TREATY OF GUADALUPE HIDALGO

By now, I have read this treaty three times and the same out-points keep coming up and striking me as obvious. To start with, the treaty is very one sided leaning towards interpretation and change by the U.S. Government and it seems to somewhat make a mockery out of the Mexican Government as it makes it clear that the "fifteen millions of dollars" paid for that territory is a fair price, and that the Mexican Government has agreed that in fact this is a fair price. Now, this last one truly shook me up as it gave me the distinct impression that we, as a nation, represented by the government, believe from its creation, that we can buy anything, specially people.

Obviously, this is not the original treaty, as it has amendments which make reference to a later ones wherein the original treaty has been amended. However, what it is also obvious is that there were negotiations, talks and documents drawn several years before this treaty came to pass as evidenced by the Articles of the Treaty itself. By reading this version of the treaty I have the nagging certainty that what the Mexican Government signed is not what appears on the version we are reading. To further my discomfort with the document, I can add that in the version I have, Articles IX and X are missing, even though I understand that Clause No. X was deleted by the US Government without notifying Mexico, I cannot comment on No. IX which I do not have.

I have heard Mexican descendants living in California talk about this territory as their territory, and as per this treaty it was. For me, the most outrageous and damaging information in this document is the one which refers to the Native Americans as savages and makes them appear less than human. The treaty clearly reads that it is the agreement of both governments, that if perceived as necessary, these tribes would be "severely punished" which at that time meant exterminated (making them appear less than bugs).

If I am to see part of history through this Treaty , my opinion of both participants is not good. However, they both share one thing in common, they both considered the Native Americans as less than human and as slaves.

Removing the claims from both nations to this land, this land truly belonged to the Native Americans; if a group of people truly got the short end of the stick, it was the native americans and nobody else. I believe both governments, the American and the Mexican governments, and their descendants, have no right to complain about the way they live, what happened in the past, what is theirs and what it is not, as they cannon even take a look at what both created as a result of their actions of long ago. The more I learn about the different "ethnic" groups of the are, the more empathy I have for the Native Americans.

I am not satisfied with this information, there are too many holes on the information presented on this guy. These are the ones that grab my attention the most, during the lecture, we were told that he would get information from a person of hacienda owners who had slaves and that by the time he arrived, he found nothing. Later on, allegedly he found out that it was because there were snitches who would go to the Hacienda owners and told them that Griffith was on his way - this is what arose the following questions:

1) How could this "snitches" travel to the haciendas and let the owners know he was on his way.

2) If true that the slaves got killed, how did they got killed, what happened to the bodies, and where

did the Hacienda owners found more slaves.

3) If Griffith could find out that the reason why he did not succeed on his quest was due to the

snitches - did somebody actually told him or he arrived to the conclusion by deduction.

4) In the scenario that somebody told him it was because of the snitches, why did he not get more

information on the subject.

5) Did he ever presented a report to the Anti Peonage commission? Was he a reliable source?