How much did the United States pay for New Mexico and California?
1 Answer
About $25 million (half a billion in modern dollars), but very little cash was involved.
Explanation:
The lands in question were mostly gotten as a result of the Mexican-American War, and the settlement called for a $15 million payment to Mexico (but most of it was simply pro-rated out of Mexico's war debt). The Southernmost portions of Arizona and New Mexico were part of a later arrangement, the Gadsden Purchase, which involved $10 million in cash.
California and New Mexico comprised less than half of the lands involved, but California was by far the most valuable of the acquisitions even before gold was discovered there. Assessing how much of the money went to pay for those two states gets a little complicated.
And Mexico ceded the lands at gunpoint during a very trumped-up war, so there's no clear "We bought it fair and square" argument to be made. In America's defense, though, Mexico only held those lands for about twenty years (after independence from Spain) and made little effort to settle or manage them, so the "It's part of Greater Mexico/Azatlan" arguments ring a little hollow too.
