James Gadsden

James Gadsden (born May 15, 1788, Charleston, S.C., U.S.—died Dec. 26, 1858, Charles-ton) was a U.S. soldier, diplomat, and railroad president, whose name is associated with the Gadsden Purchase (q.v.).

He graduated from Yale College in 1806 and engaged in business in his native city until 1812, when he was appointed a lieutenant of engineers in the U.S. Army. In 1820 he was made responsible for the establishment of military posts in Florida and supervised the removal of the Seminole Indians to southern Florida in 1823. Gadsden negotiated the treaty for the removal of the Seminoles to the west in 1832 and served in the war that followed the refusal of some Seminoles to leave Florida. In 1840 he became president of a railroad in South Carolina.

Gadsden’s most important public service followed his appointment as U.S. minister to Mexico in 1853. He was instructed to negotiate a treaty for the purchase of territory south of the Gila River through which ran the most desirable route for a railroad from the southern states to the Pacific. He succeeded in adjusting certain minor issues and in gaining a cession of territory in what is now southern New Mexico and Arizona. This added territory, which included the route of the proposed southern railroad, is generally known as the Gadsden Purchase.