Did Texas Steal El Paso from New Mexico?

Abstract In January 1850, a former Texas army officer and Indian agent in San Antonio traveled west by horseback to try to gain control for Texas of a huge swath of territory stretching from the Big Bend region up the Rio Grande and all the way to present-day Wyoming, including nearly half of New Mexico. He was successful only in the El Paso region, but his work there helped define Texas’s western boundary and give the state its distinctive shape. The circumstances surrounding what happened in El Paso, however, raise questions about whether Texas obtained the region honestly and ethically, or if the state, in effect, stole El Paso from New Mexico, of which it had been a part for 144 years. This study will examine how El Paso became part of Texas and the factors that inspire doubt about what supposedly transpired there.