By 1700, Nuevo Mejico began to lose territory. El Paso was established as an important trading point and river crossing. It and the territory extending from what is now Texas and Arizona, and south to Chihuahua became the Province of Nueva Viscaya, which would itself be later divided into the Mexican states of Chihuahua and Durango. The northern boundary of Nueva Vizcaya was somewhere north of the present-day Las Cruces.

Boundary lines, both real and imagined, were established and withdrawn, and redrawn, for the next 100 years. Arguments raged between Spain and France about who owned what, and the young United States entered the fray with the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.

Large numbers of Anglo-American settlers began pouring into Mexican-ruled Texas in the 1820s, initially at the invitation of the Mexican government. By 1830 some 20,000 Americans were firmly established, and the Mexican government reconsidered its policy, but too late. In 1836, a substantial conflict arose between American Texans and the Mexican government. The result was the battle at the Alamo, and the subsequent defeat of the Mexican Army under General Santa Ana at the Battle of San Jacinto. Texas became independent and it too began looking westward for expansion. In 1841, Texans claimed everything west to the Rio Grande (which included Santa Fe, then a major trading point on the Santa Fe and Chihuahua trails) and north to present day Wyoming.

Texas invaded New Mexico in the same year with the so-called Texan-Santa Fe Expedition. The effort failed when the Texans got lost on the plains of eastern New Mexico and were captured by Mexican troops under the command of Governor Manuel Armijo and marched off to Mexico City. After that, more moderate Texans suggested that a better western boundary might be the Rio Pecos, but that never happened, either.

The Mexican War broke out in 1846, and while it was fought almost entirely in California, Texas and Mexico, it had a profound effect on New Mexico’s boundaries, and resulted in one of the great snafus in American geography.

The war ended with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which established the Rio Grande as the border between Texas and Mexico. It further described the border thus: “[North] to the point where it [the Rio Grande] strikes the southern boundary of New Mexico (which runs north of the town called Paso [El Paso] to its western termination, until it intersects the first branch of the River Gila.” The treaty also provided that boundaries should be based on a map published by J. Disturnell in 1847. Therein rested the problem.

J. Disturnell did not know where El Paso was located. His map placed the city about 100 miles east, and a little north, of where it was, and is, located. Albuquerque was placed northeast of the correct location and Santa Fe and Taos were in Colorado. This caused a considerable problem. First of all, President James K. Polk was not pleased with the treaty because he thought the United States should get more territory from Mexico as a result of the war and payment of $15,000,000; and second, the treaty gave Mexico the fertile farming area in the Mesilla Valley south of Las Cruces and the rich copper mines at Santa Rita.

A commission was established to resolve the problem. John R. Bartlett represented the United States and General Pedro Conde represented Mexico. They saw the problem with the Disturnell map and moved the line about 100 miles west, but they left the Mesilla Valley in Mexico while giving the copper mines to the United States. Congress failed to ratify the plan in 1852.

In the meantime, an armed conflict was shaping up in the Mesilla Valley. American settlers, mostly farmers, had been there for a number of years and as a result of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo they were being deprived of their land by the Mexican government. Open warfare was averted with the signing of the Gadsden Purchase in April of 1854. The United States acquired nearly 19,000,000 acres for payment to Mexico of another $10,000,000. U. S. troops entered the disputed area in November 1854 and it became firmly a part of the United States.

Thus was established the southern boundary of modern New Mexico. There were, of course, temporary changes during the Civil War when in 1861 Texas proclaimed the Confederate Territory of Arizona. That only lasted until 1862 when the Texas Confederates were driven out of New Mexico.

New Mexico and Arizona were a single territory until the U. S. Congress created Arizona in February 1863. The Robbins Survey finally established the western New Mexico boundary in 1875.

The Clark Survey established the eastern New Mexico boundary in 1859. Because the survey started at both the north and the south, there is a small glitch where New Mexico borders on Oklahoma. The Darling Survey established the northern border in 1868, but the exact line was not firmly drawn until 1960.

Thankfully, future changes are unlikely although there are some who think New Mexico should make a trade with Texas in which everything east of the Pecos would go to the Lone Star state—Clovis, Portales, Lovington, Hobbs et al—and New Mexico would acquire everything west of the Pecos. That would include El Paso. Not likely. ▫