How the U.S. Stole Mexico
Summary
TLDRThe video explores how the U.S. expanded westward, starting with the British Empire's restrictions on settlers, which were ignored, leading to conflicts with Native populations and other countries like Mexico. It highlights the U.S. annexation of Texas, the role of President James K. Polk in provoking a war with Mexico to acquire California, and the racial motivations behind expansion. The video concludes by reflecting on the impact of U.S. imperialism on Native and Mexican populations, drawing parallels to current U.S.-Mexico border issues.
Takeaways
- 📏 The British Empire drew a boundary line along a mountain range to prevent settlers from expanding westward and potentially provoking conflict with Native populations or France.
- 🚫 Settlers ignored the British restrictions, leading to westward expansion and eventually declaring independence from Britain.
- 🇲🇽 Mexico encouraged American settlers to settle in Texas to boost their economy, but settlers brought slaves and a desire for independence, leading to tension with Mexico.
- ⚔️ The Battle of the Alamo was a significant event where American settlers lost to Mexico, but it spurred more settlers to fight, leading to the formation of the Republic of Texas.
- 🗺️ A dispute over the Texas border arose between the Republic of Texas and Mexico, leading to a broader conflict when Texas became part of the United States in 1845.
- 📜 President James K. Polk, with a strong desire to acquire California, provoked Mexico into war by sending troops into disputed territory.
- 💥 The Mexican-American War began after Mexico attacked U.S. troops in disputed land, allowing Polk to justify war and eventually gain California and other territories.
- 🌎 The U.S. expanded significantly after the war, acquiring a large portion of Mexico's northern territory, which included California and present-day Texas.
- 👥 There was a strong racial component to American expansion, with policymakers explicitly choosing to take sparsely populated land rather than regions with large non-white populations.
- 🏛️ Native Americans and Mexicans living in these newly acquired territories faced oppression and disenfranchisement as white settlers flooded the region, shaping the U.S. borders we know today.
Q & A
What was the purpose of the boundary line drawn by the British Empire during colonization?
-The boundary line was meant to prevent British settlers from expanding westward, to avoid conflict with Native American populations and to maintain peaceful relations with France, which also had land in the West.
How did American settlers respond to the British-imposed boundary line?
-The American settlers completely ignored the boundary line and continued expanding westward, eventually leading to their declaration of independence from Britain.
Why did Mexico invite American settlers to Texas, and what unintended consequences followed?
-Mexico invited American settlers to Texas to encourage economic productivity. However, the settlers brought slaves, defied Mexican laws, and sought independence, eventually leading to armed conflict between the settlers and Mexico.
What was the significance of the Battle of the Alamo in the context of Texas independence?
-The Battle of the Alamo became a symbol of resistance for American settlers in Texas. Though the settlers lost the battle, it inspired more settlers to join the fight against Mexico, ultimately leading to Texas declaring independence.
What was the dispute over the borders of the newly declared Republic of Texas?
-After Texas declared independence, Mexico disputed the borders, arguing that parts of the land claimed by Texas were still Mexican territory, which eventually led to conflict between the United States and Mexico when Texas was annexed by the U.S.
How did U.S. President James K. Polk provoke a war with Mexico?
-Polk sent U.S. troops into disputed territory between Texas and Mexico, knowing that Mexico considered it their land. When Mexican forces attacked, Polk used the incident to justify a declaration of war, which allowed him to pursue his goal of acquiring California.
What were the consequences of the U.S.-Mexican War for both countries?
-The U.S. easily won the war and, as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Mexico ceded vast territories, including California, to the U.S. The U.S. paid Mexico $15 million for the land, and the borders of Texas were resolved.
Why didn’t the U.S. annex all of Mexico after winning the war?
-Some lawmakers argued against annexing all of Mexico because they didn't want to incorporate large populations of non-white people, such as Native Americans and mixed-race Mexicans, into the United States.
How did the racial views of U.S. lawmakers influence American expansion policies?
-Expansion policies were influenced by the desire to settle lands with sparse populations of non-white people. The U.S. preferred areas that could be settled by white Americans after displacing Native peoples, rather than annexing areas with large existing populations of non-white people.
What is the irony mentioned in the video regarding the U.S.-Mexico border today?
-The irony is that the U.S. now strictly enforces its southern border with Mexico, despite the fact that much of that land was part of Mexico until the U.S. took it through war and expansionist policies in the 1800s.
