Conflict with Mexico and the Establishment of Southwestern States
    Texas
    Mexico won its independence from Spain 1822.
  • Mexico twice rejected American offers to buy Texas, but during the 1820s it welcomed Americans who were willing to abide by its laws.
  • Most of the new settlers were southern farmers and slaveowners attracted to the promise of cheap, fertile cotton-growing land.
  • By 1830 eastern Texas had been occupied by 20,000 whites and 1,000 slaves from the US.
  • These Americans had no intention of abiding by Mexican law.
  • In 1830 Mexico changed its policy and prohibited further immigration, stopped importation of slaves, levied heavy duties on Mexican goods, and sent troops to the frontier to make sure these policies were enforced.
  • General Santa Anna seized power in Mexico. By Texans, he was seen as a tyrant (analogous to George III) to be overthrown by revolution.
  • Initially, the Texans claimed to be fighting for the old Mexican constitution, but in March 1836 they declared their independence.
  • Santa Anna moved into Texas with a big army and won a few minor battles before the Americans hit back and took Santa Anna prisoner. He was forced to recognise Texan independence, and while this treaty was later rejected by Mexico, it made no attempt to reestablish its authority.
  • The new Republic of Texas began negotiations with the US for recognition and annexation.
  • This process was not as straightforward as it seems, since there was opposition to the expansion of slave territory.
  • Texas finally became a state in 1845.
    The Mexican War 1846-48
    Anger of Mexican patriots over the annexation of Texas
  • Dispute over the southern and western boundaries of Texas
  • Instability of Mexican government made negotiations difficult
  • Determination of President Polk and American expansionists to obtain the provinces of New Mexico and California –– with money if possible, with force if necessary.
  • As soon as the United States annexed Texas, Mexico broke off diplomatic relations.
  • Yet there was need for negotiations since Texas was not satisfied with with its southern boundary –– it claimed the Rio Grande as the southern boundary.
  • Polk ordered 15,000 troops  into the area. By summer 1846 these troops were at the Rio Grande.
  • This act was seen by Mexican patriots as an aggressive act of invasion.
  • Now little hope that Polk could peacefully persuade Mexico to give up New Mexico and California, but he tried.
  • Sent an envoy to discuss the issue of Texas, New Mexico and California –– instructed to try and buy the territories. Since Mexico needed money and had only a weak hold on the territories, this seemed a possible course of action.
  • By the time the envoy reached Mexico city in December 1845, the news of his proposal was out and Mexican nationalists were furious.
  • The Mexican government was collapsing, partly due to perceived weakness in dealing with the United States. A new revolutionary government pledged to uphold the national dignity.
  • The Mexicans refused to receive the envoy, who wrote to Polk: "Be assured that nothing is to be done with these people until they have been chastised."
  • Polk prepared for war.
  • On April 25 Mexican troops had crossed the Rio Grande and engaged in a skirmish in which American troops were killed and injured.
  • News of this reached Polk in May, who decided that "The cup of forbearance had been exhausted even before the recent information from the frontier .… But now, after reiterated menaces, Mexico has passed the boundary of the United States, has invaded our territory and shed American blood on American soil." Therefore, "war exists, and, notwithstanding all our efforts to avoid it, exists by the act of Mexico herself."
  • While there was strong support for the war in the Southwest, not all of the US was in agreement. The war was viewed skeptically especially in the North and East.
  • The Mexicans were more united, seeing war as the only means of checking American expansion into their territory. Their confidence was misguided, however, for while they had a bigger army, they had outdated weapons, limited supplies and inferior resources.
  • The Americans won the war with ease.
  • A first campaign defeated Mexico in northern Mexico.
  • A second brought about the conquest of New Mexico and California. By January 1847 the United States had possession of New Mexico and California.
  • The third campaign forced Mexico to accept the reality of defeat by marching on Mexico City and forcing surrender
  • The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed on February 2, 1848.
  • Under the treaty, Mexico ceded to the United States Upper California and New Mexico (including Arizona) and recognized U.S. claims over Texas, with the Rio Grande as its southern boundary. The United States paid Mexico $15 million, assumed the claims of American citizens against Mexico, recognized prior land grants in the Southwest, and offered citizenship to any Mexicans residing in the area.
  • The US had gained possession of more than 1/2 a million square miles of territory.
  • The US had also extended its jurisdiction over more Indian populations and over a new ethnic group: Mexican Americans
  • The prevailing American assumption of the time was that new ethnic groups would divest themselves of their previous identities and become 'Americans' –– the idea of the melting pot.
  • The Anglos of Texas and California, however, regarded Mexican Americans as unassimilable.
    In 1848, when Mexico surrendered its northern territories, the United States found itself in possession of vast tracts of desert: "In the American Southwest, previously the Mexican North, Anglo-America ran into Hispanic America. The meeting involved variables of language, religion, race, economy. America has shifted over time, but one fact has not changed: it is one thing to draw an arbitrary geographical line between two spheres of sovereignty; it is another to persuade people to respect it. […] Victorious in the Mexican-American War in 1848, the United States took half of Mexico. The resulting division did not ratify any plan of nature. The borderlands were an ecological whole; northeastern Mexican desert blended into southwestern desert with no prefigurings of nationalism. The one line that nature did provide –– the Rio Grande –– was a river that ran through but did not really divide continuous terrain." (Patrica Nelson Limerick, The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West [New York: Norton, 1987], 222).

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