Product Code Database
Nicholas Philip Trist (June 2, 1800 – February 11, 1874) was an American lawyer, diplomat, planter, and businessman. Even though he had been dismissed by President James K. Polk as the negotiator with the Mexican government, he negotiated the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, which ended the Mexican–American War. The U.S. conquered Mexican territory and vastly expanded the United States. All or part of ten current states were carved out of former Mexican territory.
Trist married Virginia Jefferson Randolph, Thomas Jefferson's granddaughter, on September 11, 1824. They had three children, Martha Jefferson Trist Burke (1826–1915), Thomas Jefferson Trist (1828–1890), and Hore Browse Trist (1832–1896).
He served as a clerk in the U.S. State Department in 1828–1832, including a one-year assignment in 1831 as private secretary to Andrew Jackson, whom he greatly admired. Trist provided a conduit of communication for James Madison to President Jackson.
As consul, Trist became unpopular with New England ship captains who believed he was more interested in maintaining good relations with Cuban officials than defending their interests. Captains and merchants pressed members of Congress for Trist's removal. In late 1838 or early 1839, the British commissioner Dr. Richard Robert Madden wrote U.S. abolitionists about Trist's misuse of his post to promote slavery and earn fees from the fraudulent document schemes. A pamphlet detailing Madden's charges was published shortly before the beginning of the sensational La Amistad affair, when Africans sold into slavery in Cuba managed to seize control of the schooner in which they were being transported from Havana to provincial plantations. Madden travelled to the United States, where he gave expert testimony in the trial of the Amistad Africans, explaining how false documents were used to make it appear the Africans were Cuban-born slaves.Madden, Richard Robert. The Island of Cuba: Its Resources, Progress, and Prospects, Considered in Relation Especially to the Influence of Its Prosperity on the Interests of the British West India Colonies. London: C. Gilpin, 1849.
This exposure of the activities of the U.S. Consul General, coupled with the complaints of ship captains, caused a Congressional investigation and eventual recall of Trist in 1840. Neither Trist nor Madden is depicted in the film Amistad directed by Steven Spielberg, although there are brief Cuba scenes that suggest how the illegal slave trade was carried on there.
Trist ignored the order to leave Mexico, and wrote a 65-page letter back to Washington, D.C. explaining his reasons for staying.Potter, David, Don E. Fehrenbacher. The Impending Crisis, 1848–1861. Harper Perennial, 1976, p. 3. He capitalized on the opportunity to continue bargaining with Santa Anna offering $15 million. Trist successfully negotiated the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo on February 2, 1848.Richard M. Ketchum. The Thankless Task Of Nicholas Trist, American Heritage, August 1970, Volume 21, Issue 5. Trist's negotiation was controversial among expansionist Democrats since he had ignored Polk's instructions and settled on a smaller cession of Mexican territory than many expansionists wanted and felt he could have obtained. A part of this instruction was to specifically include Baja California. As part of the negotiations, Trist drew the line directly west from Yuma to Tijuana/San Diego instead of from Yuma south to the Gulf of California, which left all of Baja California as part of Mexico. Polk was furious, but reluctantly approved the treaty since he wanted to have it signed, sealed, and delivered to Congress during his presidency. Trist later commented on the treaty:
Trist supported Republican Abraham Lincoln for U.S. president in 1860. While the Lincoln administration did not offer Trist any patronage, he did serve as postmaster of Alexandria, Virginia, during the Grant administration.
He died in Alexandria on February 11, 1874, aged 73.
|
|
