Chamizal National Memorial (Part 1)

Chamizal National Memorial is a 54.9-acre unit of the National Park Service located in El Paso, TX along the border of the United States and Mexico. The memorial commemorates the peaceful resolution of the Chamizal dispute, an over century-long border dispute between the U.S. and Mexico caused by the gradual shifting of the course of Rio Grande between El Paso and Ciudad Juárez.

The Rio Grande cuts through a mountain pass in the El Paso area which facilitated travel and trade for human populations over many generations. As a result, numerous ancestral and contemporary indigenous peoples have inhabited the El Paso Valley, including the Suma, Piro, Jano, Jacome, Manso, Jumano, Jornada, Comanche, and Kiowa tribes as well as the Lipan, Chiricahua, and Mescalero Apache. The Tigua people from the nearby Ysleta del Sur Pueblo in El Paso continue to maintain a strong connection to the land and the river.

In 1659, Franciscan Friar García de San Francisco founded the Spanish settlement of El Paso del Norte, or “The Pass of the North” (present-day Ciudad Juárez), along the south bank of the Río del Norte, or “River of the North” (present-day Rio Grande). Many traders and settlers passed through El Paso del Norte traveling along a trading route known as El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, or “The Royal Road to the Interior Lands.” Following the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 until the reconquest of Santa Fe in 1692, the Spanish governed the territory of Santa Fe de Nuevo México, or “Holy Faith of New Mexico,” from a small village on the north bank of the Río del Norte.

El Paso del Norte became part of Mexico after the country declared independence from Spain in 1821. In 1836, the Republic of Texas claimed the lands north of the Rio Grande when the river was designated as its southern and western border, although Mexico also continued to claim the territory. The annexation of Texas by the U.S. in 1845 triggered the Mexican-American War the following year. Locally, a small engagement known as the Battle of Brazito was fought about 40 miles upriver from El Paso del Norte on December 25, 1846.

The Mexican-American War ended with the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which forced Mexico to cede half of its territory to the U.S. and defined much of the new boundary between the two countries as following the Rio Grande from the Gulf of Mexico to El Paso del Norte. In 1849, American Benjamin Franklin Coons bought a ranch north of the Rio Grande that he called Coons’ Rancho. Within two years, the settlement around the ranch took on Coons’ middle name, Franklin, but it was renamed El Paso in 1852.

During the 1850s, erosion and flooding gradually altered the course of the Rio Grande, creating uncertainty over ownership of territory along the banks of the river. In 1864, massive flooding shifted the Rio Grande further south into El Paso del Norte, leaving a section of Mexican land north of the river. This land became known as El Chamizal after the chamiza, or four-wing saltbush (Atriplex canescens), which grew abundantly on the floodplains. American residents of El Paso quickly settled on El Chamizal, initiating a century-long dispute over the exact position of the international border.

At the outset of the Chamizal dispute, the U.S. and Mexican governments were each distracted by much larger issues within their own respective countries. U.S. President Abraham Lincoln was attempting to preserve the Union during the U.S. Civil War while Mexican President Benito Juárez was trying to preserve the Mexican Republic during the Second French Intervention in Mexico. Although the two men never met in person, they upheld similar ideals and maintained a cordial relationship, with President Juárez sending Matías Romero to act as the representative of Mexico in Washington, D.C.

The U.S. continued to recognize the republican government of President Juárez throughout the Second French Intervention in Mexico, even as conservative opposition there conspired with the French to install Ferdinand Maximilian of Habsburg as Emperor of Mexico. After the French captured Mexico City in 1863, President Juárez moved the capital first to San Luis Potosí, then to Saltillo, Monterrey, Chihuahua City, and finally El Paso del Norte. When the U.S. Civil War ended in 1865, the U.S. sought to oppose the Second French Intervention in Mexico as a violation of the Monroe Doctrine. The U.S. granted the Juárez government a $30 million loan and allowed American volunteers to join the army of the Mexican Republic.

While President Juárez governed from El Paso Del Norte between 1865-1866, he learned of the Rio Grande flooding that separated El Chamizal from the rest of Mexico. In 1866, his representative, Matías Romero, issued a formal complaint to the U.S. government requesting a resolution to the boundary dispute. However, by this time, President Lincoln had been assassinated and the government of President Andrew Johnson showed little interest in settling the issue. From 1866-1867, the Juárez government retook all of the Mexican territory formerly occupied by the French. In 1867, Emperor Maximillian I and his top generals were captured and executed by firing squad, bringing an end to the whole ordeal.

