Liberty Like Thunder: Race, Article XI Enforcement, and the Odyssey of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848)

From time immemorial, American Indian and Mexican societies waged war on each other through the reciprocal taking of captives. In 1848, U.S. officials became duty-bound to interdict this trade under Article XI in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. In this work, I discuss how race and law collided in 1848—producing a treaty instrument that failed to provide sufficient enforcement solutions to deal with the grave logistical challenges that captive-taking warfare posed. Ultimately, I argue that Article XI's attenuated enforcement solutions systematically devalued Mexican captives and denied them material forms of freedom based on their non-white racial ancestry.