Speaker 1: Welcome back to another episode of Hayden's History Hour. I'm
your host, Hayden Daniel. As always, you can email the
show at radio at the Federalist dot com, follow us
on x at the Federalists and make sure to subscribe
where you download your podcast, and of course of the
premium version of our website as well. I'm not joined
by any guests today, but we are going up a
very interesting topic that has a lot of implications for
today's politics, the Mexican Session, meaning the land gained by
the United States after the Mexican American War of eighteen
forty six to eighteen forty eight. So the issue of
the ownership of the American Southwest and the West generally
has become quite a bit of a hot button topic
during the last year or so of Trump's administration. If
you remember the protests in Los Angeles last year, many
protesters were waiving Mexican flags and claiming that they belonged there,
that they were not in fact illegal, and that no
one was illegal because Mexico used to own California and
the rest of the American Southwest. And more recently, we
saw at the Super Bowl halftime show with bad Bunny,
bringing out not just the Mexican flag, but dozens of
other flags from Central and South America and proclaiming together
we are America, pretty blatantly, making the point that they're
also supposed to be here and have a claim to
American land. But that's not really how how America saw
it when it was gaining that land from Mexico after
the Mexican American War, and the land that we took
from Mexico which is today South Texas, parts of Oklahoma,
parts of Colorado, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, and California.
They chose to annex those specific portions of land for
a very specific reason, and one of the main reasons
for that is because they had so few people in it.
And it was actually a very big hot button issue
in the United States how much land to take for
Mexico after the war was over, because the war really
wasn't much of a much of a contest, really, the
Mexican army did not put much not put up that
much of a fight against the Americans, so even halfway
through the war there were just fierce debates in Congress
over how much land to exactly take from the Mexicans,
and some wanted to take the entire country of Mexico,
which includes the land that we actually did take, which
would have vastly increased the United States's population and land area.
But the vast majority of people only wanted to have
a limited expansion and not take in so many people.
In fact, Mexico had about eight or nine million citizens
in eighteen forty eight, and we took a fraction of
a fraction of those citizens along with the land that
we took. And we did that for a very specific
reason that we're going to get into later into the episode.
But first, let's kind of go over some background about
Mexico and the Southwest in the early nineteenth century. So
we have to go back kind of a long way,
and it might seem a little tangential, but it's all
going to make sense and come around eventually. So during
the Napoleonic Wars, Spain, which controlled Mexico from the type
of Cortes to the eighteen twenties, was most of it
was occupied by French troops and was ruled by a
French puppet king, in fact, Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon's brother, and
during the war to liberate Spain from Napoleon. Most of
the country was devastated and there were practically two governments
at play in Spain. There was a loyalist government under
the previous king, the Bourbon Monarchy of Spain, and then
a government headed by Napoleon's brother, and the colonial administrations
of Spain's colonies, mostly in South America and Central America.
The Caribbean and the Philippines mostly stayed loyal to the monarchy,
but they also had a lot of independence during that
time because the legitimate government back in Spain was busy
fighting for his life, back busy fighting for the home country,
and really couldn't spare the resources or the time to
really govern those colonial possessions very closely. So these nations
got their first sort of taste of independence during the
Napoleonic Wars, and almost all of them chose to make
an actual bit for independence once the war was over.
Within about ten years ten to fifteen years of the
end of the Napoleonic Wars at eighteen fifteen, almost all
of Central and South America is free of Spanish domination,
and Mexico becomes independent in eighteen twenty one, and the
first iteration of its government is actually an empire. They
had a transitional government that's sort of looking for an
emperor to make this imperial regime, and they eventually choose
Emperor Augustine the First, and he lasts a grand total
of two years before they decide that the emperor's being
a little tyrannical, so let's get rid of him and
go for a republic. So in eighteen twenty three, the
empire falls and it's complete instability from there on out
for Mexico in the nineteenth century, they have two major
changes in government. Before eighteen thirty six, they have a
transition government between the empire and a republic, and then
they had the first Mexican Republic, which is largely based
on Spanish law and a little bit on the United States.
