University of Texas at Brownsville

History of Browsville and Matamoros

Professor Knopp

The Chamizal Dispute

By Carlos Martinez

Introduction

For 1200 miles from the Gulf of Mexico to El Paso, the United States and Mexico share the Rio Grande as a boundary. Under the 1848 treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and the Gadsen treaty in 1853, the center of the deepest channel constitutes the dividing line.  However, because of the meandering nature of the river, innumerable land changes have taken place. Although some were caused by erosion and accretion others were as a direct result of changes in the river’s course.

Even before 1905 many cases arising from the river’s shifting course have focused over jurisdiction of the Bancos, San Elizario and Morteritos Islands. Some of these legal battles included cattle seizure, wing dam and fence construction, the Brownsville Wharf, water diversion by the American Rio Grande Land and Irrigation Company which eventually led to the Chamizal dispute.

In trying to standardize the practice followed in determining the boundary line, the United States and Mexico signed the treaty of 1884 and in 1889 established the international Boundary Commission (later the International Boundary and Water Commission) to administer the treaty rules. However, Bancos formed by tracts of land separated form either country by a cutoff became such a problem that a special treaty had to be negotiated to exclude them form the effects of the Treaty of 1884.

Under the treaty (Between U.S. and Mexico for the elimination of the Bancos in the Rio Grande from the effects of Article II of the treaty of November 12, 1884) signed on March 20, 1905 there was a provision which called for any Bancos that formed on the right bank of the river be under the dominion and jurisdiction of Mexico. Also under this same provision those that formed on the left bank were to be under U.S jurisdiction. Exempted from this rule of law were Bancos with an area of more than 250 hectares or a population of more than 200 people. Eventually this treaty affected 215 Bancos.

The Rio Grande Rectification Project straightened out the river from the Cordova Island to Box Canyon stabilizing the boundary by providing additional floor control which helped prevent future detachment of land from one country to another. Water apportionment and flood control have been major problems along the Rio Grande boundary. However, both countries have taken measures to address this problem

Location

The Rio Grande forms at the glaciated San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado and flows south through a series of structural basins some 650 miles from El Paso. Starting at El Paso the river becomes the international boundary between the US and Mexico. The Rio Grande runs along a 1,250 miles corridor draining into the Gulf of Mexico near Brownsville, Texas.

The president of Mexico, Adolfo Lopez Mateos, defined El Chamizal as a jirón del territorio nacional. (Novedades newspaper July 18, 1963.)

Maps

 The map shows below the Chamizal’s area around 1860’s

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

The current map of the Chamizal’s area

 

Mexican Opinion

As expected, Mexico’s reaction to dispute was entirely different than in the US. Many political critics “described how difficult it was for the people to understand the Chamizal dispute”. In Calleros Cleofas, El chamisal : Que es?, he describes the Mexican landowners prior to the dispute. In 1827, a Mexican citizen obtained title to the area that includes the Chamizal and upon his death in 1866; the tract was willed to his grandson Pedro Garcia. Nearly thirty years later, in 1895, Garcia placed a formal compliant with the Mexican boundary commissioner over jurisdiction of the Chamizal.

Antonio Luna Arrollo, Author of El Chamizal ya es Mexicano, mention Garcia was familiar with the Treaty of 1884. He claimed that the tract was formed by an “ abrupt and sudden change of current” which in 1873 severed the tract from Mexico and attached it to the south of El Paso.

Lic. Salvador Mendoza, in his book El Chamizal: un drama Judirico e Historico, explains why the commissioners had little difficulty accepting the problem as one within their jurisdiction and to be solved in accordance with the treaties of 1884 and 1889. The report of the Mexican consulting engineer in 1896 concluded that the river had abandoned its Emory-Salazar channel already in 1852, not in 1873 as implied by Garcia’s statement.

Calleros also talks about testimonials of some key protagonists. Some of this court witnesses introduced by Don Garcia included: Jesus Serna, Antonio Velarde, Gregorio Herrera, Jose Provencio, Matias Velarde, Francisco Provencio, Jose Acosta, and doctor Mariano Samaniego.  Residents both of the Paso and of Juarez confirmed that the little or no change occurred in the channel’s position from 1852-1964; rapid changes accompanied large floods from 1864-1868; little or no change occurred after 1868. Taking into account the fact that the river had little or no flow during half of the year; the rate of bank erosion during periods of actual flow was equivalent to approximately 560 meters per year, or nearly five feet per day.

