James Gadsden

Computers are great. A person can punch in a few words and become an instant expert on topics ranging from Aardvark to Zanzibar — sometimes. On the other hand, when a computer makes an error, it can spread it thousands of times faster than any human could.
For instance, type in Gadsden Purchase Treaty into a search engine. For those who still love the feel of a real book, pick up an encyclopedia, a general U.S. history book, or even some books about Arizona. Your chances are at least one out of four that you will read that the Gadsden Purchase Treaty was signed in 1853. In that year, the United States spent $10 million and received the southern one-third of what is now Arizona, and a little piece of southwestern New Mexico.
The other 75 percent of the materials you read will accurately relate that the final treaty was not signed into law by President Franklin Pierce until June 24, 1854. “So what,” you non-history geeks may say, “what’s the difference≠” In this case, the difference is six months, $10 million and 9,000 square miles.
James Gadsden was sent to Mexico with five or six secret plans, and was told to make the best deal he could for the largest amount of land at the smallest purchase price. On the other hand, President Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna was afraid of risking rebellion if he gave away too much land, but needed the money to pay his troops and stay in power.
The treaty signed in Mexico City by James Gadsden for the United States and Manuel Díez de Bonilla required the United States to pay $15 million for a larger piece of land, but they would also have to pay $5 million in reparations for damages from American Indian raids into Mexico from 1848 on. The treaty signed in 1853 was called the Tratado de Mesilla, because it also dealt with disputed boundaries surrounding Las Cruces (then Mesilla), New Mexico.
Just as a bill does not become a law until Congress and the President ratify it, the Tratado de Mesilla was merely a rough draft of what would eventually become the Gadsden Purchase. Proving a tumultuous year for national politics, 1854 was not a good time to reach agreement on a matter of foreign policy that would add more territory to the nation.
The Kansas-Nebraska Act was also being debated in Congress at that time. It stated that the citizens of a new territory had the right to decide whether slavery would be permitted. Proponents of both factions flooded into the area, and the resulting violence was known as “Bloody Kansas.”
Every issue that reached Congress was looked at from the point of view of slavery, and the Gadsden Purchase was no different. Northern Abolitionists were against the treaty altogether. Western Expansionists felt that we were paying too much for too little, and wanted a seaport. Southerners favored the treaty because it would provide a southern railroad route to the California gold fields.
Abolitionists and Southerners had both seen an 1851 survey map that noted “fine cotton lands” along the Gila River. Southern plantation owners could grow cotton along the banks of the Gila River, and then float it by barge to the Colorado, which already had steamboats that could transport the cargo. A seaport would give them a direct sales route to England.
After months of debate, Sen. Thomas Jefferson Rusk submitted the compromise. He drew the current boundary, including the diagonal line that avoided the seaport. At the same time, he cut the purchase price to $10 million, and eliminated any obligation for Indian reparations. However, the new map gave the United States 9,000 fewer square miles than the Tratado de Mesilla. It was a completely different treaty, but it was all the Senate could agree on. Now it was up to a furious James Gadsden to take the new treaty back to Mexico City and get their approval. Santa Anna could see the reality of Gadsden’s argument, and the new treaty was approved, taken back to Washington D.C., and signed into law by President Franklin Pierce on Saturday, June 24, 1854.
Jim Turner. Photo courtesy of the Arizona Historical Society.