The Mexican American War

A must-see documentary of the history and war between the U.S and Mexico.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nE3srC_3c4

very informative ! many thanx

Interesting but I missed the last 30 minutes of this documentary because my computer froze up for some reason.

All of this took place about 15 years before the beginning of the U.S. Civil War and in those years between the end of the Mexican-American War and the U.S. Civil War, I have read that there was some strong sentiment in the U.S. to attack and, perhaps, colonize or annex Mexico or a much larger portion of Mexico, a sentiment that was mitigated by the political factionism leading up to the U.S. Civil War. There was the strong, racist and widely held attitude that Mexico, with a vast coastline, several natural ports and incredible natural resources, had the potential to be among the world´s richest political subdivisions if only it were not being (and I quote) "mismanaged by Spaniards, Indians and Africans" who needed the guidance of the "white man" to properly manage and exploit this fabulously rich territory. Keep in mind that this was the imperialistic mindset of the Northern Europeans and Northern European immigrants to North America in the mid-19th Century. In other words, the "white man´s burden" as they saw it.

Perhaps the U.S. Civil War was a blessing to Mexico as that terrible war diverted attention from certain factions in the U.S. prior to the 1860s encouraging an invasion and colonization of Mexican territory far beyond that annexed by the U.S. during the 1840s. That is not to say that the U.S. would have prevailed in any such proposed take-over of Mexico beyond that already conquered and annexed but that would have resulted in a nasty war indeed.

Makes you wonder why Mexicans distrust the United States and people in the U.S. have always underestimated Mexican patriotism and their will to preserve their republic.

Thanks for the link to that documentary.

That would have solved the immigration problem! Manifest Destiny? At least we left them the best half, I think.
Should have invaded Canada, at least most of them speak English! :)
gm

I remember a couple of brothers fresh off their rancho in Zacatecas saying that that when they crossed the border from Tijuana to San Diego they commented to each other "No wonder the gringos stole this land from Mexico,look at all these beautifully paved streets and buildings etc.,they stole the best part."

Too bad they couldn't say the say the same thing when they cross over from New Brunswick to Maine.
Now that should curry favor with all my Canadian friends....CBob, et. al.
Don't the Canadians on the north side of the Bay of Fundy dip down to Maine to buy cheap booze?

I always thought the U.S blew it, in part, by not ripping off Baja California while they were at it. Gawd 2,000 miles of pristine, and I do mean pristine, coastline. Then there's the multi-billion dollar Baja fishing grounds that could have also been been exploited. So sad. ;-)

slainte39 wrote:Too bad they couldn't say the say the same thing when they cross over from New Brunswick to Maine.
Now that should curry favor with all my Canadian friends....CBob, et. al.
Don't the Canadians on the north side of the Bay of Fundy dip down to Maine to buy cheap booze?

During the 30's it was the other way around. My Grandfather would go from Bar Harbor to Nova Scocia buy booze and
dump it into the ocean off his house and than go to Bar Harbor and check in with Customs. Everybody knew what he was
doing and he never got caught.

Z

Yes; hard to believe they failed to steal Baja California, a treasure, but back in those days it was considered a wasteland not worth stealing while Texas and New Mexico, for God´s sake, were considered worthy of annexation. Not only that, they considered the Southern United States from the Virginia to Texas, which had seceded from the union, worth a terrible waste of human life and national treasure to force back into the fold, something that would have happened anyway as soon as the Confederate States realized man cannot live on cotton, peanuts and human bondage without ´57 Chevys and Pabst Blue Ribbon.

Many may not be aware of this, but there was a deep seated hatred between Mainland Mexico and the Yucatan Peninsula back then and when the Confederate States seceded, there were wealthy plantation owners thriving primarily on hemp in The Yucatan who wanted to join the Confederacy. After all, The Yucatan had many things in common with the U.S. Deep South including a dependence on single crop agriculture and slavery. Just think, today, with hindsight, the United States might own Baja California and the Confederate States might own Playa del Carmen and the Mundo Maya all the way down to Belize (ahem, British Honduras). Mexico might have sold them these then seemingly useless places for a few pesos but, instead, the U.S. decided to steal Texas and New Mexico. This makes no sense at all.

Thanks for the link RB! I started watching on my laptop but then decided it would be better on our 42" TV. Since we don't have a smart TV, I pulled up YouTube on the Google TV box. Decent picture quality and far more enjoyable to watch on a larger screen.

