[GUADALUPE HIDALGO, TREATY OF]. MEXICO & UNITED STATES. TREATY. Tratado de paz, amistad, límites y arreglo definitivo entre la República Mexicana y los Estados-Unidos de América firmado en Guadalupe Hidalgo el 2 de febrero de 1848, con las modificaciones con que ha sido aprobado por el Senado, y ratificado por el Presidente de los Estados-Unidos. Querétero: Imprenta de J.M. Lara, calle de Chirimoyo núm. 15, 1848. [With as issued]: Esposición dirigida al Supremo Gobierno por los comisionados que firmaron el tratado de paz con los Estados-Unidos. Querétaro: Imprenta de José M. Lara, calle de Chirimoyo número 45, 1848. [1-3] 4-28 (treaty, text in parallel columns of Spanish and English); [1-3] 4-27 [1] (Esposición, in Spanish) pp. 8vo (24.8 x 17.5 cm), original beige printed upper wrapper with typographical border, lacks lower wrapper, new stitching. Upper wrapper moderately chipped and expertly laid down on Japanese tissue, lightly soiled. Text generally fine. A tall, untrimmed copy.

First edition (without the added protocols); second issue of the Esposición, with Querétaro spelled correctly in imprint. Bauer Sale 481. Cowan II, p. 252. Eberstadt 162:846. Garrett & Goodwin, pp. 90-91. Graff 2775. Howell 50:163. Howes M565. Libros Californianos (Dawson & Howell list), p. 29. Palau 339388. Streeter Sale 281.

“This is the text of the treaty as signed at Querétaro 2 February 1848.... The treaty was transmitted to the United States Senate by President Polk in a message of 22 February and after various amendments was consented to by the Senate on 10 March 1848.... The Esposición at the end of the 2 February text written by the hard pressed Mexican signatories in defense of their cession of California and New Mexico to the United States, has continuous signatures with the Tratado, and though it has a separate imprint it is part of the Tratado” (Streeter).

Nicholas Trist, President Polk’s representative, and Mexican officials began negotiations after the fall of Mexico City for a treaty of peace, and concluded on February 2, 1848. By the treaty, Mexico ceded 55 percent of its territory (present-day Arizona, California, New Mexico, Texas, and parts of Colorado, Nevada, and Utah) in exchange for fifteen million dollars to compensate for damage to Mexican property by U.S. troops. The Texas border was set at the Rio Grande (Article V), civil and property rights of Mexican citizens living within the new border were guaranteed (Articles VIII and IX), and protocols were established for arbitrating future disputes (Article XXI). When the U.S. ratified the Treaty of Guadalupe in March, it deleted Article X, pledging protection of Mexican land grants. U.S. troops departed Mexico City after Senate ratification.

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is often described as resounding, and that is no exaggeration. Decades of “Manifest Destiny”—overt and sub rosa—were at last realized by the United States. Geography, property ownership, culture, religion, civil rights, lives, and ways of life were forever altered by the words in this imprint. This treaty is a foundation stone in the history and literature of the borderlands. In a 1987 exhibit at the Huntington Library, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was proposed as a possible addition to an expanded Zamorano 80.