Gadsden Purchase

The Gadsden Purchase Treaty was an agreement between the United States and the Mexican Republic, concluded and signed at the City of Mexico on 30 December 1853 and proclaimed by the President of the United States in the form amended by the Senate, in English and Spanish. It was negotiated for the United States by James Gadsden, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary, and for Mexico by Manuel Diez de Bonilla with Jose Salazar Ylarregui and Mariano Monterde as scientific commissioners. Article I fixed a new boundary running from the Rio Grande at the 31 degree 47 minute parallel west and south to the 31 degree 20 minute parallel, along it to the 111th meridian and on to the Colorado River below the Gila junction, and annulled the conflicting line of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Article II released the United States from the obligations of Article XI of that earlier treaty, and Article III set a payment of ten million dollars, seven million on exchange of ratifications and three million after the line was surveyed. Other articles dealt with passage through the Gulf of California, land grants and transit across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.