Outlines
🗺️ British Empire's Line of Demarcation and Settler Defiance
The British Empire established a boundary along a mountain range during its colonization efforts, intending to prevent settlers from moving west and avoid conflicts with Native Americans and the French. However, the settlers disregarded this line, leading to the eventual declaration of independence from Britain and the initiation of westward expansion in what would become the United States.
🌎 Mexico's Efforts to Populate Tejas with American Settlers
In the 1800s, Mexico sought to populate its northern territory, Texas (Tejas), by renting land to American settlers in hopes of boosting economic productivity. However, the plan backfired when these settlers brought slaves, illegal under Mexican law, and sought independence from Mexico. This tension escalated, culminating in the famous Battle of the Alamo, where American settlers eventually won and declared the Republic of Texas.
🇺🇸 The U.S.-Mexico Land Dispute and the Rise of James K. Polk
In the mid-1800s, Mexico and the newly declared Republic of Texas had a land dispute. When Texas became the 28th U.S. state, the conflict shifted between Mexico and the United States. Meanwhile, U.S. President James K. Polk, eager to expand American territory, eyed California and tried to buy it from Mexico. After being refused, he orchestrated a plan by sending U.S. troops into disputed territory, provoking a Mexican attack. This allowed Polk to convince Congress to declare war on Mexico, which the U.S. swiftly won, seizing vast territories including California.
🌊 U.S. Expansion, Racial Policies, and Polk’s Westward Dream
Following the U.S. victory over Mexico, President Polk's ambitions for California and Oregon were realized, completing the country's coast-to-coast expansion. However, the war and subsequent land grabs were racially motivated, with American lawmakers choosing to annex sparsely populated areas primarily inhabited by Native Americans, while avoiding larger non-white populations. This territorial acquisition solidified the U.S. borders we recognize today, though it came at the cost of native and Mexican peoples' rights and lands.
⚔️ Legacy of U.S. Expansion: Native Displacement and Mexican Oppression
After securing new territories, the U.S. government systematically displaced Native Americans and stripped Mexican property owners of their rights. These areas, now part of the U.S., were soon flooded by white settlers, many in search of gold. The native populations and non-white residents were marginalized, reflecting the broader racial policies that shaped American expansion. The video concludes by acknowledging the irony that the U.S. today enforces strict border policies on lands that were once part of Mexico.
📚 Skillshare: A Resource for Learning New Skills
The video concludes with a sponsorship from Skillshare, an online learning platform offering courses in various creative fields, including animation and design. The creator shares a personal testimonial, recommending a specific course on animation loops while encouraging viewers to explore the platform to learn new skills. Skillshare is highlighted as an affordable resource for self-education, with a promotion offering two free months of access.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡British Empire
💡Proclamation Line
💡Westward Expansion
💡Mexico
💡Texas
💡James K. Polk
💡Mexican-American War
💡California
💡Manifest Destiny
💡Racial Policy
Highlights
The British Empire drew a boundary line to prevent settlers from moving west and potentially causing conflicts with Native populations and France.
Settlers ignored the British boundary line, eventually leading to their independence and the start of U.S. westward expansion.
Westward expansion was driven by the mass displacement and slaughter of Native populations, a fact often overlooked in history.
In the 1800s, the U.S. began clashing with Mexico over territories in the West, especially Texas, where American settlers had moved in.
Mexico originally encouraged American settlers to populate Texas, but the plan backfired as settlers brought slaves and resisted Mexican rule.
The Battle of the Alamo was a pivotal conflict where American settlers fought against Mexican forces, sparking further resistance and eventual victory for the settlers.
Texas declared itself an independent republic, creating tensions with Mexico over disputed borders and leading to the U.S. annexation of Texas in 1845.
President James K. Polk played a major role in expanding U.S. territory by provoking a war with Mexico to claim California and other lands.
Polk sent American troops into disputed territory to provoke an attack from Mexico, which led to Congress declaring war on Mexico.
The U.S. won the war with Mexico easily and quickly, acquiring large portions of Mexican territory, including California, through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
Polk's aggressive expansion policy was criticized, including by Abraham Lincoln, who accused him of waging war 'at pleasure' to take land.
Some lawmakers wanted to take all of Mexico, but the U.S. settled for sparsely populated areas to avoid incorporating non-white populations.
The expansionist policies were influenced by racial motivations, prioritizing areas with fewer non-white populations for settlement.
