How the States Got Their Shapes Too_ The People Behind the Borderlines - Mark Stein [122]
—REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CONVENTION, 1864
Francisco Perea and John S. Watts, sixteen years apart in age, had only recently gotten to know one another when they jointly sought to have the Republican Party include New Mexico’s vote. Yet prior to their relationship, both played key roles in defusing an explosive situation that followed the United States’ 1848 acquisition of New Mexico (and a great deal more) in the Mexican War. The danger was that, in acquiring the land, the United States had also acquired people who spoke another language and had not sought to become Americans.
Francisco Perea (1830-1913) (photo credit 35.1)
Watts and Perea’s leadership had little to do with the fact that one was Anglo and the other Hispanic. Neither group was of one mind regarding New Mexico’s future. Their leadership resulted from the fact that both men comprehended those complexities. Their success as leaders can be seen today in the seemingly simple straight line dividing New Mexico and Arizona.
John S. Watts (1816-1876) (photo credit 35.2)
New Mexico’s complexities were embedded in the orders General Stephen Kearny received after capturing Santa Fe in the opening year of the Mexican War. “In your whole conduct you will act in such a manner as best to conciliate the inhabitants,” the secretary of war had instructed, “and render them friendly to the United States.” Hardly complex orders in theory, but in practice they entailed considerable complexity. The first complication surfaced when the general issued a set of laws to govern New Mexico. Collectively known as the Kearny Code, they adhered to the secretary of war’s orders by leaving in place the region’s Mexican laws and guaranteeing freedom of religion, freedom of speech, the right to assemble—indeed, everything in the Bill of Rights with one exception: the right to bear arms.
The part of the Kearny Code that proved to be dicey—and that later affected Perea, Watts, and the Arizona boundary they sought—was its opening statement. “The country heretofore known as New Mexico,” it benignly began, “shall be known hereafter and designated as the territory of New Mexico, in the United States of America.” Sounds simple enough … unless one should ask (and many did): what was “the country heretofore known as New Mexico”?
To New Mexicans, the answer was clear and important. Nuevo Méjico had been a province in Mexico that extended north along the Rio Grande valley from what is now the Mexican border. But after Tejas won its independence from Mexico in 1836, becoming the Republic of Texas, it claimed the Rio Grande valley on the Texas side of the river. Mexico never accepted this claim. When Texas later joined the United States, Congress stipulated the Rio Grande as its western border, and the Mexican War began.
New Mexico Territory, 1848-50
While the implication in General Kearny’s statement might go unnoticed today, Congress and President James K. Polk spotted it at once and rejected it, since it was unconstitutional to create a new jurisdiction that altered an existing state line without the consent of that state. Nevertheless, four years later Congress found a way to grant New Mexico’s wish via the nation’s enduring curse: slavery.
The Compromise of 1850 was delicately held together in part by adding an additional issue to the deal: the Texas-New Mexico border. Texas had acquired enormous debt during its days as a republic. Under the compromise, Congress enabled Texas to pay off its debt by purchasing a large block of its western region, which it then gave to the New Mexico Territory. For some reason, New Mexico’s new boundary, the 103rd meridian (later found to have been inaccurately surveyed), was considerably farther east than