<P> In 1851, San Luis became the first European settlement in what is now Colorado . </P> <P> Of the states of which at least a portion make up the Southwest, Texas was the first to achieve statehood . On December 29, 1846 the Republic of Texas was annexed, bypassing becoming a territory, and immediately becoming a state . Initially, its borders included parts of what would become several other states: almost half of New Mexico, a third of Colorado, and small portions of Kansas, Oklahoma, and Wyoming . Texas current borders were set in the Compromise of 1850, where Texas ceded land to the federal government in exchange for $10 million, which would go to paying off the debt Texas had accumulated in its war with Mexico . </P> <P> Following the Mexican Cession, the lands of what had been the Mexican territory of Alta California were in flux: portions of what is now New Mexico were claimed, but never controlled, by Texas . With the Compromise of 1850, the states of Texas and California were created (Texas as a slave state, and California as a free state), as well as the Utah Territory and New Mexico Territory . The New Mexico Territory consisted of most of Arizona and New Mexico (excluding a strip along their southern borders), a small section of southern Colorado, and the very southern tip of Nevada; while the Utah Territory consisted of Utah, most of Nevada, and portions of Wyoming and Colorado . The New Mexico Territory was expanded along its southern extent, to its current border, with the signing of the Gadsden Purchase Treaty on December 30, 1853, which was ratified by the U.S. Congress, with some slight alterations, in April 1854 . </P> <P> The Colorado Territory was organized on February 28, 1861, created out of lands then currently in the Utah, Kansas, Nebraska, and New Mexico territories . The Nevada Territory was also organized in 1861, on March 2, with land taken from the existing Utah Territory . Initially, only the western 2 / 3 of what is currently the State of Nevada was included in the territory, with its boundary to the east being the 116th meridian, and to the south the 37th parallel . In 1862 Nevada's eastern border shifted to the 115th meridian, and finally to its current position at the 114th meridian in 1866 . The boundary modification in 1866 also included adding the southern triangular tip of the present - day state, taken from the Arizona Territory . </P>

Is texas part of the south or west