Chapter 32: Mexico’s Surrender of Land Raises Southern Hopes for Expanding Slavery

1848

After eighteen months of combat and a combined casualty count of 50,000, an American triumph finds General Winfield Scott’s soldiers occupying Mexico City.

Peace negotiations end with the 1848 Treaty of Hidalgo, in which Mexico cedes 589 million acres of its land to the U.S. in exchange for $15million – or 2.5 cents per acre! This parcel represents 31% of the total American landmass and will yield parts or all of nine new states.

Blood shed by Southerners in the war convinces them of their entitlement to settle with their slaves in the agricultural rich Territories of New Mexico, Arizona and California.

That is, assuming they can overcome the barrier evident in the Wilmot Proviso.