Remembering again 176 years: How Utah stopped being a part of Mexico

SALT LAKE CITY — Like at all times, this coming Thursday, Could 30, is predicted to cross with out fanfare. No public celebrations, no parades scheduled, no fireworks or drone exhibits.

This, regardless of the actual fact one of the crucial momentous historic occasions because it pertains to the bottom we’re standing on occurred 176 years in the past, on Could 30, 1848, when the international locations of Mexico and america ratified the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

Within the treaty, which adopted two years of battle, Mexico ceded to America what is named the Mexican Cession, an space that features the states we now know as Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Oklahoma, Kansas, California, Nevada and elements of Wyoming. Some folks rely Texas, too, since within the treaty Mexico additionally agreed to absolve all future rights to that huge territory.

How massive a deal was it?

“At the very least as important because the Louisiana Buy,” says Westminster School professor Jeff Nichols, referencing the 1804 acquisition from France that almost doubled the scale of the nation. “And arguably extra important, given the circumstances of in the present day. Take a look at simply California alone — our most populous state and if it have been its personal nation, it might be the fifth largest financial system on earth.”

Nichols extra totally appreciates the importance of the treaty as a result of, A) he teaches historical past for a residing, and B) he did not develop up right here, and as is usually the case, he is aware of and prizes the native historical past greater than the locals.

Nichols, who grew up in Hudson Falls, New York, got here to Utah within the Nineteen Nineties courtesy of the U.S. Navy, which he was a member of and which gave him a alternative of the place to go to highschool to show ROTC: the College of Arizona or the College of Utah. He selected Utah as a result of — cue the No. 1 reply — he preferred to ski.

After he obtained his graduate diploma in historical past from Utah, Westminster employed him and he moved to Mountain Inexperienced, the little Weber Canyon city with a commanding view of Snowbasin Resort, the place Nichols is a longtime season cross holder.

It was whereas working towards his grasp’s diploma that Nichols “obtained fascinated by Utah historical past.”

“My goodness, it is fairly completely different and it is so comparatively current and comparatively well-documented. It is sort of an exquisite factor, for a historian,” he says.

The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is a living proof. When Latter-day Saint pioneers first arrived within the Salt Lake Valley in the summertime of 1847, the Mexican-American Struggle was ongoing and the realm nonetheless belonged to Mexico. America would not take over till Mexico surrendered in early 1848 and the treaty was signed within the village of Guadalupe Hidalgo (which in the present day is a Mexico Metropolis suburb).

The Mexican-American Struggle was by no means about who obtained to personal the Nice Salt Lake, after all, and no pictures have been fired in the course of the battle within the desolation that was then Utah.

However historical past begs questions, and one of many questions Utah’s historical past begs is did Brigham Younger, when he led his spiritual campaign right here, know what was about to occur with the land he was fleeing to? Did he anticipate to reside in Mexico or america? Did he care?

“It is an awesome query,” says Nichols, “however one we do not know the reply to. I do not suppose anybody is aware of, actually, what Brigham Younger knew and what he was considering. Did he suppose it by means of: Is it going to be simpler to do that underneath a comparatively weaker Mexican state than this increasing United States? Did he sit round together with his excessive council and speculate, nicely, if this occurs, we’ll try this? We apparently haven’t got a report. We are able to solely guess.”

Nichols would not suppose it was the very first thing on the Latter-day Saint chief’s thoughts.

“He was an eminently sensible man, his default setting was at all times a sort of autonomy. It is us, simply us. Let’s create our world, our kingdom, and we’ll take care of outsiders when and if we now have to.”

We do know what Brigham Younger was considering after the battle ended. Losing no time, he petitioned the U.S. Congress to approve a brand new state he’d mapped out known as Deseret. The boundaries entailed nearly all the newly acquired Mexican Cession.

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If he’d prevailed, we would be residing in the course of 490,000 sq. miles in the present day as a substitute of Utah’s present-day 85,000.

However as Nichols factors out, Brigham Younger’s plans, like Mexico’s, ran headlong into Manifest Future — President James Ok. Polk’s grand quest to increase the nation from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Manifest Future was largely answerable for the Mexican-American Struggle. The timeliness of the California gold rush in 1849 — going down on land that solely 11 months in the past belonged to Mexico — solely heightened the exodus to the West.

Whether or not the U.S. was justified in buying 55% of Mexico by army drive — Polk had first tried to purchase California and different elements of the Mexican Cession solely to be turned down — is what Nichols calls “the basic query.”

“Did the Spanish steal the territory from the Aztecs?” he asks rhetorically. “The reply is sure, that is what human beings do.”

In any occasion, the Mexican Cession “is among the nice financial bargains of all time,” Nichols says of the 529,000 sq. miles (not counting Texas) america acquired 176 years in the past for just below 5 cents an acre.

Had it by no means occurred, “The state of Deseret may need continued,” the professor says. “I can not think about the Mexican authorities capable of exert a lot management, that far-off. Indigenous folks have been successfully in management, so I believe it might have been fascinating to see if that state of Deseret had succeeded. What would Las Vegas seem like within the state of Deseret? Wouldn’t it be eight households across the current meadows? It might be completely different, for positive. I want we knew extra of what Brigham Younger was actually considering.”