 

American Opinion

In Texas, the US government appointed Commissioner Anson Mills to settle the dispute between the two governments. In Jerry E Muller, Restless River, the author describes in detail about how US commissioner, Anson Mills, argued that there was not sufficient physical evidence to prove that the entire shift was due to erosion. However, trough the year’s maps were not available to show the channel’s position during the 1860’s and 1870’s.

Without reaching an agreement the commissioner sent reports of their findings, to the government, and recorded their views in a joint journal.

In J.J. Bowden, The Ponce de Leon Land Grant, he explains why Mr. Mills refused the opinion of the seven witnesses before the commission who testified that the river had never overflowed its banks in the Chamizal area; hence, how was it possible for a new channel to be cut, and for one to be abandoned? Therefore, he applied the term erosion as it was defined in the treaty of 1884 and accordingly dismissed it as the process responsible for the Chamizal.  He regarded the fluvial boundary as mobile and in a state of constant flux, with a permanent boundary line established only when doubt exist as to jurisdiction and channel changes along a boundary. Politically it was of extreme importance for both parties to keep the river as their natural boundary.

 In Gladys Gregory, The Chamizal Settlement a View From El Paso, he cites how commissioner Mills, in an obvious attempt to strengthen the position of the United States tries to weaken the Mexican contention of rapid erosion by emphasizing the average annual shift of the river between 1852 and 1895. Mexico claimed that “ slow and gradual” refers to the rate process (erosion), while Mills argues that “slow and gradual” refers to the long-term effect of process.

In Jerry E Muller, Restless River, he describes the opinion of Mr. Caleb Cushing In terms of the treaty of 1884.  Based on Mr. Cushing’s 1856 opinion, the contracting views of the commissioners in the Chamizal controversy cannot be faulted. The treaty of 1884 has provisions related only to the extremes in progress of the channel change, rather than to the full range in the process.  Mexican commissioner, Fernando Beltran y Puga, assumed that since the treaty of 1884 mentions a boundary shift only in conjunction with a “slow and gradual” channel shift, no other type of channel change could affect the boundary.

 

Neutral Third Party as Arbitral member

The Ponce De Leon Grant, Southwestern Studies, Volume VI number 4, mention the year of 1896 as the date when the unsettled Chamizal case was closed in order that the commission might move ahead with others cases and complaints. A year later both commissioners asked their governments to reopen and resolve the Chamizal dispute because of its interference with the bridge construction between El Paso and Juarez. They also suggested at the International Boundary Commission that a third commissioner be added to serve as an arbitral member. The decision of the commission was to be final and conclusive upon both governments. Later, Eugene Lafleur, a Canadian professor of international law, was chosen as the third member to form the arbitral board.

At the beginning the U.S. agreed but Mexico refused. Therefore, the Mexican Government refused to be bound by the decision of foreign commissioner, Eugene Lafleur, who “could be nothing more than private individual” (Chamizal, U.S. appendix, 1911: 347-53). After an exchange of rejected proposals on how to add an arbiter, the commission dropped Chamizal from negotiation in 1898.

Strained U.S. Mexican relations during the following decade negated reasonable offers made by both sides. President Francisco Madero, successor to Diaz, offered to exchange the Chamizal for the Island of San Elizario in the EL Paso-Juarez Valley and Beaver Island (Monteritos) on the Lower Rio Grande. However, United States President Woodrow Wilson refused to negotiate. In 1913 the U.S. offered the bar of El Horcon in exchange for Chamizal and Cordova.

This proposal was very similar to the 1908 Mexican proposal, except that the United States excluded the Island of San Elizario, which Mexico refused to recognize under the new regime of General Adolfo de la Huerta, who subsequently withdrew Chamizal from negotiation.

 

The return of the Chamizal brought political windfalls to Mexico

Mexican political parties played an important role during the Chamizal dispute. In Antonio Luna Arrollo, El Chamizal ya es Mexicano, he state the history of Mexican citizens who lived in 1963. They considered Lopez Mateos, president of Mexico, a national hero because he was the man responsible for recovering a piece of the National Patrimony. In a national speech, after the dispute was finalized, Lopez Mateos said:

 “A long history ended- after 99 years of dispute- with a clear victory for the law and morals of the Mexican people”.

According with the author of the national newspaper, July 19, 1963, said “El señor presidente hizo el milagro de que un jirón del territorio nacional volviera al seno de la patria, el siguió los luminosos senderos del Benemérito de las Américas, Don Benito Juárez”.

 

Resolution of the Chamizal conflict

The Chamizal did not receive widespread publicity again until 1962. The issue arose in June 1962 at a meeting in Mexico City between President Kennedy and the Mexican President Mateos. Kennedy, eager to bolster the United States image in the organization of American States and the Alliance for progress, came to regard the United States 1911 Award rejection as a black mark in his country’s foreign relations.

