Nicholas Philip Trist (June 2, 1800 – February 11, 1874) was an American lawyer, diplomat, planter, and businessman. Even though he was dismissed by President James K. Polk as the negotiator with the Mexican government, he negotiated the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, which ended the Mexican-American War. The U.S. conquered Mexican territory and vastly expanded the United States. All or part of ten current states were carved out of former Mexican territory. Early years Trist was born in Charlottesville, Virginia. He was the son of Hore Browse Trist, a lawyer, and Mary Brown. His grandmother, Elizabeth House Trist, was an acquaintance of Thomas Jefferson. 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. 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). 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. Trist provided a conduit of communication for James Madison to President Jackson. 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. Shortly after arriving there in 1833, Trist invested in a sugar plantation deal that went bad. He made no secret of his pro-slavery views. According to members of a British commission sent to Cuba to investigate violations of the treaty ending the African slave trade, Trist became 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, another country whose nationals were active in the illegal slave trade. As 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