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Title: Building a State in Apache Land

Author: Charles D. Poston

Release Date: February 22, 2004 [EBook #11226]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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BUILDING A STATE IN APACHE LAND

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From articles of Charles D. Poston in the _Overland Express_

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1894

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I

How the Territory Was Acquired

In San Francisco in the early fifties, there was a house on the
northeast corner of Stockton and Washington, of considerable
architectural pretensions for the period, which was called the
"Government Boarding House."

The cause of this appellation was that the California senators and their
families, a member of Congress and his wife, the United States marshal,
and several lesser dignitaries of the Federal Government, resided there.
In those early days private mansions were few; so the boarding-house
formed the only home of the Argonauts.

After the ladies retired at night, the gentlemen usually assembled in
the spacious parlor, opened a bottle of Sazerac, and discussed politics.

It was known to the senators that the American minister in Mexico had
been instructed to negotiate a new treaty with Mexico for the
acquisition of additional territory; not that there was a pressing
necessity for more land, but for reasons which will be briefly stated:

1st. By the treaty of 1848, usually called Guadaloupe Hidalgo,[A] the
government of the United States had undertaken to protect the Mexicans
from the incursions of Indians within the United States boundary, and as
this proved to be an impractical undertaking, the damages on account of
failure began to assume alarming proportions, and the government of the
United States was naturally anxious to be released from the obligation.

2. The Democratic party was in the plenitude of power, and the Southern
States were dominant in the Admi