The circumstances referred to by Kennedy included the resettlement of 3,700 United States Citizens in the affected zone and compensation of these people for land and improvements valued at approximately 20 millions dollars. In August 1963 the Chamizal Treaty was signed.

However, the United States refused to transfer a number of areas in the northern portion of the 437 acres tract, which had become highly developed. A compromise was reached where-by Mexico would receive 366 Chamizal acres, plus additional 71 acres to be cut from the United States just east of Cordova Island, in return, Mexico relinquished its claim to north Chamizal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The map shows the Chamizal’s resolution between Mexico and U.S.

 

Each country was eager to retain the river as boundary and to have all its territory on one side of the channel. This was impossible as long as the 396acre Cordova tract (Mexican) remained north of the river. Mexico gave-up the northern half of Cordova (193 acres) to the United States in exchange for a similar acreage cut form the United States to the east of Cordova to balance the 193 acres Mexico lost from Cordova and the 71 acres Mexico relinquished in North Chamizal. It is interesting that the Chamizal is considerably longer than the natural channel. The permanent international boundary established by the commission was to be the middle of the new Chamizal channel.

The reaction of Mexico to the Chamizal settlement was enthusiastic. The official position of the U.S Department of State is that the Chamizal settlement represents United States good faith and adherence to awards made through binding international arbitration. Reaction in El Paso and Texas was generally favorable, although Senator Tower questioned the right of the federal government to give-up territory without consent of that state’s legislature.

In order to implement the Chamizal Treaty, it was necessary for the United States Government to purchase 743.54 acres of land, or slightly more than a square mile, of south El Paso.  Nearly 85 % of this area, 630.38 acres, was transferred directly to Mexico in the fall of 1967. The remaining 15 percent, 113.16 acres, was required for the Chamizal Channel, a port of entry, relocation of the Texas and Pacific, Santa Fe, and Southern Pacific railroads, and the relocation of the principal irrigation canal. The property acquisitions alone cost the United States more than 27 millions dollars.

 

Mexican opinion after the dispute

Mexican opinion varied from a quiet victory amongst the political elite to an outright euphoria amongst the working class. From a political point of view victories over U.S interests have been few and far between. Therefore, when the law sided with Mexico Adolfo Lopez Mateos seized the moment to promote reform rather than to celebrate a hard fought victory. The headlines in the weekly Siempre from July 19, 1963, read, “A partir de hoy ningun pais por poderoso que sea volvera a humillar a Mexico”  (from now on no country regardless of their power will ever humiliate Mexico). As in years past Mexico did not celebrate long for fear that somehow this triumph was going to be taken back by their powerful neighbors. When the truth was that taking back the Chamizal was more of a trade-off than a full recovery. Politicos in Mexico made sure that their constituents only know of the recovery of the Chamizal rather than the knowing that the U.S dictated the terms under which a deal could be struck. However, the opinion of the working class was another mater altogether. They believed that this victory should be celebrated by hurling insults at the U.S as its customary. Ironically it seemed that this was payback for the failed Brazero program an even the loss of territory during the Mexican war. Sadly the victory was short lived because the recovery of the Chamizal did not lead to benefits for the people as was promised by the government. Yet, this was expected.

 

American opinion after the dispute

In July 16^th, 1963 El universal, a Mexican daily, published an interview with several members of the III Inter-American congress and they all agreed that they were satisfied that the Chamizal issue was finally tabled for resolution because it was a case the U.S was obliged to resolve. They also agreed that it was a great gesture on Kennedy’s part because it would solidify U.S / Mexico relations. The U.S attorney general Robert Kennedy handpicked the delegates that were to attend this congress on the basis of their progressive thinking towards Latin American countries and their heritage. The American delegates interviewed were: Justice for the state of N.Y, Manuel Gomez; Denver Municipal court judge, Juan Sanchez; L.A Municipal court judge, Leopoldo Sanchez; Tucson Superior court judge, Raul Castro; Tampa judge, Manuel Garcia; Santa Fe, New Mexico, Samuel Montoya; Carlos McCormick, Washington expert on Latin American policy.  The whole delegation unanimously agreed that American policy towards Mexico had changed dramatically over the last decade and they cited the favorable solution to the Chamizal as clear proof of this. El Paso mayor, Judson F. Williams, stated that the resolution of the dispute would greatly enhance relations with Ciudad Juarez. Furthermore, he believed that Mexican citizens involved in the dispute should be compensated for the years that they couldn’t use their land. However he was confident that the dispute did not really have the negative impact that the newspapers led you to believe.