Jacques Geddy, age 13, of Austin, Texas, for his question:

WHAT WAS THE GADSDEN PURCHASE?

The Gadsden Purchase was the acquisition by the United States of a strip of land that forms part of southern Arizona and New Mexico. The U.S. paid Mexico $10 million for the 29,640 square miles of land.

The treaty that ended the Mexican War in 1848 left some doubt about

the boundary between Mexico and the United States. To clear up this question, and also to provide the U.S. with a good southern railroad route to the Pacific Coast, the government purchased the region south of the Gila River.

James Gadsden, the U.S. minister to Mexico, conducted the negotiations with Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, the Mexican president. The treaty of sale was signed on Dec. 30, 1853, and the two countries exchanged ratifications of the treaty on June 30, 1854.

Opposition in Mexico to the sale was one of the reasons for Santa Anna's banishment in 1855.