49. MEXICO & UNITED STATES. TREATY (Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo). Tratado de paz, amistad, límites y arreglo definitivo entre la República Mexicana y los Estados-Unidos de América...con las modificaciones con que ha sido aprobado por el Senado, y ratificado por el Presidente de los Estados-Unidos. Querétero: Imprenta de J. M. Lara, calle de Chirimoyo núm. 15, 1848. [With continuous signatures, as issued]. Esposición dirigida al Supremo Gobierno por los comisionados que firmaron el tratado de paz con los Estados-Unidos. Queréaro[sic]: Imprenta de José M. Lara, calle de Chirimoyo número 45, 1848. [1-3] 4-28 (treaty, text in parallel columns of Spanish and English); [1-3] 4-27 [1] (Esposición, in Spanish) pp. 8vo, new Mexican tan leather, spine gilt-lettered, new endpapers. Some leaves shaved close at top into page numbers, some leaves near end of second work lightly dampstained in lower blank margin, signature 6 in second work browned, overall light browning. Lacks wrappers.

            First edition (without the added protocols); first issue of the Esposición, with Querétaro misspelled in imprint. Bauer 481. Cowan II, p. 252. Graff 2775. Eberstadt, Texas 846. Howell 50, California 163. Howes M565. Libros Californianos (Dawson & Howell list), p. 29, “This was the treaty that gave California to the United States.” Palau 339388. Streeter Sale 281: “This is the text of the treaty as signed at Querétaro 2 February 1848.... The treaty was transmitted to the United States Senate by President Polk in a message of 22 February and after various amendments was consented to by the Senate on 10 March 1848.... The Esposición at the end of the 2 February text written by the hard pressed Mexican signatories in defense of their cession of California and New Mexico to the United States, has continuous signatures with the Tratado, and though it has a separate imprint it is part of the Tratado—TWS.”
            In November 1835, the northern part of the Mexican state of Coahuila y Tejas declared itself in revolt against Santa Anna’s centralist government. In February 1836, Texas declared its territory to be independent and claimed a southern border of the Rio Grande rather than the Rio Nueces that Mexico asserted. Following the Battle of San Jacinto, Mexico perceived Texas as a mutinous province they would eventually bring back into the fold. In December 1845, the United States Congress voted to annex the Republic of Texas and ordered General Zachary Taylor to the Rio Grande to maintain the Rio Grande border. Predictable clashes between Mexican troops and U.S. forces provided the rationale for the U.S. declaration of war on May 13, 1846. The Mexican-American War (or, depending on one’s point of view, Invasión Norteamericana) lasted two years, with far-flung theaters of war, including South Texas, Monterrey, New Mexico, California, Chihuahua, Veracruz, Puebla, and, most decisively, in Mexico City, which General Winfield Scott captured in August 1847.
            Nicholas Trist, President Polk’s representative, and Mexican officials immediately began negotiations for a treaty of peace, and on February 2, 1848, the treaty was signed in the town of Guadalupe Hidalgo, where the Mexican government had fled when U.S. troops advanced. The ceremony took place on February 2, 1848, in the shadow of the Villa of Guadalupe, the place of the highly respected shrine dedicated to Mexico’s patron saint, the Virgin of Guadalupe, in Mexico City. Not even the patron saint of Mexico could alter the tides of history. By the Treaty of Guadalupe, Mexico ceded 55 percent of its territory (present-day Arizona, California, New Mexico, Texas, and parts of Colorado, Nevada, and Utah) in exchange for fifteen million dollars to compensate for damage to Mexican property by U.S. troops. The Texas border was set at the Rio Grande (Article V), civil and property rights of Mexican citizens living within the new border were guaranteed (Articles VIII and IX), and protocols were established for arbitrating future disputes (Article XXI). When the U.S. ratified the Treaty of Guadalupe in March, it deleted Article X, pledging protection of Mexican land grants. U.S. troops departed Mexico City after Senate ratification.
            The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is often described as resounding, and that is no exaggeration. Decades of “Manifest Destiny”—overt and sub rosa—were at last realized by the United States. Geography, property ownership, culture, religion, civil rights, lives, and ways of life were forever altered by the words in this imprint. This treaty is a foundation stone in the history and literature of the borderlands. In a 1987 exhibit at the Huntington Library, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was proposed as a possible addition to an expanded Zamorano 80.
($1,500-3,000)

50. MEXICO & UNITED STATES. TREATY (Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo). Tratado de paz, amistad, limites y arreglo definitivo entre la República Mexicana y los Estados-Unidos de America. Concluido por los plenipotenciarios en Guadalupe Hidalgo el 2 de Febrero, ratifacado en Washington el 10 de Marzo, y en Querétaro el 30 de Mayo de 1848. [Treaty of Peace, Friendship, Boundaries, and Definitive Settlement between the United States of America and the Mexican Republic; Concluded by the Plenipotentiaries in Guadalupe Hidalgo on the 2nd of February, Ratified in Washington on the 10th of March, and in Querétaro on the 30th of May, 1848]. Mexico: Imprenta de I. Cumplido, Calle de los Rebeldes, N. 2, 1848. [1-5] 6-55 [1] pp. 8vo, original beige printed wrappers (title within ornamental border), bound in new full black Mexican leather, title in gilt on spine, new endpapers. Except for minor soiling to wrappers and scattered light stains, fine.
            First complete edition, with the added protocols, which were necessary for the conclusion of the peace treaty (this edition is much scarcer than the Querétaro printing issued a few months before). Cowan II, p. 252. Harper 201:658: “One of the rarest issues of the great Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, by which the United States extended its frontiers to the Pacific Ocean.” Howes M565. Palau 339389. Streeter Sale 282: “This is a most unusual document for as shown by the collation, instead of incorporating in a new text the amendments to the treaty of 2 February 1848, made by the Senate of the United States, the text of the treaty as originally signed on 2 February is given followed by the text of the amendments made by the Senate. There follows a statement of Peña y Peña dated 30 May 1848, approving the treaty with the foregoing modifications, and then follows a Protocol dated 28 May construing in a manner apparently satisfactory to Mexico what the United States meant by certain of the amendments. It is somewhat frustrating that this unusual procedure and protocol is not mentioned by Justin Smith in his War with Mexico though he frequently discusses at interminable length various phases of the war.—TWS”
            Naturally, it seemed to many Mexicans that the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo gave away a large portion of their country, and in the Esposición that follows the treaty proper, the Mexican commissioners who signed the treaty justify their actions. They stress that while the U.S. had a stable and prosperous government, Mexico was poor, internally divided, and unprepared for the struggle. There are some interesting observations on Texas, especially regarding the Nueces Strip. The commissioners contend that in fleeing to Matamoros after the battle of San Jacinto, the Mexican Army gave the Texans grounds for their claims to the area.
            Article XI sets out how to deal with Native Americans: “Considering that a great part of the terriries [i.e., territories] which, by the present treaty, are to be comprehended for the future within the limits of the United States, is now occupied by savage tribes, who will hereafter be under the exclusive control of the government of the United States, and whose incursions within the territory of Mexico would be prejudicial in the extreme, it is solemnly agreed that all such incursions shall be forcibly restrained by the government of the United States whensoever this may be necessary.... It shall not be lawful, under any pretext whatever, for any inhabitant of the United States to purchase or acquire any Mexican or any foreigner residing in Mexico, who may have been captured by Indians inhabiting the territory of either of the two republics, nor to purchase or acquire horses, mules, cattle, or property of any kind, stolen within Mexican territory, by such Indians; nor to provide such Indians with firearms or amunition [sic], by sale or otherwise.”
($1,500-3,000)