Mexico - U.S. Relations 1819-1900

1. 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 335 The Latino Experience in the United States

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6. 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) Soc 335

7. 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 Soc 335

8. 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 Soc 335

9. 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. Soc 335

10. 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.!) Soc 335

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14. 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. Soc 335

15. 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. Soc 335

16. 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 onlynorthern Mexico into U.S as “free” U.S. territory except for Texas (annexed as a slave state already) Soc 335

17. 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 Soc 335

18. 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 Soc 335

19. 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) Soc 335

20. 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 Soc 335

21. 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! Soc 335

22. The End • The End Soc 335