But closer to eighteen thirty six, they start to become
more centralized and more federal, a little bit along lines
of the United States. They become the centralist Republic of Mexico,
which is a completely new government. And during this sort
of unstable period from eighteen twenty three to eighteen thirty six,
one particular figure emerges as sort of the strong man
of the country. His name is Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana,
and by eighteen thirty six he emerges as the de
facto dictator of the country. And just to illustrate how
unstable Mexico was before the Mexican American War in eighteen
forty six, of the sixteen different presidents of Mexico who
ruled from eighteen twenty four eighteen forty six, that's only
twenty two years. It took us from seventeen eighty nine
to eighteen sixty one to get sixteen presidents. To keep
that in mind, sixteen different presidents in Mexico from eighteen
twenty four to eighteen forty six, only one completed a
full term in office, which was four years. Only one.
The others were either horse to resign or kicked out
because of a coup de'ta or Santa Ana was pulling
the strings and he served as as president multiple times
in very short terms. But he's the power behind the throne.
I guess you could think of it that way. But
for the time Mexico had a pretty liberal constitution, the
Constitution of eighteen twenty four. Santa Ana wanted to centralize
his power and make it more permanent. He didn't he
got a little tired of playing the Republican game and
trying to pay lip service to democracy that de facto
did not exist in Mexico at the time, so he
creates a new constitution that centralizes power immensely around the
president around himself. Critical part of this constitution is called
the Seven Laws, which included Requiringking Spanish to obtain citizenship.
It allowed the president to adjourn Congress and suppress the
Supreme Court at his discretion with no recourse from from
either branch. It abolished the old federal system of somewhat
United States ESQ states states that were pretty autonomous and
could could act on their own pretty reliably, and replace
them with a French style departments whose governors and even
their legislators were chosen directly by the president. So it's
basically eliminating democracy wholesale in Mexico with one of these laws.
So that causes quite a bit of instability and resentment
amongst not just famously amongst Texans, but also other regions
in Mexico as well. The Mexican Republic had abolished slavery
in eighteen twenty nine, but it granted an exemption to Texas,
so the sort of sixteen nineteen esque talking point that
the Texas Revolution was about slavery is mostly inaccurate because
they were actually exempted from the abolition of slavery. It
was much more about these seven Laws and the new
constitution that Santa Ana ushered in was sort of the
catalyst for the Texas Revolution and all of that, and
they American Texas show American Texans showed no interest in
adopting Mexican customs, learning Spanish, or especially converting to Catholicism.
As I said, other regions also rebelled eventually, and two
other republics besides the Texas Republic declared their independence. The
Rio Grande Republic, which was just south of what we
today considered Texas, just south of the Rio grand Catan Peninsula,
basically broke away entirely and would actually stayed independent for
a relatively long time. But also a couple of other
states revolted at the exact same time that Texas did.
So it's another kind of misconception that Texas were just
fighting it out alone against Mexico as a monolithic power,
but actually Santa Anna was also juggling several other wars
with other rebelling States at the same time. As we
all know, the Texans came out victorious. The heroic sand
at the Alamo was ingrained in Texas and thereafter American
history is a great one of the great last stands.
And Sam Houston triumphs over Santa Ana at the Battle
of San Jacinto in the latter part of eighteen thirty six,
and he captures Santa Anna and forces Santa Anna to
recognize Texan independence. Now, Texas, almost immediately after winning its independence,
wanted to join the United States. Almost as soon as
it won the Ballast and Decento, it sent a letter
over to the United States, please annexos. We want to
become a state. But at the time, the debate over
slavery was starting to rare up in American politics, and
adding Texas, which would certainly be a slave state, rankled
especially northern politicians, and the question of whether to annex
Texas became a big political point from eighteen thirty six
until Texas was eventually annexed. The Americans were also very
concerned about starting a war with Mexico because the exact
border between Texas and Mexico was not set. Mexico believed
the border was much farther north than it is today.
