The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which came into effect on 2 February 1848, ended the Mexican-American war and formally resolved territorial disputes resulting from that conflict. The treaty required the U.S. government to pay the Mexican government $15 million dollars, this in return for an expanse of territory that later became the states of Arizona, New Mexico, and parts of Utah, Nevada, and Colorado. I intend to argue that the treaty benefitted the people who inhabited, and later came to inhabit, that territory. I also propose that, as a result of the transfer of territory from a dictatorial regime to one that was based on democratic principles, both Mexico and the United States ultimately benefitted in several ways.
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was not easily negotiated, for the disputes which underlay it went back to the question of Texas. …
