Nicholas Trist

Trist was born in Charlottesville, Virginia. He was the son of Hore Browse Trist, a lawyer, and Mary Brown. His grandfather was from England, while his grandmother, Elizabeth House Trist, was an acquaintance of Thomas Jefferson.^[2][3] Trist attended West Point but did not graduate and then studied law under Thomas Jefferson. Trist served as Jefferson's personal secretary in the 1820s and became an executor of his estate.^[4]

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).^[4]

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.^{[5]: 92–93} Trist provided a conduit of communication for James Madison to President Jackson.^[6]

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. He was accused by members of a British commission sent to Cuba to investigate violations of the treaty ending the African slave trade they 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.^[7] 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.^[8]

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."^[7] and he was not charged for his inaction.

Trist remained in Cuba until 1845, when President James K. Polk appointed him as a chief clerk in the State Department.^[9] 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.^[5]: 175 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.^{[5]: 91 [6]}

Trist ignored the order to leave Mexico, and wrote a 65-page letter back to Washington, D.C. explaining his reasons for staying.^[10] 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.^[11] Trist's negotiation was controversial as although he acquired the territory that was required per his orders a considerable amount of expansionist Democrats felt that more land should've been annexed, the faction that shared this belief by this time also included Polk himself who over the time Trist had been in Mexico started believing he should've demanded more territory from Mexico then what he ordered from Trist writing in his diary after receiving the treaty "if the treaty was now to be made, I should demand more territory, perhaps to make the Sierra Madra the line".^[12] Polk was furious with Trist's conduct in Mexico and promptly fired him but had decided to approve the treaty Trist negotiated since the treaty still included all the territory that he found essential and made promises to gain and he felt that if he were to reject the treaty Congress would likely not approve any further aid for military occupation of Mexico especially since the treaty still followed his initial orders that Congress approved, he also feared with the upcoming election the potential of a Whig Administration coming into power before a treaty is approved and that with the Whigs overwhelming disapproval of the war and the Polk Administration that they would end up rejecting any annexation entirely.^[12]

Trist later commented on the treaty saying:

"My feeling of shame as an American was far stronger than the Mexicans' could be."^[13]

Upon return to Washington, Trist was immediately fired for his insubordination, and his expenses since the time of the recall order were not paid. After his dismissal, Trist moved to West Chester, Pennsylvania, and then to Philadelphia, where he worked as a railroad clerk and paymaster. Trist finally recovered his expenses in 1871, at the urging of Senator Charles Sumner.^[3]

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.^[3]

He died in Alexandria on February 11, 1874, aged 73.^[3]