Gadsen Purchase Treaty

The Avalon Project at Yale Law School provides a transcription of the Gadsden Purchase Treaty as amended by the Senate of the United States and signed by President Franklin Pierce on June 30, 1854. The version of the treaty which was signed in Mexico on December 30, 1853 specified that the United States would pay $15 million for 45,000 square miles of territory. However, when the U.S. Senate ratified the treaty on April 25, 1854, only $10 million was authorized for the purchase of 29,670 square miles of territory. The renegotiated treaty was signed by Antonio López de Santa Anna on June 8, 1854. See also: Gadsden Purchase, 1853-1854 (U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian).

• In the district south of the Gila [River, i.e., the land acquired through the Gadsden Purchase] there soon came to be a demand for some form of government. The population contained many turbulent characters, and the seat of the Territorial government at Santa Fe was so far removed from Tucson, Calabasas, Tubac and the mining camps between Tucson and the border as to be of no validity. Arizona was literally a land without organized society.
• August 29, 1856, a convention was held at Tucson which sent to Congress a memorial, signed by 260 citizens, urging the organization of a Territory of Arizona, and also provided for sending a delegate to Washington. Mark Aldrich, Mayor of Tucson, was the president of the convention; James Douglas of Sopori and Jose M. Martinez of San Xavier, vice-presidents; G. K. Terry and W. N. Brawner, secretaries, and Nathan P. Cook, G. H. Oury, H. Ehrenburg [sic], Ignacio Ortiz, and I. D. L. Pack constituted the Committee on Resolutions. Nathan P. Cook was elected as delegate. He went to Washington, and although not admitted to a seat, his mission was noticed.