They believed that it was at the Nueisas River, while
Texas believed that it was at the Rio Grande, and
the western border of Texas, where almost no one but
the Comanches lived, was just completely up in the air.
Texas claimed a vast amount of land that also includes
most of eastern New Mexico and parts of Oklahoma, even
all the way up to Colorado, while Mexico of course
kept its claim on that land. So that was a
tensial powder keg for conflict, and the United States Congress
knew that. So there's a very big debate about whether
whether it's annex Texas at all and how much where
the border of a new Texas would be. But eventually
it wins out because of President John Tyler. One of
his last acts as president is to get Texas annexation done,
and it is annex by the United States as a
state in eighteen forty five. Now, Tyler's successor, James K. Pole,
was a disciple of manifest destin. He believed the United
Stations stretch from the east coast to the West coast
all the way to the Pacific, and he believed that
the United States required that part of northern Mexico that
is today part of the United States. In order to
do that before the war broke it up, he offered
to buy California and New Mexico, which at the time
the territory of New Mexico encompass Arizona, Nevada, Utah, the
entire American Southwest. He offered to buy it for thirty
million dollars, which are good a princely sum for eighteen
forty five, but Mexico refused. So, just as the politicians
before tane Texas annexation took place, predicted conflict eventually resulted
over a border dispute. Mexican troops and American troops were
stationed in the little border zone between the Nueces River
and the Rio Grande, and eventually, as is often the
case when there are disputed borders, eventually there is conflict
and that is what begins the Mexican American War in
eighteen forty six. Now, the war goes very well for
the United States, and here's where the rub comes in.
It might go a little too well. Santa Anna and
Mexican troops are easily pushed out of Texas and easily
pushed out of the Southwest. As you might know, American
settlers in California create the California Republic and declare their independence,
and then they are helped by American troops to capture California.
So those places the places that the Americans actually want.
Polk really just wants the area north of the Rio
Grande and the way to California. He doesn't really want
anything else. Those areas are conquered pretty easily, but Santa
Ana refuses to surrender. He believes that he can lure
the American armies into Mexico proper, into the hinter lands
of Mexico where unfamiliar terrain and logistical difficulties will allow
him to deliver a defeat to the American Army and
reverse his misfortunes. That doesn't happen. General Taylor in the
north and then Winfield Scott and around Vera Cruz continue
to defeat Mexican forces pretty decisively, I said. Winfield Scott
lands in Vera Cruz, takes it and begins his advance
on Mexico City. Now it's during Winfield Scott's campaign towards
Mexico City and then his eventual capture of Mexico City
in September eighteen forty seven. That really begins the whole
debate over exactly how much land we should take from Mexico.
Because we've become so successful and we're investing more and
more money into the conflict, more men, more lives, more
resources into it, people start thinking, well, maybe we should
get more in the peace deal. You know, we deserve
a little bit more than that. We're already here, We're
already deep in Mexican territory. Why don't we just take
it for ourselves. And that's sort of the genesis of
the All of Mexico movement, that's what it's termed all
of Mexico. And these are people who believe that all
of Mexico should be annexed in the United States.
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Speaker 1: There are two distinct factions within the All of Mexico
movement who had the same goal but for different reasons.
