John Smith’s map of Virginia, engraved by William Hole and published in 1612. Public domain.
The United States bought a strip of northern Mexico so a railroad could run west on a southern route.
A poor household on that strip was not the buyer and did not receive a farm out of the treaty.
A trader or small rancher along the route hoped a railroad would raise the value of a hard living.
Politicians and investors who wanted a southern line to the Pacific were the people the purchase served.
James Gadsden negotiated the purchase in 1853, and the Senate ratified a smaller version in 1854.
The United States paid Mexico ten million dollars for land that is now southern Arizona and a slice of New Mexico.
The point was a railroad corridor south of the mountains.
Gadsden Purchase treaty, 10 Stat. 1031 (1854); Paul Neff Garber, The Gadsden Treaty (1923)