Willie Mangum Avoids War with Mexico and California Indian Genocide
* Mangum is one of the most intriguing and contradictory major figures of US history that almost no one has heard of. Mangum was a Whig, a party largely anti slavery and popular in the north, while Mangum was from the south and favored slavery. Yet Mangum was also a lifelong friend and supporter of free Blacks. At the same time he opposed annexing most of Mexico because he feared mixed blood people becoming part of the US.
* President John Tyler, a Democrat, was almost accidentally killed by an explosion on a US Navy ship in 1844. The Vice Presidency was vacant, as it had been for three years. At that time most Americans thought even less of the Vice Presidency than most do now, and so no one pushed for the vacancy to be filled. Had Tyler been killed, as President Pro Tempore of the Senate, Mangum was next in line and would be president.
* It was President John Tyler who pushed for the US takeover of Texas from Mexico. The prior president, Van Buren, opposed the takeover because he saw correctly that it would lead to a prolonged and divisive war with Mexico. (See Section Four.) One of Tyler's last major acts as president was to push through Congress an annexation bill to take over Texas. But with Tyler dead, such a bill is never proposed.
* Mangum certainly would not propose such a bill because he spoke publicly against the US-Mexico War, both before and during. At the war's end the All Mexico Movement called for taking all of Mexico and its people, from California and Texas all the way to the south of Mexico to the border with Guatemala. Mangum argued forcefully against them. His reasoning was that Mexicans were too alien, and their mixed ancestry made them a racial threat to an American society obsessed with racial separation.
* Mangum would only be president for slightly over a year, and the election campaign would begin almost from the time he took office. Could James Polk, the man who provoked the war with Mexico, still have become the next president anyway? Unlikely, since he was the first “dark horse candidate,” the first to come from behind, largely unknown. Polk had taken advantage of the Texas takeover passed by Tyler. But it was Tyler's issue. Without Tyler, Polk as an unknown would be pushing for the taking of Texas that had not yet happened, plus a war with Mexico.
* The other likely candidates, James Buchanan and Lewis Cass, were handicapped. Buchanan, as was shown by his time as president before the Civil War, was just too incompetent to accomplish much. It is unlikely he could successfully take Texas, and if war comes with Mexico, it is one he would stumble into and be unable to run, much as he failed in both the Mormon War and preparing for the Civil War. (See Section Four.)
* Lewis Cass also favored taking Texas, but wanted popular sovereignty for all new territories, that each state's population could choose to be a free state or a slave state. Cass later resigned from Buchanan's administration because of his objection to Buchanan favoring Confederates. Texas insurgents would have to carry out violence to get a successful vote for slavery in the new state, much like happened in Bleeding Kansas a decade later. Unlike Kansas, the violence would be far more racialized since both the German and Mexican populations of Texas overwhelmingly opposed slavery.
* A third possible candidate, John Calhoun as Secretary of State under Tyler, had devised the takeover plan on Texas. Had he run and won, then the takeover proceeds, just a year later. But war with Mexico is not certain. Unlike Polk, Calhoun opposed war and was unlikely to provoke a war with Mexico. It is possible that Calhoun may accept the Nueces border, meaning a smaller Texas and the rest of the northern half of Mexico staying Mexican.
* For most of these scenarios, California is likely to remain part of Mexico and thus California Indian genocide and enslavement are prevented. Could Mangum have been elected president himself? That is unlikely. Mangum was not a nationally known figure and had no following outside his home state. But his single year in office would be enough to prevent a war and a genocide, and leave several other intriguing possibilities.
* Could Texas survive its ugly, unplanned, unwilling attempt to be a nation? It came into existence to be a US slave state, and practiced ethnic cleansing against both Mexicans and Natives, even friendly tribes. As noted before, Texan attempts at government were utterly incompetent. It may finally be part of Mexico again once the worst of Mexican elites are removed by Juarez and the Liberal Party. But that was not until the mid 1850s, a decade away.
* An interesting proposal was floated in the mid 1840s. Sam Houston proposed that Texas become a British colony. Had both parties agreed, slavery ends in Texas, as it had a decade earlier in all British colonies. Where would Britain then get labor for Texas cotton plantations? It may bring in laborers from India, much as it did in part of the Caribbean. Texas may become more Indian from India than American Indian, Mexican, or Anglo-American.
* Another interesting side issue is the would be nation of Deseret. The Mormon colony deliberately situated itself on the border between Mexico and the US. With Mexico's defeat in the US-Mexico War, Deseret went on to face its own defeat in the Mormon War and was annexed by the US. Mormons went from being fairly radical, practicing communal living, to today one of the most politically conservative groups in America.
* Without a US-Mexico War, can Deseret survive? Some of its leaders spoke hopefully of having a huge territory stretching all the way from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles. That is very unlikely. Gold was discovered in California in 1849. A gold rush under Mexico still happens, though there are likely few Americans. It is extremely unlikely Mexico would allow Mormon control over California. Instead more Mexican from further south raise the population. But an enclave of Deseret may still potentially remain, with Mormons staying socialist radicals, holding onto perhaps the northern half of what is today Utah.
* As for Alta California, without it under US control, California Indian genocide is greatly limited. Mexico's record of war with its own Native peoples could be almost as brutal, especially in the Yaqui Wars. But its main practice was assimilation, not extermination. In California, most Native deaths under Spain were by disease and overwork in the missions, not killing every Indian in sight as Anglo-Americans did. (See Section Two.) Mexico had largely abandoned supporting its missions, and most California Natives went back to their homelands. There they likely remain. They will still suffer atrocities and land loss, but not genocide as under the US.
* A final interesting question is Oregon. Would the president after Mangum succeed in negotiating it away from Britain? Very likely, for the only territory of much interest to Britain was Vancouver Island and Bay, some proposals from the US left that alone. But the US with a much smaller Pacific coast and Mexico's much larger, Mexico may be more of a Pacific power than the US. Mexico will be more prosperous from the Gold Rush and from having never had its northern half stolen. The two nations likely become roughly equal in power.