New Mexico Territory

Territory of New Mexico
Organized incorporated territory of the United States
←   ← 1850–1912 →   →   →   →
Flag Coat of arms
A map of the later Federal Arizona and New Mexico Territories, split from the original New Mexico Territory of 1851, showing existing counties.
Capital		Santa Fe
Government		Organized incorporated territory
Governor
•	1851–1852	James S. Calhoun
•	1910–1912	William J. Mills
Legislature		New Mexico Territorial Legislature
History
•	Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo	May 30, 1848
•	Organic Act	September 9, 1850 1850
•	Gadsden Purchase	June 24, 1853
•	Colorado Territory established, by the Colorado Organic Act removing those lands from New Mexico Territory	February 28, 1861
•	Arizona Territory split off by the Arizona Organic Act	February 24, 1863
•	Statehood	January 6, 1912 1912

The Territory of New Mexico was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed (with varying boundaries) from September 9, 1850, until January 6, 1912, when the remaining extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of New Mexico.

In 1846, during the Mexican-American War, the U.S. provisional government of New Mexico was established. Territorial boundaries were somewhat ambiguous. After the Mexican Republic formally ceded the region to the U.S.A. in 1848, this temporary wartime/military government persisted until September 9, 1850.

Earlier in the year 1850, a bid for New Mexico statehood was underway under a proposed state constitution prohibiting slavery. The request was approved at the same time that the Utah Territory was created to the north. The proposed state boundaries were to extend as far east as the 100th meridian West and as far north as the Arkansas River, thus encompassing the present-day Texas and Oklahoma panhandles and parts of present-day Kansas, Colorado, Utah, and Arizona, as well as most of present-day New Mexico. Texas raised great opposition to this plan, as it claimed much of the same territory, although it did not control these lands. In addition, slaveholders worried about not being able to expand slavery to the west of their current slave states.

The Congressional Compromise of 1850, taking effect on September 9 of that year, halted the early ill-fated 1850 bid for immediate New Mexico statehood. At the same time, other provisions of the Compromise of 1850 organized New Mexico Territory and neighboring Utah Territory, and firmly established the western boundaries (previously disputed with the Republic of Texas, Mexico, and the U.S. Governments since 1836) of the State of Texas that persist to this day.

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Wikipedia