Some of the supporters include Senator John Dix of New
York and Senator Henry Foot of Mississippi, and those seem
like strange bedfellows. A senator from New York, which is
pretty it's the heart of the Northeast and sort of
northern industrialism, and then Henry Foot of Mississippi, and Mississippi
is like the quintessential sort. There's southern plantations state, maybe
other than South Carolina, but along with other sort of
West Southern politicians, politicans from Mississippi, West Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama,
those sort of region of the country wanted to take
all of Mexico because they wanted to expand slavery into
Mexico's rich agricultural lands. Cotton is a particularly intensive crop,
and states like Kentucky and Missouri and even Virginia as
early as the late eighteen forties were starting to get
exhausted from cotton, so they would then sell slaves south,
which would sort of blood the market with slaves. So
slaves or slavers in the Deep South wanted somewhere to
send those slaves, those surplus slaves, and annexing Mexico and
creating plant slave states or at least slave territories there
would help them sort of will gain more money and
also ease the sort of over the perceived over population
of slaves in the in the Deep South that that
they believed was developing. And then the northern proponents of
all of Mexico believed in a sort of mix of
paternalistic advancement. They believe that they could educate the Mexican
people to become good Republican citizens. But also they really
wanted they really wanted navy ports like Vera Cruz or
on the west coast of Mexico. There are also very
good ports that could be used to ship across across
the Pacific. You have to think California has almost no
people in it at this time, so there is no
San Francisco, there is no Los Angeles, they're very tiny,
little non entity towns. They're not gigantic courts that we
think of today. So if you want to send a
ship to China, to Japan, to the Far East in general,
you have to go around Chile all the way around
South America and into the South Pacific and then across
the entire Pacific. It's a very long journey. So but
that and there's no Panama Canal, so you can't cut
across across Central America. So in their mind, if we
can get Mexico that already has developed courts on the
west coast, that we can ship goods down to Vera
Cruz and then transport it overland to the West coast
to Mexico and send it to China or Japan or
wherever we want in the in the East, in the
Western Pacific without having to build a transcontinent continental railroad
across you know, thousands of miles of desert over mount
over the rocky mountains and all that stuff that we
eventually did do. So their reasons are more economic and
a bit social, while the the the southern proponents of
all of Mexico are more just straight up economic reasons,
as I said, James K. Polk Is is pretty moderate
in this in this debate, he really just wants southern Texas, California,
and then the area between the US and California. He
pretty much wants what we what we got. Most Americans
opposed too much Mexican land. That uh, Ultimately, the all
of Mexico movement is a pretty small movement in American politics,
and it doesn't last very very long. To most Americans.
Mexicans are too Catholic. This is before Irish immigration really
started started rolling, and before German immigration. This when Americans
starts to get large amounts of Catholics. Before that, it
is a Protestant super super majority. I'm talking eighty five
Protestant and they are pretty anti Catholic, and of course
will remain anti Catholic for decades and decades and decades.
They also thought Mexicans were unrepublican. They were not suited
for republican government, the American way of government. They had
that They rightly pointed to Mexico's instability after its independence
as proof that they could not govern themselves and therefore
should not definitely not be states. They definitely did not
want them to be to have representatives and senators going
to going to Washington, and just the cost of occupying
all of that land filled with millions and millions of
people and educating them to make them good citizens, would
just cost an astronomical amount of money. So most Americans
didn't think it was worth it and just wanted something
relatively modest along the lines of James K. Poltz annexation plans.
There was also the threat of a major guerrilla campaign.
As always, the Mexicans probably would not take too kindly
to their entire country suddenly not existing, and there was
a threat that many of them could go into the
hills and start bushwhacking American occupying soldiers in America, having
lost a couple thousand men in the war filled in
combat and then several thousand war to disease, didn't want
the war to go on any longer than it really
had to. In fact, opponents to Mexican annexation reiterated over
and over and over again that this would be a
massive burden to the United States. John C. Calhoun, Senator
from South Carolina, compared subjugated a subjugated Mexico under an
all of Mexico plan to Ireland which was of course
controlled by the British at the time. Or he argued
that Ireland was a source of heavy expense and a
burden to the British at the time, which he wasn't wrong.
