Borderlands.
An El Paso, Texas, site commemorates the signing of a border treaty between Mexico and the United States.A BORDER CONFLICT left unresolved for nearly 100 years was eventually settled by ditch diggers, dump trucks, and concrete. At Chamizal National Memorial, park staff celebrate the signing of the Chamizal Treaty of 1963--which settled a land dispute that had caused tensions between the United States and Mexico since 1866.
Many border conflicts began after Mexico became independent. from Spain in 1821, including those that led to the secession of Texas from Mexico in 1836, and the addition of that state into the American Union in 1845. The secession, and the border disputes that occurred afterward, led to war between the newly established Mexican nation and a United States fixed on its own westward expansion.
Although the traditional border between Texas and Mexico had been the Nueces River, U.S. President James Polk set the stage for the Mexican-American War when he encouraged Texans to accept annexation by assuring them that the United States would uphold their claims of land south of the Nueces to the Rio Grande.
The war began after Polk sent troops, led by General Zachary Taylor, who would later become the 12th president of the United States, into territory inhabited by Mexicans. In an effort that some historians claim was a provocation, Taylor's troops marched to the Rio Grande. A colonel under Taylor's command commented: "He seems to have lost all respect for Mexican rights and is willing to be an instrument of Mr. Polk for pushing our boundary as far west as possible."
The theory of "manifest destiny," coined by John O'Sullivan, the editor of the Democratic Review, in 1845, led many to believe that Americans had a divine right to colonize the land between the eastern states and California. Congress, as well as much of the press of the time, largely supported the war. The poet, Walt Whitman, writing in the Brooklyn Eagle, said: "Yes: Mexico must be thoroughly chastised! ... Let our arms now be carried with a spirit which shall teach the world that...America knows how to crush, as well as how to expand." Not everyone supported the war, however. Henry David Thoreau went to jail in 1846 for refusing to pay his taxes because of the war. Two years later he wrote the famous essay, "Civil Disobedience." It was reported that when Ralph Waldo Emerson visited Thoreau in jail and asked him "What are you doing in there?" Thoreau replied, "What are you doing out there?"
After the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the war in 1848 and set up the Texas border at the Rio Grande, there remained land disputes. One of the disputes, over a tract of land known as El Chamizal, involved the controversy over how to settle issues when the river shifted its course. The precedent was that if the river shifted by gradual movement called accretion, the boundary moved with the river's deepest channel, but if it moved by avulsion, a sudden change, then the boundary remained the old riverbed. In the case of El Chamizal, both forms took place.
In 1962, Mexican President Adolfo Lopez Mateos and U.S. President John F. Kennedy began the agreement that would result in the building of a concrete channel to create a permanent border near El Paso, and the Chamizal tract was returned to Mexico. The Chamizal Treaty was signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1963.
Today the park not only commemorates the signing of the treaty but also contributes to multicultural understanding through a celebration of the arts of various cultures.
WILLIAM A. UPDIKE is assistant editor for National Parks.
 Printer friendly
 Cite/link
 Email
 Feedback
| |
| Title Annotation: | history of Chamizal National Memorial park and signing of the Chamizal Treaty by the United States and Mexico |
|---|---|
| Author: | UPDIKE, WILLIAM A. |
| Publication: | National Parks |
| Article Type: | Brief Article |
| Geographic Code: | 1USA |
| Date: | Jan 1, 2001 |
| Words: | 616 |
| Previous Article: | THE CARIBBEAN NATIONAL PARKS. |
| Next Article: | A Prickly Problem. |
| Topics: | |