On February 2, 1848, in the village of Guadupe Hidalgo, Mexico, the Mexican-American War officially ended. What began as border dispute between Mexico and the United States along the Rio Grande resulted in historic territorial gains and losses.
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Cover of the Exchange Copy and Seal of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, 1848
National Archives and Records Administration
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For America, the war was propelled by a belief in Manifest Destiny—America’s right to spread its white, Protestant civilization across the continent.
![Thomas Gamaliel Bradford, North America [Guadalupe Hidalgo Treaty Line Shown in Red], 1846](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-52oqKUtlBKg/VrEyd9z49AI/AAAAAAAAEDg/WTWo4In4a9w/s400/30109.jpg "Thomas Gamaliel Bradford, North America [Guadalupe Hidalgo Treaty Line Shown in Red], 1846") |
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Thomas Gamaliel Bradford, North America [Guadalupe Hidalgo Treaty Line Shown in Red], 1846
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From 1846 to 1848, U.S. and Mexican troops fought in Texas, New Mexico, California, Northern, Central and Eastern Mexico, and Mexico City. Mexican forces succumbed to the Americans in Mexico City in September 1847.
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John Gast, American Progress, 1872
Museum of the American West, Autry National Center
John Gast’s 1872 painting, American Progress, depicts the parade of pioneer types and the vision of civilization’s triumphant march across the continent. In his allegorical representation of Manifest Destiny, the female personification of the United States, Columbia, leads settlers westward.
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The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo established the Rio Grande as the U.S.-Mexican border. The United States acquired 525,000 square miles of Mexican territory including present-day California, Utah, Nevada, most of New Mexico and Arizona, and parts of Colorado and Wyoming, paying more than $15 for the territories and citizens’ claims against the Mexican government.
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E.B. & E. C. Kellogg, Attack on Chapultepec, 1847–48
Library of Congress
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Mexico lost almost one-half of its national territory.
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Kballen, Map of the Mexican Cession, 2008
Creative Commons
This map illustrates the Mexican Cession, the territories Mexico ceded to the
United States, minus Texan claims.
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By the terms of the treaty, former Mexican citizens and Native Americans were promised U.S. citizenship, but were denied the right until the 1930s. Mexican Americans also expected to keep their lands, or ranchos. As U.S. settlers rushed into the new territories, property rights disputes erupted, particularly in California, New Mexico, and Texas.
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Peralta Hacienda Historical Park, Mexico’s National Territoris, Pre-1836 to 1848
www.peraltahacienda.org
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In California, a little over a week before the treaty was signed, gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill in Coloma. The timing of the treaty and the discovery of gold ushered in significant changes to the geological, demographic, economic, and political landscapes. The territory began a period of transition from Mexican to American rule, culminating in statehood in 1850.
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Sketch map or Diseño of the Scott Tract of Rancho San Rafael (eastern Burbank, CA), c. 1857–1871
Published in Derek Hayes, Historical Atlas of California(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007)
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Shelly Kale
Publications and Strategic Projects Manager
Resources
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and related resources at the U.S. Library of Congress, http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/Guadalupe.html
Norman E. Tutorow, ed. The Mexican-American War: An Annotated Bibliography ( Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1981.
U.S.-Mexican War, 1846–1848