Senator James Pearson Maryland also made the same comparison, noting
that Ireland was a perpetual source of bloodshed, embarrassment, annoyance,
and endless disquietude to Britain, and given the number of
Irish rebellions, especially in the late seventh late eighteenth century
and early nineteenth century, their comparison is actually pretty apt. Ireland,
until it became independent after World War One, was a
constant born in the side of the British authorities. The
other senator from South Carolina. South Carolina Senator Andrew Butler
argued that annexing all of Mexico would overextend the United
States and result in tyranny within the United States. So
he's arguing that it would diminish the United States to
take in all of Mexico. He said, when the fires
of virtuous patriotism that are kindled on the altar of
our country by the founders of the Republic shall have
burnt down, the ambitious lust of conquest, there will be
no rebuking influence left to purify and restrain lawless ambition.
So he thought that the military government that would have
been required to pacify Mexico proper if we annex it
would pause the military, especially to sort of gravitate towards
a less republican form of government, and would claim ambition
within politicians and military officers to be less dedicated to
republican government. It might result in an American Caesar for
all they knew. A newspaper editor and the man who
coined the term manifest destiny, John O'Sullivan, said that beyond
a question, the entire Mexican vote would be substantially below
our national average both impurity and intelligence. The Mexican people
are unaccustomed to the duties of self government. Who enfranchise
them therefore and give their representatives a voice in our
legislature would doubtless have the double effect of producing anarchy
within their own borders and embarrassing our own interests to
a disastrous extent. And then Calhoun makes a similar point
that the Mexicans are not able to govern themselves and
not able to take on republic and republican form of
government at that time in a speech to the Senate quote,
we make a great mistake, sir, when we suppose that
all people are capable of self government. We are anxious
to force free government on all. And I see that
it has been urged in every respectable quarter that it
is the mission of this country to spread civil and
religious liberty over all the world, and especially over this continent.
It is a great mistake none but people advance to
a very high state of moral and intellectual improvement, are
capable in a civilized state maintaining free government. Now that
echoes quite a few arguments that we've heard in recent
decades against nation building. And this really, this really is
like the first campaign against the prospect of nation building
in US history, the prospect that we would occupy and
perhaps even annex all of Mexico and build it up
into its own functioning republic or integrate it within our republic.
There were people even in the nineteenth century warning against,
you know, trying to raise people up who weren't ready
for republican a republican form of government, and raising them
up too quickly into that, and that it would have
disastrous results. I mean, we've seen in our own time
with our many adventures in the Middle East, how that
usually doesn't work out very well for us. So the
opponents of the All for Mexico movement have some descendants
that are around today Conservatives and others who pose nation
building overseas. New York Rep. Washington Hunt, a Northerner who
opposes annexing Mexico, argued that taking into many Mexican citizens
into the United States through annexation would change the nature
of the country. That these millions and millions of Mexican
New Mexican eventually they would assumably be citizens, that they
would change the character of the country, and that the
country would not be able to integrate such a sudden
influx of people. And that again that's echoed today where
we've had tens of millions of people from mostly Latin
America come into this country over only a few years,
and there's the debate of well, how well can we
integrate those people into an American way of life? And
of the news stories that we see today about Medicare fraud,
about the daycare center leadering daycare centers show that it
is pretty difficult to integrate large influxes of people. But
as almost every political issue does in this period. Slavery
also has something to do with the annexation debate, and
Northerners do not want too much Mexican territory annex because
it is within the new marcation of the Misery Compromise
of eighteen twenty, in which those the potential states from
an annexation of Mexico could become slave states, which would
tip the Senate and potentially the House into Southern favor.
So Pennsylvania Democrat Dave Wilmont tries to sort of head
off another crisis over slavery with the Wilmot Proviso in
eighteen forty six. This is the worst is starting that
would ban slavery in any territory annex for Mexico from
the war. It's blocked by Southern Democrats and Whigs in
the Senate, so it doesn't pass, but it greatly influences
what would become the Republican Party, and which started off
as the Free Soil Party in which they wanted any
future states out west to be free of slavery. So
this is sort of where the seeds are planted for
the Republican Party here in the Wilmont Previso eighteen forty six.
Towards the end of the war, the US finds itself
in possession of a gigantic tract of land, and it
has to figure out what it's going to do with it.
