Nicholas Trist

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Consul in Havana

Trist was appointed U.S. consul in Havana, Cuba, a Spanish territory at the time, by President Jackson, in which capacity he served from 1833 to 1841. Members of a British commission sent to Cuba to investigate violations of the treaty ending the African slave trade claimed that Trist was involved in the creation of false documents designed to mask illegal sales of Africans into bondage. For a time Trist also served as the consul in Cuba for Portugal.

As U.S. 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 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.

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 1841 and his actions in Cuba were investigated by the House Commerce Committee which concluded there was no wrongdoing and the state department which concluded that while he could've taken more action in preventing the use of ships with the American flag participating in the illegal slave trade but that his "omission to do so has not been the result of indifference or any more corrupt motive; but of a settled conviction that any measures which he could take for the purposes alluded to would be entirely ineffectual from the impossibility of procuring such evidence as would be available in a court of justice." and he was not charged for his inaction.

Mexican–American War negotiator

Trist remained in Cuba until 1845, when President James K. Polk appointed him as a chief clerk in the State Department. In 1847, during the Mexican–American War, President Polk sent Trist to negotiate with the government of Mexico. He was ordered to arrange an armistice with Mexico wherein the U.S. would offer a restitution up to $30 million U.S. dollars, depending on whether he could obtain Baja California and additional southern territory along with the already planned acquisitions of Alta California, the Nueces Strip, and New Mexico. If he could not obtain Baja California and additional territory to the south, then he was instructed to offer $20 million. President Polk was unhappy with his envoy's conduct which prompted him to order Trist to return to the United States. General Winfield Scott was also unhappy with Trist's presence in Mexico, although he and Scott quickly reconciled and began a lifelong friendship.

Trist ignored the order to leave Mexico, and wrote a 65-page letter back to Washington, D.C. explaining his reasons for staying. 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. Trist's negotiation was controversial due to him negotiating and signing the treaty after being recalled along with the terms of the treaty, the treaty would acquire all territory that was required per the orders he had received as negotiator but a considerable amount of expansionist Democrats felt that more land should have been annexed, including Polk himself. While Trist was in Mexico, Polk started believing he should have demanded more territory from Mexico than what he had ordered to Trist. After receiving the treaty, Polk wrote in his diary "if the treaty was now to be made, I should demand more territory, perhaps to make the Sierra Madra the line".

Polk was furious with Trist's conduct in Mexico and promptly fired him, but decided to approve the treaty Trist had negotiated since it still included all of the territory that he found essential; he also believed that if he rejected the treaty, Congress would not approve any further aid for the military occupation of Mexico. Trist’s treaty still followed Polk’s initial orders that Congress had approved. Polk also feared, with the upcoming 1848 election, the potential of a Whig Administration coming into power before a treaty was approved; the Whigs overwhelmingly disapproved of the war and the Polk Administration, and thus may have rejected any annexation at all.

Trist later commented on the treaty, saying:

"My feeling of shame as an American was far stronger than the Mexicans' could be."

Nicholas Trist

Nicholas Trist

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About Nicholas Trist

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Early years

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Consul in Havana

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Later years

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