Mexico - U.S. Relations 1819-1900

Adam-Onis Treaty 1819

Texas Revolt 1836

U.S.-Mexico War 1846-48

U.S. Mexicans 1849-1900

SOC 335The Latino Experience in the United States

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Stages of U.S. Encroachment of Mexican Lands

Early U.S.-"New Spain" relations culminate in the 1819 Adams-Onis Treaty: Florida for Tejas & agreement on a "final" transcontinental border

The U.S. North/South dual scramble west => Texas outcome: 1823 - 1836

The Mexican American War (1846-48) => U.S. annexation of northern 1/2 of Mexico (today's U.S. Southwest)

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Early U.S. - New Spain relations: 1776 - 1819

Early U.S. explorations of the trans-Mississippi west => trickle of Anglo fur trappers, trade routes, intelligence

Spanish late colonization beyond Rio Grande via missions: a defensive & weak strategy of “containment” vs U.S., British, French, Russian

Louisiana Purchase on 1803: geopolitical coup! The Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819: Florida ceded to

U.S. in exchange for “permanent” transcontinental border between the U.S. & New Spain - honored by Mexico in 1824

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Early U.S. - Mexican relations: 1822-1836

Both North/South sought expansion westward for different & competing reasons

The Santa Fe - Trail: U.S. land penetration into New Mexico via trade with St. Louis

Pacific whaling & China trade: U.S. maritime penetration of Spanish California & its early projection to Asia

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Early U.S. - Mexican relations: 1822-1836

U.S. repeated attempts to "purchase Texas" from Mexico after the Louisiana Purchase fail.

Mexico adopts generous immigrant laws for Catholic Anglos in Tejas to avoid war and to settle its northern province (1) open immigration to homesteaders (+ their slaves)

=> about 30,000 settled by 1836, mostly Southerners (2) Mexican 1824 abolition of slavery => Tejas after

intense lobbying by Stephen Austin, gets a 10-year waiver that satisfies no one.

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The 1836 Texas Revolt: An alternative experiment

“Republic of Texas:” a 10-year alliance of Southern planters, U.S. President Andrew Jackson, & Anglo Southern homesteaders in Texas

Texas independence immediately recognized by Great Britain & the U.S., but not by Mexico: ten years of 3-way diplomacy ensue.

Texas early expansionism encouraged by Great Britain to “contain” the U.S. westward expansion: ==> Failed 1841 military expedition to New Mexico (Alta California saved from getting annexed to the R.o.T.!)

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The Mexican American War: 1846 - 1848

1845-46: Oregon question settled with Great Britain and U.S. annexes Texas => Newly elected U.S. President Polk orders U.S. troop to cross disputed border zone between the Nueces & Rio Grande rivers, provoking bloodshed.

White House propaganda: “American blood spilled in American soil” => U.S. Congress declares war expecting a quick war, which drags on to 1848

U.S. troops take possession of U.S. Southwest & have to march into Mexico City to finally negotiate the Guadalupe Hidalgo Treaty of 1848.

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Dilemmas of Mexican occupation, 1846 - 1848

Anglo-Saxon Manifest Destiny vs. the westward extension of the Mason-Dixie Line (accepting the expansion of Southern slavery?) => Wilmot Proviso said no! (except for Texas) and was imposed by the North on the South in Congress

Monoracial (White only) vs. multiracial nation (Mexicans too) => U.S. withdrawal from Mexico in 1848 & the abandoned the strategy of territorial expansion altogether.

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Polk's Covert War Objectives

1. Possess San Francisco Bay as a strategic gateway to Asia

2. Control of Rio Grande Basin => control of Mexico’s northern economy and develop a potential new Mississippi!

3. Annex only northern Mexico into U.S as “free” U.S. territory except for Texas (annexed as a slave state already)

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1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

U.S. forces occupied Mexico City for months but no one would negotiate an end to the war. Treaty finally arrived at:

$15 Million for U.S. annexation of the Southwest

Full property, civil & social rights extended to Mexican Americans, later amended down by the U.S. Senate

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U.S. “Firsts” in the Mexican American War

First U.S. “Presidential War”, basically pre-empting Congressional war powers

First U.S. “Media War”: full-throttled newspapers' hysteria ==> the racial demonization of the Mexican people

First U.S. talk of “Civil War” : Southern response for being denied spoils of war

U.S. finally becomes a continental power

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Stages of Mexican Ethnic Subordination in the U.S.

1830s -1880s: De-population, land dispossession, racialization & ethnic subordination of 75,000 Mexicans in the U.S. Southwest

Texas Independent Decade (1836-1846) => massive violent explusion (ethnic cleansing) of Mexicans to Rio Nueces-Rio Grande area(contested area)

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The depopulation/dispossession of Mexicans: 1830s - 1880s

CA Gold Rush => Californios & Native Americans quickly marginalized in a sea of European and Chinese immigrants, and increasingly U.S.-born Anglo American Midwestern transplants

New Mexico => Elite Hispano-Anglo alliance formed + land dispossession of the pobres in the highlands Hispano communities

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Mexican Americans 1880-1900

1880s-1900s: With the advent of the railroads and massive irrigation works, and the exclusion of Chinese after 1883, there’s a slow demographic resurgence of Mexican Americans concentrated in segregated & marginalized rural communities

==> Mexican Americans become socially reconstructed as mere “temporary” and "foreign" agricultural & railroad laborers -- and “racially inferior” on top!

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The End The End