For a little context, in the eighteen twenties, the non
Indian population of California California, which included Baja California as well,
was barely three thousand people, and only about seven thousand
people in eighteen forty five. Similarly, only about five thousand
Mexicans lived in Texas in eighteen thirty. By eighteen thirty five,
there were an estimated ten times as many Americans in
Texas as Mexicans, and for the entirety of Alta Alta California,
which was a catch all term for California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Mexico,
and part of Colorado, basically the entire territory that America
took from Mexico in the Mexican American War. What twenty
nine thousand people who were not Indians in eighteen thirty six.
Put that into context, In eighteen thirty Mexico had had
a total population of somewhere between six and eight million people.
Now that's between zero point three six and zero point
four eight percent, not even one percent of the entire
population of Mexico lived in an area as large as
the rest of the country. Because portion that we took
for Mexico, which only has at most half a percent
of the entire population of the country, was fifty a
little over fifty percent of the entire land area of
Mexico itself. So a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of
Mexico's population lived in the areas that we took in
eighteen forty eight. And that's a very very big week
to consider when we hear arguments about whether Hispanic people
have a true claim to areas of the Southwest when
they had such a loose control of it to begin
with before we gained it in the Mexican American War,
and to speak to some of the some of the
arguments raised by opponents of Mexican annexation who believed that
the conquered people would not be up for Republican government.
I just wanted to make a note about literacy rates
in the United States and Mexico in eighteen forty about
over ninety percent of the Northern States and about eighty
percent of the southern states were literate. At the same time,
Mexican literacy was extremely low and was basically only prevalent
amongst the elite of the elite in the cities. Most
Mexican states had a literacy rate in the teens, and
some of the poorer areas have a literacy rate in
the single digits. So and the Founders and most major
thinkers of the Enlightenment emphasized that a literate population is
basically required for responsible self government. So take that how
you will. So this debate over how much Mexico to
take is raging for a few months, especially after Winfield
Scott takes Mexico City in September eighteen forty seven. Polk
had already dispatched a diplomat to go and negotiate with
the Mexican government what was left of it pretty much
after the fall of Mexico City, and the main diplomat
behind the negotiation attempts to end the war was a
man named Nicholas Christ. Now. Christ had married Thomas Jefferson's
granddaughter and served as personal secretary to both Thomas Jefferson
and Andrew Jackson, so he had a pretty good resume
going into the polk administration, and Polk named him as
head clerk to Secretary of State James Buchanan, who of
course would become president in the election of eighteen fifty six.
He was appointed in eighteen forty five and was almost
almost as soon as the war broke out. Trist is
assigned the duty to go and negotiate that peace treaty
with Mexico. So he goes down there and the Mexican
government under Santa Ana basically just falls apart as soon
as the US captures Mexico City, and trist really isn't
even sure who to really negotiate with. Who's you know,
who's left, not really a whole lot of people are
left and who can really speak with authority for the
Mexican state. So he gets bogged down in negotiations, and
Polk starts to come really really impatient because this war
that was going really well for the Americans is really
really expensive and he does not want it to go
on any longer than it really has to. Chris, for
his part, is almost a pacifist. He's really really against
the war and saw it as an act of pure
aggression from America against Mexico, which would seem a little
weird to send someone who fundamentally thinks the war is
unjust to go and negotiate for America to get America
the most stuff. And in fact, he wrote to his
family that those Mexicans have seen into my heart at
that moment when he's negotiating with them, they would have
known that my feelings of shame as an American was
far stronger than theirs could be as Mexicans for having
lost the war. Eventually, trist drags his feet a little
too much, and Pulk decides to recall him and send
somebody else to do to more aggressively negotiate. But the delay,
the mail delay that has to go from Washington by
ship to Vera Cruz and then from Vera Cruz overland
to Mexico City to recall him, the official order, Chris
just chooses to ignore it. You could you could kind
of do that back then before telephones and the internet.
