Today is the 157th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican-American war and resulted in the land that I currently inhabit being transferred from Mexico to the United States of America. I love it here, and I’d rather live in the U.S. than Mexico, but I can’t help but feel guilty about it, despite being born here 120 years after the fact. You know, we tried to buy the land, but Mexico said no. So we invaded the country and killed thousands of Mexican people. Thousands of Americans died, as well.
U. S. Grant, who was there, called the war “one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation.”
If you live in The Southwestern United States (and Nevada and Northern California), how do you feel about this war?
Eh. So what? If we gave back all the land in the US that we didn’t purchase for fair market price for the legal owners, it would be a much smaller country.
I didn’t do it, it wasn’t done with my support or permission, so it doesn’t matter to me at all. Wars have been fought for much stupider reasons than a land grab.
Funny… I always thought the genesis of the Mexican-American War was border disputes in Texas between the Mexican Government and the U.S., who had just annexed Texas. The US claimed the Rio Grande river as the border, while the Mexicans claimed the Nueces, some distance farther into Texas.
Polk ordered the Army to occupy the disputed land, fighting broke out, war broke out, Mexicans got asses handed to them, US claimed all land west to California.
It’s not like it was completely this unwarranted war of aggression, you know.
That is another part of the story, but why not go further back? After all, Texas was once Mexican territory. Texas revolted against Mexico and won its independence in a series of bloody battles. Don’t you think the United States had a hand in that at all? Let’s not forget that one of the bones of contention between the Mexican Government and the American settlers there was that Mexico was opposed to the slaves that the Texans were bringing in.
In fact, most of the American opposition to the Mexican-American war stemmed from the fears that the practice of slavery in America would be widened.
While it sucks that the US treated Mexico so badly in stealing their land, I’m not too bothered by it, especially in light of both countries doing the same to literally thousands of Native American nations.
Pretty much every livable hunk of land on this planet has been stolen and restolen by various groups of people over humanities existance. Sure we grapped the land from Mexico, but they stole it from various Indian groups, who were of course stealing it from each other all the time. Don’t worry about it much.
Eh again. The Mexican governments were chumps from the time that they let the first guy emigrate from the U.S. into Texas.
In 1758, Mexico ran into the Commanches in Texas and found that they couldn’t prevail. They answered by ignoring the implications of the Louisiana Purchase and inviting a bunch of footloose Scots-Irish Southerners to settle it for them. They traded savages for white trash that found even 19th Century frontier America to be too restrictive. Once they realized that these people would not abide by Old World law, they tried to seal the border and bring in Germans and Czechs, but it was too little too late, and Texas was already a Southern state, just not a United State. The war came about when the Texans finally got around to joining the Union, (mainly because they had run themselves broke but it was inevitable–yes, both were inevitable.)
Regarding the rest of the land secured by Guadalupe-Hidalgo (the name is an insult if there ever was one), sure, Mexico was screwed, but that’s how war was played before WWII. I feel sad and a little guilty, but I’m not ready to act on it.
Mexico probably gets more of an economic benefit from the land being in US hands; the area provides plenty of high-paying jobs to Mexican nationals. (Well, at least high compared to Mexico.) No numbers to back this up; it’s strictly IMHO.
In New Mexico, there was a running joke: those in the southern part of the state are hoping for the collapse of the US, so they can be part of Mexico again. In the northern part of the state, they’re waiting for both the US and Mexico to collapse, so viceroys from Spain can make a comeback.
Most Hispanics I knew in NM who can trace their roots back to families that occupied the land before US acquisition told me they’re glad their families ended up on the US side of the border. They’ve got the best of both worlds; Mexican culture and American affluence. There are some of the La Raza/Aztlan crowd who say California, Arizona and New Mexico should be back in Mexican hands, but ask them if they are willing to emigrate to Mexico, and most say “¡no!”
The land grab didn’t stop there. There were about 80,000 Mexicans living in the ceded territory and their rights and property were supposedly guaranteed by the treaty. Of course that was a complete joke .
Undoubtedly, some Mexicans would prefer that they were getting the more direct economic benefits of California still being in Mexican hands and providing plenty of high-paying jobs to American nationals.
Of course, the chances of that having happened if Mexico had retained control of the territories is…questionable at best. California is its people and skills, not just the land. Without the development of the last 150 years by Americans, there is zero evidence that California would be anything but an agricultural backwater.
How about providing evidence that it would be an agricultural backwater? No one can predict what would California would be like today. What would the USA be like today without the land ceded by Mexico?
How many Americans cross the border for high-paying jobs in Mexico? Of course no-one can predict what would have happened to the history of both countries, but I’d bet that if we hadn’t gotten the land then, we would have conquered it later. Manifest Destiny, and all that. Besides, my comment was directed at **Little Nemo’s ** assertion that California in and of itself creates high paying jobs. That just isn’t so.
To join in a bit on silenus’ side, my memory of Mexican history seems to indicate it was not exactly a very stable country before or after the war. The USA has had one civil war in its history. Mexico has had quite a few. Could a country in such a condition have fully developed its territories as well as a stable one?
This does not absolve the intent of Polk and his hawks. It merely seems to indicate to me that something good might’ve grown from spoiled soil.
Mexico had only been a country for 25 years when this took place. Given time it may very well have been capable of developing it’s resources. Unfortunately they had a greedy northern neighbor that wasn’t going to let that happen.
The entire Pacific Coast of the US is amongst the most naturally fertile farmland in the world. If Mexico had been able to keep it, I have no doubt they would have put it to very good use and can’t imagine why anyone would think otherwise. Sure, they might not have a Silicon Valley in a Mexican California but they’d still have vast tracts of land prime for growing plants of all varieties.