Dailey ArleneThe incorporation of Texas into U.S. territory in 1845 stimulated U.S. interests in all lands of the Southwest and California, including Arizona. After U.S. troops reached the mouth of the Rio Grande River, Mexico considered these actions a provocation, and in 1846 U.S. President James K. Polk officially declared war on Mexico.
In 1848, the Mexican War ended with the formal Treaty of Guadalupe Hedalgo, which transferred the lands of New Mexico to the United States. The same treaty also gave the United States all Arizona land north of the Gila River. Thousands of Americans streamed south of the Gila River on the Great Gold Rush Trail, which broke out on the shores of California in 1848 when gold was found there.
And in 1853, American possessions in Arizona expanded even further as the U.S. bought from Mexico 76,735 square kilometers of land south of the banks of the Gila River.
Territorial Cycle.
In 1850, the U.S. Congress regularized the administrative division and status of the New Mexico lands ceded to the United States by the Treaty of Hidalgo Guadalupe. At the same time, in 1849, the cities of Tucson, Tubac, and Yuma were established in Arizona, whose population consisted of “white” settlers.
In 1858, the Butterfield Overland Mail Company began organizing a mail delivery service across the Arizona desert along the long, complicated route between the cities of St. Louis and San Francisco. Military posts were established along the route to protect mail carriers and travelers along the route from Apache Indians, who did not like the invasion of their lands and hunting grounds by outsiders.
Soon, in 1861, the American Civil War broke out. The settlers of Arizona, settlers from the South, called a convention in Tucson, where they proclaimed Arizona a Confederate League territory. In any case, the impact of this war on Arizona was extremely small. The Confederacy sent troops to seize New Mexico territory, but they were defeated.
On February 24, 1863, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, hoping that Arizona’s gold would replenish the government coffers exhausted by the war, appealed to Congress to create an administrative board for the territory. Congress approved the proposal, and Republican John N. Goodwin was appointed the first governor of Arizona County.
As a representative of the territory and a representative of the Republican Party, Goodwin was delegated to the United States Congress and, together with other congressmen, Richard C. McCormick and Anson P. K. Safford, did much to create an independent state in Arizona territory. From 1867 to 1877 the capital of Arizona was Tucson. But then the government of the territory returned to Prescott, which was the first capital of these lands, and in 1889 the city of Phoenix was proclaimed the capital of Arizona.