Polk Provokes the US-Mexico War
* What: The unprovoked war of aggression that stole one half of Mexico's land and one tenth its people. Polk began the war to expand slavery. The war largely failed in its declared aim since only Texas was admitted as a slave state. The US-Mexico War made the Civil War far more likely since it created new states and guaranteed more bitter conflict over slavery.
* The Body Count: 45,000 casualties for the war, 20,000 Americans and 25,000 Mexicans. Deaths on both sides totaled 19,000, including civilians.
* Exact figures for civilian atrocities are not easy to find. The Encyclopedia of the Mexican-American War lists two of the worst atrocities against Mexican civilians as killing at least 100. The bombing of Veracruz killed at least 600 civilians. The bombing of Matamoros killed at least 200 civilians. The same Encyclopedia also lists two of the worst atrocities by Texas Rangers against Mexican civilians as killing at least 100.
* The Texas Rangers were notorious before, during, and after the war (and indeed until the twentieth century) for killing mostly innocents, and usually at random out of racist animosity. A third atrocity by Texas Ranger Captain Mabry Gray's company killed the entire adult male population of the village of Ramos, 24 deaths. After the death of one Ranger in Mexico City, Captain Hays' Ranger company responded by massacring over 80 people in one neighborhood. It is highly likely that there were far more than at least 1000 dead in civilian atrocities total.
* Who Also Gets the Blame:
* The Texas Rangers and other volunteers from Texas, had a much worse reputation for brutality than the regular army. This was a continuation of atrocities against Mexicans begun earlier.
* The “Texas Republic” had been carrying out ethnic cleansing against American Indians and Mexicans ever since the start of their insurgency. During the nine year effort to be independent of Mexico, American Indian tribes, even peaceable ones, were forced out. The Caddo, Cherokee, Delaware, Kickapoo, Shawnee, and Tonkawa were all driven out, while the Mexican population of the towns of Goliad, Nacogdoches, and Victoria were also expelled by force or killed. In San Antonio, the Texans' Somervell Expedition chased out over 150 Mexican families and committed mass rapes. Texan colonist leader Stephen Austin and Texan Presidents David Burnet and Mirabeau Lamar all referred to Mexicans as “inferior races” and “mongrels.” Lamar favored genocide against all Natives in Texas.
* The “Texas Republic” was never actually independent, never legally recognized nor self sufficient, nor controlling the territory it claimed. But its efforts to join the United States led directly to the US-Mexico War.
* General Zachary Taylor's discipline of volunteers fighting in northern Mexico was notoriously poor. By contrast, General Winfield Scott's discipline practices kept atrocities by US volunteers fighting in central Mexico down to a much lower level. Taylor specifically requested the barring of any more volunteers from Texas, convinced of their tendency to murder innocent Mexican civilians.
* The belief in Manifest Destiny and many Anglo-Americans' hatred of mixed-race peoples are often described as the principal reasons for both the US-Mexican War and atrocities against Mexican civilians during it. Contrary to the sanitized view of Manifest Destiny often taught in schools, the idea was always explicitly racist. It was not just the belief that Americans were destined to spread from coast to coast. Manifest Destiny insisted that white Americans were destined to rule all the way from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and either rule over or exterminate all Native and Mexican peoples already on those lands.
* The great majority of Mexicans have mixed ancestry. Less than one in ten were of entirely Spanish descent. Many more Mexicans were entirely American Indian. For most Latin Americans, there never was any prejudice against the mixing of peoples. (The exceptions tend to be among the upper class.) But for most Anglo-Americans at the time, “race mixing” was not only a huge stigma, it was strictly illegal, regarded as anathema. This hostility carried to brutal treatment of the civilian population of Mexico.
* Anti-Catholic prejudice also played a huge part in atrocities against Mexicans. At the same time as the US-Mexico War, there was also a wave of prejudice against Irish Catholics. (See Section Five.) Many Mexican Catholic churches were looted or vandalized, and some priests were brutalized or even killed by bigoted American Protestant soldiers.
* Irish-American soldiers were appalled. Enough Irish-Americans deserted to form two entire battalions, the San Patricios (Saint Patricks), that fought on the side of Mexico. Twenty San Patricios were captured and hanged by the US military. Within Mexico, the San Patricios are still highly regarded and remembered as honored fighters today.
* Many Mexicans, including historians, blame Mexican elites seeking after their own power for weakening their nation, making them far more vulnerable to foreign invasions, not just the US but European powers as well.
* Plantation slave owners, or “the slave owning power,” as many abolitionists referred to them, likely played the leading role in why the US fought the war. The initial cause of the war was the US annexation of Texas, and “Texans” (most of them had been in the state less than one year) in turn tried to break away to become a US state with slavery. Texas insurgents applied to become a US state only two days after declaring independence. US President Martin Van Buren rejected them, worrying Texas would increase tension over the slavery issue.
* Thus Texas was forced to try to be independent against its will. By any reasonable standard, Texas was never an independent nation. Mexico never recognized its independence, and theirs was the most important opinion. Virtually no other nation did either. The one initial exception was France. But the French ambassador never made it to Texas and stayed in New Orleans. The US did send charges d'affairs to Texas, lower ranking officials generally sent to assess a situation. Only once the US decided to annex did it become convenient for American officials to embrace the legal fiction that Texas had been independent.
