WHITE, GALLAGHER & WHITE (19th Century).
Mapa de los Estados Unidos de Méjico.
Engraving with original hand color, on original rollers.
New York: Gallaher & White, 1828.
29" x 41" sheet, 40" x 55 1/2" framed.

White, Gallagher & White’s plagiarized copy of Tanner’s map of Mexico ultimately became the basis for the southwestern boundary of the United States.

Mexico’s struggle for independence from Spain began in the 18th century, but accelerated when Napoleon invaded and occupied Spain in 1808. All of Spanish America was affected, but the course of the revolt was unique in Mexico.

Mexico was strongly stratified. All political, economic and social power rested with Conservatives, people born in Spain and to a lesser extent those of Spanish descent who were born in Mexico. The mixed and indigenous population was repressed and exploited. Humboldt’s Essay on New Spain had stated it succinctly: “Mexico is the country of inequality.”

Revolutionary movements among the poor and indigenous people arose sporadically throughout the 18th and early 19th centuries, but they were all ruthlessly crushed. The most successful was in 1810 when Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla came close to capturing Mexico City. His program included independence from Spain, land redistribution and racial equality. His revolt was short lived; in 1812 conservative Royalists captured and executed him.

Ironically, a liberal government came into power in Spain and promised reforms. To preserve their prerogatives, the conservatives themselves rebelled, and declared Mexico’s independence in 1821. Negotiations with Spain resulted in a new Mexican monarchy. It preserved the status of the Catholic church, made Mexicans of Spanish descent equal to the Spanish born, and maintained the lesser status of mixed and indigenous people. Two years later the monarchy was overthrown in favor of a Republican form of government, although much of the inequality persisted.

The new Mexican nation faced daunting challenges, not least of which were repeated attempts by Spain to reconquer its former colony. It was not until the Battle of Tampico in 1829 that these efforts finally ceased. One offshoot of the conflict was the enhanced power and popularity of Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana, who parleyed his role as the “Hero of Tampico” into the Presidency of the nation.

The Mexican Republic also had troubles in California. Sparsely settled, the Territory of Alta California did not even qualify as a State under Mexico’s new constitution. Moreover, repeated revolts and insurrections kept Mexico’s control of the territory tenuous. In 1836, for example, the then governor Juan Baptista Alvarado led a revolt and declared the region to be independent. It even had its own flag (a red star on a white background). Negotiations quickly led to Alta California returning to Mexico, but a multitude of issues continued to divide Californios from Mexico.

An even greater problem facing the new Mexican government was Texas. Spanish policy had successfully encouraged Anglo-American immigration into Texas. But those immigrants were not easily assimilated, and maintained stronger ties with their former homeland than with Mexico. They also imported slaves into Texas despite slavery being illegal in Mexico. The possibility of rebellion was growing. The Mexican government took steps to investigate and then enacted the Law of April 6, 1830. The law barred future immigration from the United States, ended pending land grants to the empresarios, prohibited Texans from importing slaves, and slapped duties on all imports from the United States.

The Texans strongly opposed the Law of 1830, and the threat of violence increased. In 1833 Santa Ana was elected President, and then essentially overthrew the government and declared himself a dictator. Texans began to fear the worst. The arrest of the Empresario Stephen F. Austin in 1835 caused further concern. Then the necessary spark set off the revolution: in October 1835 the Texan militia in Gonzales was ordered to give up its cannon to the Republican army. It refused, and the ensuing battle began the war for Texan independence. After serious reversals, the newly formed Republic of Texas prevailed at the Battle of San Jacinto and captured Santa Ana. He signed a treaty while in captivity, and in 1836 Sam Houston was elected the Republic of Texas’ first President.

These events were followed with enormous interest in the United States and Europe. In 1825, Henry S. Tanner published his Map of the United States of Mexico. As organized and defined by the Several Acts of the Congress of that Republic which sold in large numbers. In a variety of iterations, this map influenced the course of events for the next two decades.

The physical geography of Tanner’s map was based in large part on Humboldt’s map, as well as maps by Juan Pedro Walker, Zebulon Pike and others.

Politically, Tanner’s map was an interesting combination of old and new information. As the title suggested, Tanner did identify the 19 states and 4 territories described in the Mexican constitution. One such state was Coahuila y Tejas. Territories included Alta California, Naja California and Santa Fe de Nuevo Mexico. However, Tanner’s map continued to identify these regions as the “Internal Provinces”, which had been separately administered under the Spanish Viceroyalty.

Tanner’s first edition followed Humboldt in beginning the border of Texas at the mouth of the River Nueces, before extending it northwest to a point where it joined the border of Coahuila.

Tanner’s map also showed the boundary between Alta and Baja California as a diagonal line extending southwest from the intersection of the Gila and Colorado Rivers to the coast south of San Diego. This roughly approximated the traditional line separating the different jurisdictions of Franciscan and Dominican missionaries in early colonial times.

Tanner’s 1825 map appeared to follow Humboldt’s map in its location of the border between Mexico and modern New Mexico. In the 1826 second state he moved the boundary of New Mexico farther to the north, a change that was incorporated in the eight states issued thereafter. The error had important implications two decades later.

The 1826 second state of Tanner’s map was the basis for an 1828 map by the New York publishing house of White Gallaher & White. It is not clear whether the Mapa de los Estados Unidos de Mejico was published with Tanner’s cooperation, but it was clearly plagiarized from his map. The two maps share many common errors, and share the same insets: detailed tables of distance and a large scale map of the vital region between Santa Cruz and Mexico City. They also both locate the three important boundaries in an identical fashion: the boundary of Texas at the River Nueces, the boundary of New Mexico moved to the north, and the boundary between Baja and Alta California on the diagonal from the intersection of the Colorado and Gila Rivers.

White Gallgaher & White translated the map’s title and written text into Spanish, probably in recognition of the strong market for the map in Mexico and the American Southwest. They also increased the scale of the map from Tanner’s one inch to 85 miles to one inch to 70 miles, and added parts of South Carolina, Georgia, Florida and Cuba that do not appear on the earlier map. Apparently these differences were enough to ensure a market for both maps, which continued to be sold side by side.