So he ignores the recall order until he gets a proper,
you know, official dismissal. So he knows he has a
few weeks to sort of iron out a deal before
he gets he gets fired, So he negotiates with the government.
What's left of the government of Mexico and irons out
a deal. Pulk is furious, partly because he wanted Baja
California to be part of the deal, but it was not,
and once trist did get back to Washington, he was dismissed.
And then Pulk saw to it that his political career
was totally over after that, and he never in a
meaningful way re enters the political scene. But he does
have one gigantic legacy he leaves behind, and that's the
Treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo. It's negotiated in February eighteen forty eight.
Mexico seeds California New Mexico, most of Arizona. The southern
part that includes modern day Tucson was not added till later. Utah,
Nevada and part of Colorado that mess controlled went to
the US and returned for a lump sum payment of
fifteen million dollars, So it's half of what Pulk initially
offered in eighteen forty five, and the assumption of three
point two million dollars in debt Mexico owed to private
US citizens. The treaty means that Mexico loses roughly fifty
five percent of its pre land area, and you know,
about thirty thousand people. Later, in eighteen fifty three, the
US signs the Gadsden Purchase, which grants it that portion
of Arizona for ten million dollars. So in all, for
what we today consider the American Southwest, Mexico got twenty
five million dollars, and then the US assumed three over
three million dollars in debt that Mexico o to US citizens.
Perhaps the biggest irony of this is that just before
the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed, gold is discovered
in California. A discovery that could have totally transformed the
economic and social fabric of Mexico happens weeks before its
signed away to America, and it transforms the demographics of
the region. By eighteen fifty, almost one hundred thousand people
had come to California. That's California alone, and as I
noted earlier, thirty years prior to that, only about three
thousand people lived in California who were not Indian, So
three thousand and eighteen twenty to one hundred thousand and
eighteen fifty, and that's basically in two years and two years,
ninety seven thousand people come to California. I mean, it's
one of the biggest demographic influxes of the eighteenth century
and at that point in history in general. And that
one hundred thousand people who come to California includes tens
of thousands of Mexicans. Mexicans who are right over the
border in Baja California were Chihwaha or wherever, jump the
border and go and seek their fortune with gold. And
that is really where the the legacy of a large
Hispanic population in California starts. It's not when Mexico legally
owned the land that it was barely populated before that.
It's after the gold Rush that Mexicans really start to
move into California, after it's already been annexed by the
United States. Is when this large Hispanic population becomes prevalent
within California. And we sort of think of California's day
as a high Hispanic population state, and that's because of
the gold Rush, it's not because of Mexico. In fact,
Mexico had a terrible time trying to convince any settlers
to go north of the Rio Grande or to California
or Nevana. They couldn't. They were so desperate they were
trying to get They eventually sent convicts to those areas
because just nobody else wanted to go. So this notion
that this notion that Mexico has some kind of ancestral
or legal claim to the Southwest, where the Mexican people
have some kind of ancestral claim to the Southwest that
trumps Americas isn't really true or it's flimsy at best.
Barely any Mexican people lived there with it was part
of Mexico, and when most of the Mexicans came, it
was American territories that they came as immigrants, just like it,
as they claim, just like everybody else. You know, everybody
else who lose in California are grants and they are
supposedly the indigenous population, when no, they weren't. They came
along with everybody else during the gold Rush. And this
whole episode really hits home that the US strategically took
territory from Mexico, and we took that territory partly because
there were so few people in it and that we
knew we didn't want to take on that many people
at one time, because we knew we couldn't integrate them
into the American experiment, in the American way of life,
and that we didn't really want them here for those reasons,
and that really really sort of underminds the entire leftist
argument that Hispanics have some sort of special claim to
the south West. So thank you for joining me on
this little deep dive into the history of American Mexican
relations in the early nineteenth century and the Mexican Session.
You've been listening to another edition of Hayden's History Hour.
I'm your host, Hayden Daniel will be back soon with more.
Until then, be lovers of freedom and anxious for the
frame