* The US-Mexican War was almost entirely due to President James Polk. Polk wanted war, and he went to elaborate lengths to deliberately provoke it. Polk had been elected on the promise of the seizure of territory from Britain and Mexico and going to war against them both. For the British, Polk's promise to seize their territory was embodied in the slogan “54-40 or Fight.” This meant taking all territory up to the parallel bordering 54 degrees 40 minutes on the map, right up to Russia's claim on Alaska territory.
* But Polk avoided war with Britain. It was the most powerful nation on the planet and had badly beaten the US in the War of 1812, even capturing Washington and burning down the White House. Also, Britain was a white nation, and Polk's racism played a part in avoiding a war against other whites while picking a war against mixed race Mexicans.
* So Polk negotiated with the British, breaking his campaign promise of 54-40 and accepting the 49th parallel, the same boundary other US presidents had proposed. The British held onto the most valuable territory in the area, Vancouver Bay, while the US accepted only a claim on Oregon Territory, at that time virtually all Native tribes.
* Polk was in far more a position of strength against Mexico. The nation was very weak from constant instability since independence. Mexico's elites had been fighting amongst themselves in power struggles from the start, with many coups and uprisings. Eleven Mexican states tried to break away from Mexico, and Central America did so successfully. Mexico also was at war with a number of Native tribes, especially the Apache, Comanche, and Yaqui, and shortly, an uprising of Mayas in the Yucatan at the same time as war with the US.
* There were also several invasions by other nations. For eight years after Mexican independence in 1821, Spain kept trying to reconquer Mexico, blockading, bombing, or invading Mexican ports. France also invaded in 1838-39, blockading nearly all Mexican ports and extracting a ransom over money allegedly owed to a French pastry shop owner, the Pastry War.
* Finally, American private armies kept invading Mexico for 45 years before the US-Mexico War. These groups were often referred to as filibusters. Armed private militias or mercenaries, they numbered from as few as 50 to as many as a thousand. Texas was invaded six times by American filibusters, in 1800, 1801, 1813, 1819, 1825, and 1835. American mercenaries also invaded the Yucatan in 1844 and California in 1845.
* Thus many Americans had long wanted to take over part or all of Mexico long before Polk began this war. Filibusters often hoped their invasions would bring in the American government and thus tear away a piece of territory from Mexico. The most obvious example was the “Texas Republic,” applying to become a US slave state after beginning their uprising. But US President Martin Van Buren had blocked taking Texas to avoid conflict over slavery, preventing a war with Mexico. (See Section Eight.)
* The next US President, Tyler, put a bill before Congress to take Texas. Both Tyler and Congress accepted the legal fiction that Texas was independent to make it easier to take the territory over. Polk also accepted that this meant a certain war with Mexico. Texas insurgents claimed a ludicrous amount of territory, over half of what is today New Mexico, much of what would become Colorado, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and even Wyoming, almost a thousand miles beyond any actual control. Over half of what is today the state of Texas was also not under the insurgents' control.
* Polk sent a US army under Zachary Taylor into Texas. The army, acting on Polk's orders, continued into the disputed area not actually under Texas control. The Mexican army remained on the other side of the Rio Grande. Taylor even built an American fort on Mexican territory. Taylor would soon cross the Rio Grande and take the Mexican city of Matamoros. Taylor sent Polk a message about a minor skirmish, claiming Mexican troops “invaded our territory. American blood has been shed on American soil.” This was obviously false, and both Taylor and Polk knew it. Most congressmen knew it was a lie also, but hysteria over lost American lives was enough to force a declaration of war.
* Mexico was extremely mismatched in this war, not winning a single major battle. Its troops were mostly draftees, poorly led and armed, even using outdated stone cannonballs instead of iron. As the army fell apart and atrocities against civilians increased, some Mexicans became guerilla fighters. Washington's answer was to issue a declaration to destroy guerillas' “haunts and places of rendezvous.” This became an excuse to burn villages and crops. Chaos spread. Almost three dozen peasant uprisings blew up across Mexico. Mexican elites feared a race war, but their own earlier behavior was as much to blame as anything American troops did.
* The government of Mexico surrendered in 1848. Half of Mexico's territory and one tenth its population were taken by the US in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Theoretically, the US paid $15 million to Mexico. In fact, the US government charged Mexico for “damages” done to American property. By incredible coincidence, the amount of damages was $15 million. The US never paid a penny to Mexico.
* Polk's war, begun to take territory to expand slavery, almost guaranteed its end. It became increasingly unlikely a civil war could be avoided. Texas would be the last slave state admitted, and the number of slaves jumped dramatically there. Cotton and tobacco plantations were already less profitable than in the past, and slavery depended more and more on an internal American slave trade now that the international one was banned.
* California was admitted as a free state, though in practice that meant no slavery for Blacks, while Indians were widely enslaved. (See Section Two.) None of the other future US states were practical for plantations, so it was merely a matter of time until slavery could be abolished by vote. Polk's war thus failed at half its intended goal, insuring the continuation of slavery.
* For its other goal, that of taking territory, it was somewhat successful. The northern half of Mexico became the southwest US. Both by population and by culture though, the southwest has remained at least half Mexican, a proportion that will only increase over time. Over a century of racism, land theft, violence, and forced assimilation failed to end Mexican identity among the 10% of Mexico's population indigenous to the region.
* Had a different man been president, the atrocities of the war could have been avoided, as well as genocide in California. (See Sections Two and Nine.) Teaching correctly about this war could go a long way towards ending the cyclical periods of anti immigrant hysteria. The Mexican-American population in the US is both indigenous and immigrant, but students are rarely taught this.