The Convention of 1884 reconfirmed the international border between the U.S. and Mexico as the center of the deepest channel of the Rio Grande. It also stipulated that the boundary would change with the river if the deepest channel gradually shifted over time but would be maintained along the previous course in the event of any sudden alteration. This did not resolve the Chamizal dispute. In 1888, El Paso del Norte was renamed Ciudad Juárez in honor of President Juárez, clearing up the confusion caused by having two El Pasos on opposite sides of the river. In 1889, the U.S. and Mexico created the International Boundary Commission (IBC) to handle issues arising from the shifting of river channels that made up the international border. In 1895, Mexican landowner Pedro Ignacio García brought a claim to the IBC over his land in El Chamizal, which became known as Case No. 4. The Chamizal dispute persisted when the IBC could not decide which country had jurisdiction over his land. 

By the 1890s, the Rio Grande naturally meandered into a large bend east of downtown El Paso. In 1899, U.S. and Mexican engineers cooperated to dig a channel which cut off this bend to reduce flooding. Since this constituted a sudden alteration of the river’s deepest channel, the international border remained along its previous course, creating Cordova Island, a detached patch of Mexican land located north of the Rio Grande. The Banco Convention of 1905 permitted the U.S. and Mexico to exchange lands known as bancos, which were created between old river channels and new ones as the result of flooding, but the Chamizal dispute still remained unresolved.

This is one of nineteen historic international boundary monuments that stood around Cordova Island from 1907-1935. The monument is six feet tall, weighs about 710 pounds, and features two plaques on opposite sides, one in English and the other in Spanish, each of which read “Boundary of the United States. Treaty of 1848. Re-established by treaties of 1884-1889. The destruction or displacement of this monument is a misdemeanor punishable by the United States or Mexico.” This international boundary monument was stored at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum before it was donated to Chamizal National Memorial.

The U.S. and Mexico each agreed to the 1910 Chamizal Arbitration Treaty which set the terms of arbitration over the Chamizal dispute. In 1911, IBC Commissioners Eugene Lafleur from Canada, Anson Mills from the United States, and Fernando Beltrán y Puga from Mexico heard the Chamizal case in El Paso. The arbitration focused on Case No. 4 and a majority vote awarded Mexico the land that was south of the river before the 1864 flood. Although both countries had agreed to accept the outcome of the arbitration, the U.S. objected, leaving the dispute unresolved. Between 1911-1963, every U.S. president attempted to settle the issue.

During the era of American Prohibition on alcohol (1920-1933), Cordova Island was a haven for drinking and smuggling. The Rectification Convention of 1933 allowed the straightening of a section of the Rio Grande through the El Paso-Juárez Valley, which shortened the river by 67 miles and led to the U.S. and Mexico exchanging several parcels of land. The green portions highlighted on this illustration represent patches of land acquired by the U.S. while the yellow portions were given to Mexico. In 1940, Mexico erected a fence around Cordova Island to keep Americans off the land. In 1944, the IBC was renamed the International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC).

In 1962, U.S. President John F. Kennedy met Mexican President Adolfo López Mateos in Mexico City where they agreed to resolve the Chamizal dispute. The Chamizal Convention was negotiated by the IBWC for over a year before it was signed by U.S. Ambassador Thomas C. Mann and Mexico’s Secretary for Foreign Relations Manuel Tello in Mexico City on August 29, 1963. The Chamizal Convention stipulated the construction of a 4.3-mile concrete-lined channel for the Rio Grande to serve as the permanent international border between the two countries. The channel would bisect both El Chamizal and Cordova Island and the lands would be divided between the two countries, with Mexico receiving most of the disputed territory.

In 1964, Mexico’s National Border Patrol Program erected an 18-foot bronze Statue of Abraham Lincoln in Ciudad Juárez as a symbol of goodwill in a friendship with the U.S. 

On September 25, 1964, President López Mateos met with U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson at the old Bowie High School (present-day Guillen Middle School) in El Paso where they shook hands to commemorate the signing and ratification of the Chamizal Convention by both countries. In 1966, President Johnson gifted another statue of Abraham Lincoln to Mexico City. The U.S. Congress authorized the creation of Chamizal National Memorial through Public Law 89-479 on June 30, 1966.

On October 28, 1967, the U.S. and Mexico officially exchanged the lands that had been the source of the Chamizal dispute. To accomplish this, the U.S. government purchased private and commercial properties of El Paso neighborhoods such as Rio Linda and Cordova Gardens at “fair market value” and tore down most of the existing structures. Nearly 5,600 U.S. citizens who had settled in the disputed territory were forced to move, along with businesses, schools, religious sites, and other social centers. Although the former residents were reimbursed for their property, moving costs, and other expenses, many harbored resentment for having their families uprooted. President Johnson met with Mexican President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz to commemorate the land exchange on the newly opened Bridge of the Americas connecting El Paso to Ciudad Juárez.