By: History.com Editors

1853

Gadsden Purchase helps establish southern U.S. border

History.com Editors

Published: February 09, 2010

Last Updated: January 30, 2025

James Gadsden, the U.S. minister to Mexico, and General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, the president of Mexico, sign the Gadsden Purchase in Mexico City. The treaty settled the dispute over the location of the Mexican border west of El Paso, Texas, and established the final boundaries of the southern United States. For the price of $15 million, later reduced to $10 million, the United States acquired approximately 30,000 square miles of land in what is now southern New Mexico and Arizona.

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Jefferson Davis, the U.S. secretary of war under President Franklin Pierce, had sent Gadsden to negotiate with Santa Anna for the land, which was deemed by a group of political and industrial leaders to be a highly strategic location for the construction of the southern transcontinental railroad. In 1861, the “big four” leaders of western railroad construction—Collis P. Huntington, Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins and Charles Crocker—established the Southern Pacific branch of the Central Pacific Railroad.

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Chinese immigrants, escaped slaves, and Native Americans were all people U.S. forces tried to keep on one side or the other.

Members of the US Army National Guard keep watch along the US Mexico border in Nogales, Arizona, 2010. (Credit: Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

By: Becky Little

Timeline

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1965

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1968

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Citation Information

Article title
Gadsden Purchase helps establish southern U.S. border
Website Name
History
Date Accessed
March 25, 2025
Publisher
A&E Television Networks
Last Updated
January 30, 2025
Original Published Date
February 09, 2010

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