Following the U.S.-Mexico war, native populations and Mexican property owners were marginalized as white settlers flooded into newly acquired territories.
The current U.S.-Mexico border, heavily enforced today, was once Mexican land taken through war and treaty, highlighting the irony of border tensions.
Transcripts
- Back when the British empire was colonizing
all of this land, they drew a line.
The line went right along this little mountain range
and it was meant as a boundary.
Back in London, there were saying
that no English settler was allowed
to settle West of this line.
The British empire did this because they were worried
that if settlers started to expand into the West
they would bring the British Empire
into a war with native populations.
They also didn't wanna unnecessarily piss off France
who also had land in the West.
So they told their settlers to settle,
but not pass this line.
And then the settlers completely ignored it.
(upbeat music)
These settlers would eventually declare independence
from Britain and start their own country.
And from there the flood gates were open
for westward expansion.
- [Announcer] A frontier people had remade a continent.
Virtually all productive land had been put to the plough.
A free and independent way of life prevail.
(upbeat music)
- This westward blitz was made possible through
the mass slaughter of people who were living on this land,
which this little time lapse ignores.
How that all went down will be the subject of another video.
But right now I want to talk about what happened
when the U.S. got here.
(upbeat music)
It's the mid 1800s and the U.S has 27 States
and a bunch of territories in the West,
but the country doesn't stretch from sea
to shining sea quite yet.
At this point, they start to bump in to
the recently independent country of Mexico.
(upbeat music)
The Northern part of Mexico was called Tejas or Texas,
and it was populated mainly with native groups
who had nothing to do with the U.S. or Mexico.
They had just been living there for centuries.
So Mexico is looking at this
fairly new sparsely populated part of their country
and thinking what you know,
what do we do with all this land?
They want to incentivize people to go with
and settle in this land
so it would potentially be more economically productive
for the country of Mexico.
So they made a plan.
They started to rent huge swaths of land
to American settlers so that they would come in
and settle the land.
And then return, these American settlers
would recruit more settlers to come in and settle the land
again, all with the hope that
it would benefit Mexico's economy eventually.
It did exactly the opposite.
American settlers fled into Texas
onto this newly rented land,
just as the Mexican government hoped for,
but with them they brought slaves,
which was totally illegal in Mexico at the time.
They also brought with them an attitude
of independence and frontier fever.
This American obsession with moving West to settle new land.
- [Narrator] The westward movement,
was like a great title wave.
The odd corners were rapidly engulfed.
- Mexico soon realized that this plan completely backfired
and that the Americans that had rented land from them
were now not interested
in having Mexico as their government.
So Mexico sends in the military to remind the settlers
that they're still in Mexico
and that they're technically renting this land from Mexico.
Well, this eventually escalated
and they started to fight all out battles.
And the American settlers lost.
The big battle here was called the Battle of the Alamo.
This guy, David Crockett, who was
like the symbol of Westward expansion, died in this battle.
And this loss spurred even more settlers
to come to Texas and joined the next fight against Mexico,
which the American settlers won.
And with that, they declared a new nation
independent of Mexico, the Republic of Texas.
And now the map looks like this.
A newly declared country of American settlers
in between Mexico and the United States.
But not everyone actually agreed
that the map looked like this.
While Mexico conceded that they lost the war.
They disputed this map saying
that the border of the new Republic of Texas
was actually here.
And that all of this was still Mexico.
So now you have a big land dispute between Mexico
and the Republic of Texas.
Well soon it's 1845
and Texas becomes the 28th state of the United States.
And yet this land is still disputed,
but now it's a land dispute
between the United States of America and Mexico.
Let's keep in mind that despite all of this map drawing
there are still loads of native peoples who've lived
on this land for years and are now being suffocated
by all these nations trying to take their land.
Again, that's another episode
and it's an important episode and I want to do it justice.
But for now what happens next
in the Mexico story gets kind of nuts.
And the reason it gets kind of nuts is mainly
because of this guy, president James K. Polk.
James Polk wins the presidency
and comes into office with a list of four big things
he wants to do.
It's his big wishlist.
At the top of this wishlist is Polk desire to capture
this very specific part of Mexico,
which is called California.
Remember that at the time, the U.S. didn't actually stretch
from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
The U.S. had colonized portions of Oregon territory,
but it was kind of confusing
because there were kind of competing with the French
and the British, and they didn't actually own it yet.
But you'll notice that Oregon was also on Polk's shortlist,
but first California.