Isn't the Yucatan Peninsula part of mainland Mexico? or are you saying that figuratively. Cozumel and Isla de las Mujeres, I can comprehend.

hound dog wrote:Interesting but I missed the last 30 minutes of this documentary because my computer froze up for some reason.

All of this took place about 15 years before the beginning of the U.S. Civil War and in those years between the end of the Mexican-American War and the U.S. Civil War, I have read that there was some strong sentiment in the U.S. to attack and, perhaps, colonize or annex Mexico or a much larger portion of Mexico, a sentiment that was mitigated by the political factionism leading up to the U.S. Civil War. There was the strong, racist and widely held attitude that Mexico, with a vast coastline, several natural ports and incredible natural resources, had the potential to be among the world´s richest political subdivisions if only it were not being (and I quote) "mismanaged by Spaniards, Indians and Africans" who needed the guidance of the "white man" to properly manage and exploit this fabulously rich territory. Keep in mind that this was the imperialistic mindset of the Northern Europeans and Northern European immigrants to North America in the mid-19th Century. In other words, the "white man´s burden" as they saw it.

Perhaps the U.S. Civil War was a blessing to Mexico as that terrible war diverted attention from certain factions in the U.S. prior to the 1860s encouraging an invasion and colonization of Mexican territory far beyond that annexed by the U.S. during the 1840s. That is not to say that the U.S. would have prevailed in any such proposed take-over of Mexico beyond that already conquered and annexed but that would have resulted in a nasty war indeed.

Makes you wonder why Mexicans distrust the United States and people in the U.S. have always underestimated Mexican patriotism and their will to preserve their republic.

Thanks for the link to that documentary.

Once we destroyed the Mexican army and occupied the capitol, Mexico was ours (the U.S.) for the taking. We decided we didn't really want it. Had the U.S. taken all of Mexico, we would have been liable for their debts to France, Britain and Spain. France, with the help of the other two nations, later used these debts as a pretext to invade Mexico and set up Maximilian as emporer. The U.S. probably would have prevented the invasion but we were kind of preoccupied with a civil war of our own at the time. Even so, we managed to help the Juaristas chase the bloody French away.

hound dog wrote:

Many may not be aware of this, but there was a deep seated hatred between Mainland Mexico and the Yucatan Peninsula back then and when the Confederate States seceded, there were wealthy plantation owners thriving primarily on hemp in The Yucatan who wanted to join the Confederacy. After all, The Yucatan had many things in common with the U.S. Deep South including a dependence on single crop agriculture and slavery. Just think, today, with hindsight, the United States might own Baja California and the Confederate States might own Playa del Carmen and the Mundo Maya all the way down to Belize (ahem, British Honduras). Mexico might have sold them these then seemingly useless places for a few pesos but, instead, the U.S. decided to steal Texas and New Mexico. This makes no sense at all.

Back to history class for you, Dawgie. Mexico outlawed slavery in 1828, more than 30 years before secession and the birth of the Confederacy.

[quote="slainte39"]Isn't the Yucatan Peninsula part of mainland Mexico? or are you saying that figuratively. Cozumel and Isla de las Mujeres, I can comprehend.[/quote]

slainte39, mi amigo (or amiga), yes, I suppose the Yucatan Peninsula is technically part of mainland Mexico in a geographical sense but Yucatecos never considered themselves to be part of Mexico and I was not kidding that the peninsula considered independence as a separate nation of affiliation with the Confederate States as an alternative to being affilitaed with the rest of Mexico.

Chiapas, where Dawg moved in 2006, was actually a province of Guatemala until a plebescite in the 19th Century resulted in their becoming the Mexican territories of Chiapas and Soconusco and then the state of Chiapas. Keep in mind that Chiapas has a huge indigenous population who mainly lacked the franchise then so a few wealthy landowners constituted the constituency that voted for confederation with Mexico versus Guatemala which then included much of Central America.

Southern Mexico including Oaxaca, Chiapas and the Yucatan Peninsula has a fascinating history and we have immensely enjoyed living there but remain ignorant of its complexity.

Smartalex wrote:


Back to history class for you, Dawgie. Mexico outlawed slavery in 1828, more than 30 years before secession and the birth of the Confederacy.

Try telling that to the thousands of Yaquis who were rounded up in Sonora and sent south to the henequen plantations during the Porfiriato as slaves.
John Kenneth Turner wrote a book about it:Barbarous Mexico.

