How the U.S. Stole Mexico

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 they 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 want to unnecessarily piss off france who also had land in the west so they told their settlers to settle but not past this line and then the settlers completely ignored it [Music] these settlers would eventually declare independence from britain and start their own country and from there the floodgates were open for westward expansion a frontier people had remade a continent virtually all productive land had been put to the plow a free and independent way of life prevailed 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 it's the mid-1800s and the us 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 into the recently independent country of mexico 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 us 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 wanted to incentivize people to go 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 they would come in and settle the land and in 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 the westward movement was like a great tidal 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 join 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 now the map looks like this a newly declared country of american settlers in between mexico and the united states [Music] 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 have 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 wish list at the top of this wish list is polk's 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 us had colonized portions of oregon territory but it was kind of confusing because they 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 dollars mexico flat out said no so polk decides to pull an incredibly dirty move remember this big old swath of disputed territory that the us 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 them 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 disputed 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 1600 mexican soldiers attack this small group of 80 americans killing 11 of them and capturing the rest they easily won since they were outnumbered by like a magnitude of like 20.

but this is exactly what polk needed to get his wish list 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 jeez there were critics of this at 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 dollars 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 us 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 can 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 tinged 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 this land after a little more than a century and a half had become a 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 the 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 see ya [Music] these stories about how the u.

s expanded teach me so much about how the u.