He first tried to buy California from Mexico
for $25 million.
Mexico flat out said no.
So Polk decides to pull an incredibly dirty move.
Remember this big old swath of disputed territory
that the U S inherited
when they admitted Texas into the union,
James Polk was pissed off that Mexico didn't take his offer
to buy California.
So he sends a small group of troops
into this disputed territory
and has the March right up to here,
right across from the river
that separates what everyone agrees is Mexico.
But according to Mexico, they've already been in Mexico
as soon as they crossed into this dispute territory,
which Mexico believes is theirs.
So the Mexican army is sent to respond
to what looks like an oncoming attack
from the United States.
This is exactly what Polk wanted.
A group of 1,600 Mexican soldiers attack
this small group of 80 Americans killing 11 of them
and capturing the rest.
They easily one, since they were outnumbered
by like a magnitude of like 20.
But this is exactly what Polk needed
to get his wishlist going.
After this battle, Polk goes to Congress and reports
that the Mexicans have quote, invaded our territory
and shed American blood upon American soil.
Even though this wasn't necessarily American soil;
it was disputed territory
that most people thought was rightfully Mexico.
But it didn't matter.
The death of Americans was enough to rally Congress
around declaring war with Mexico.
The U.S. easily won this war and they did it pretty quickly.
Remember that the taking over of Texas was originally
a bunch of settlers who band together, made a militia,
fought Mexico on their own
and declared the Republic of Texas.
Not super great, but at least it wasn't
like a government leader sending his soldiers in
that he knows, are going to lose to provoke another country
to kill those soldiers
so that he can use democratic processes
and institutions to make war all so
that he can take over land from that country.
I mean, Polk really wanted California.
There were critics of this in the time.
One of whom was this guy who said that letting Polk force
the country into war with Mexico was quote,
allowing him to make war at pleasure.
And Abe hit the nail on the head.
This whole war was started and fought at
the pleasure of this president, James K. Polk.
So anyway, the U S easily wins the war.
They pay Mexico $15 million
and Mexico gave up all of this.
As a part of this loss. Mexico also conceded
all of this disputed territory
making it officially a part of the U S state of Texas.
The U.S. had grown significantly in just a couple of years.
And Polk got his California.
The U.S.could have taken more land.
Some American lawmakers at the time
wanted to take all of Mexico.
And militarily they likely could have done this,
but they only took this part of Mexico because it was
the most sparsely populated mainly by native Americans.
One Senator at the time, who happened to be pro-slavery,
argued on the Senate floor against taking all of Mexico.
Saying quote, we have never dreamt of incorporating
into the Union, any, but the Caucasian race,
the free white race.
Are we to associate with ourselves as equal companions
and fellow citizens, the Indians and mixed races of Mexico?
In other words, let me put it plainly.
The policy was let's search for land where we exterminate
the natives and settle white people
instead of let's take land
where there's already big populations
that are non white people
that we would have to bring into our country.
This is a policy that informed American expansion
and imperialism for a very long time.
And it's what guided a lot of what land we took over
and what land we didn't take over.
Okay, so through this unprovoked racially tinge war
Polk checked off California from his list.
And just the next month
Oregon was organized into a territory
after working out a deal with the British.
Polk had exterminated anyone in his way.
And now he had a coast to coast country.
A few years later
they bought this little piece of land from Mexico
and this completed the Southern border that we know today.
One that was forged first from a rebellion
of American settlers,
then a war at the pleasure of James K. Polk.
And then finally that little purchase there at the end.
The native people and Mexicans that lived here when
the U.S. took it over.
And let's be clear on something that is not a small number.
They were predictably oppressed
as white settlers fled into this region
often looking for gold.
Native people were driven from their land
and the rights of Mexican property owners were erased in
the name of a state constitution
that only let white people vote.
- [Narrator] This land after a little more than a century
and a half had become great nation,
the United States of America.
- So, the U S stole Mexico in the 1800s,
partly because they opened their borders to Americans
to let them in to work their land,
which is just a very strange, full circle irony.
Especially because today you go to the U.S.-Mexico border
and we do everything to make it clear
that this side of that wall is U.S.
when just a few years ago it was all Mexico.
I wish like the Hawaii video
I had some high note to end on here, but I don't.
So, so yeah.
These stories about how the U.S. expanded teach me so much
about how the U.S. got it shape and how the world works
and how countries grow and change.
And I've really been learning a lot by delving into these.
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