Smartalex wrote:

hound dog wrote:

Many may not be aware of this, but there was a deep seated hatred between Mainland Mexico and the Yucatan Peninsula back then and when the Confederate States seceded, there were wealthy plantation owners thriving primarily on hemp in The Yucatan who wanted to join the Confederacy. After all, The Yucatan had many things in common with the U.S. Deep South including a dependence on single crop agriculture and slavery. Just think, today, with hindsight, the United States might own Baja California and the Confederate States might own Playa del Carmen and the Mundo Maya all the way down to Belize (ahem, British Honduras). Mexico might have sold them these then seemingly useless places for a few pesos but, instead, the U.S. decided to steal Texas and New Mexico. This makes no sense at all.

Back to history class for you, Dawgie. Mexico outlawed slavery in 1828, more than 30 years before secession and the birth of the Confederacy.

As I recall, they outlawed booze in my home county in Alabama in the 1920s but I never had a problem finding a drink the whole time I was living there from age 13 in 1955 until I left for California in 1966. Perhaps you need to remove the chains from your brain.

viajero wrote:

Smartalex wrote:


Back to history class for you, Dawgie. Mexico outlawed slavery in 1828, more than 30 years before secession and the birth of the Confederacy.

Try telling that to the thousands of Yaquis who were rounded up in Sonora and sent south to the henequen plantations during the Porfiriato as slaves.
John Kenneth Turner wrote a book about it:Barbarous Mexico.

Not denying Diaz' genocidal war against the Yaquis...but it had absolutely nothing to do with joining the Confederacy, some 30-40 years previous.

Smartalex wrote:

Not denying Diaz' genocidal war against the Yaquis...but it had absolutely nothing to do with joining the Confederacy, some 30-40 years previous.

I was addressing the slavery issue,that's all.

This has nothing to do with the war against the Yaquis. Forget 2013. In the years of the U.S. Confederacy, the corrupt and rich hemp growers in the Yucatan, who despised Mexico and had "informally" enslaved the local Maya indigenous , contemplated joining the U.S Confederacy because they were considered as sympathetic fellow travelers. Do you deny this? If so, let´s debate the issue.

viajero wrote:

Smartalex wrote:

Not denying Diaz' genocidal war against the Yaquis...but it had absolutely nothing to do with joining the Confederacy, some 30-40 years previous.

I was addressing the slavery issue,that's all.

It's not that simple. Diaz was intent on "exterminating" the Yaquis, not enslaving them. If they worked themselves to death in forced labor, so be it, in his mind. In fact, with the exception of the Mexican upper class, the whole damn country was enslaved during the Porfiriato. Perhaps that's why they had a revolution here to restore constitutional government and its anti-slavery provisions dating back to 1828.

I was trying to show Dawgie that his concept about the commonality of slavery in both the southern U.S. states and the Yucatan, at the time of the Confederacy, was incorrect.

Smartalex wrote:

It's not that simple. Diaz was intent on "exterminating" the Yaquis, not enslaving them. If they worked themselves to death in forced labor, so be it, in his mind.

Good point.

1820's on was a turbulent time in Mexico and Central America with various confederations of Central American " States", as well as Chiapas, as stated. A few years later, Quetzaltenango tried to be independent, calling themselves a country called " Los Altos"
They still consider themselves somewhat separate in "Xelaju" which the natives call Quetzaltenango, the 2nd city of Guatemala, though they say it is the 1st.
Guatemala maps sometimes include Belize (Formerly British Honduras) which England "took away" from Guatemala. Here most people are of African decent, speak a dialect of English and sometimes called Garifuna.
Many natives on the border identify with their tribe rather than being .
Guatemalan or Mexican.
There is much interesting history in the area.
gm

I think Soconcusco also was part of Los Altos.
Lots of indians died in the mines of Guanajuato and other places too.
gm

[quote="viajero"]

Smartalex wrote:
John Kenneth Turner wrote a book about it:Barbarous Mexico.

I like to read a bit of Mexican history so I Googled this book. I just picked up the Kindle version for $0.00!
http://www.amazon.com/Barbarous-Mexico-ebook/dp/B005JKR7GG
Thanks
George

Found this PDF version online. You can read it or download for free. Skimmed through it...looks interesting. Thanks for the tip, Viajero. And thanks for the link, RB.

http://archive.org/details/barbarousmexico00turnuoft