War Of 1812 Research Paper

Polk sent 1,000 troops with John Slidell to try and bargain with Mexico for California. The Mexican government was angered that America would attempt to force them into selling their land and asked them to leave. Polk, upset because Mexico declined the offer, set up camps in Texas, however, Mexico still thought of Texas as their land so the establishment

On January 13, 1846 in response to the rejection Polk ordered Taylor to send troops across the Nueces River, and on May 13, 1846 war was officially declared on Mexico by congress. The victory did not come easy to Polk as he thought it would, but on February 2, 1848 an agreement was made with Mexico known as the Treaty of Guadalupe which states Mexico agreed to cede California and New Mexico to the United States. This was shows how far the United States was willing to go in order to fulfill the Manifest Destiny. The Manifest Destiny helped to spark an expansion in the United States that would change the shape of the nation forever. The Louisiana Purchase sparked this idea of expansion, and then was quickly followed by the westward migration of a large population, and this would lead to

Mexican War The Mexican-American War took place in the time period of 1846 to 1848. This was the first U.S. armed war that was mostly fought on foreign land. It was fought between two neighboring countries. One was a politically divided and militarily unprepared Mexico and the other was the expansionist-minded United States. The United States was, at the time, led by the administration of U.S. President James K. Polk, who believed the United States had the God given right to spread across the continent to the Pacific Ocean, this term was called “Manifest Destiny.” Many say that the United States basically invaded Mexico and illegally took their land.

Slave owners brought slaves even though it was Slave-free land. In 1846,North of the Rio Grande,Captain Seth Thornton and his 70 soldiers were attacked by a larger mexican force.Annexation: expand border to include something. The Mexican President, James Polk believed in Manifest destiny, meaning, it was God’s plan to spread the border across the Pacific (Rodent 317). A hundred years later United States did expand over time.Most people who didn’t believe in God underestimated God’s plan.Polk knew that God had a plan for the border. Polk wanted to annex Texas and California meaning he wanted to include those two states.

The Mexican Cession came after the United States and Mexico were engaged in a two-year war between the year 1846-1848 which then resulted in the United States gaining control of the territory (Fieldman 71). In the U.S. the war did not receive full backing from everyone; most of the proponents of the war were democrats with most Whigs opposing the move to engage Mexico in a war. Therefore, the Mexican cession was the outcome of this war that resulted in Mexico ceding most of its territory (approximately 42%) to the United States from South Western Wyoming all the way to California. Also, the U.S. paid 15 million dollars on top to complete the acquisition, half the amount it had been willing to pay before the war took place (Hill 84). The Guadalupe Hidalgo Treaty signed in 1848 marked the acquisition of the

“it was God’s plan that America extend its territory.” (Roden 317) God wants America to take Texas. The Mexicans are “limiting our greatness checking the fulfillment of our Manifest Destiny” (O’Sullivan 323) People are wrongly stopping God’s plan. Later America got Texas, California, and Oregon Territory. (Roden 317) The Manifest Destiny was fulfilled. Polk was a strong supporter of the Manifest Destiny.

The United States war with Mexico was over 160 years ago and still continues to be a divisive and widely debated topic, was it justifiable or not? The first war to be fought mostly on foreign land, was the Mexican-American War that started in 1846. America, lead by President Polk, who believed the U.S had a “manifest destiny”, fought against Mexico who had a weak military and was politically divided. After the war ended in 1848, Mexico lost one-third of its territory which included present-day California, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico. Although the United States war against Mexico resulted in the gaining of America’s most valuable land, the war itself was unjust because their goal was to expand slavery, Texas was wrong from the beginning, and the war was based on false pretenses.

When Mexicans saw this they took it as an act of war. Bear in mind, tensions before the United States and Mexico were high because of border disputes. United States wanted the border to be at Rio Grande River while Mexico wanted the border to be the Nueces River. General Zachary Taylor was the one to go to Texas and claim the Rio Grande River as the border. Mexico taking this as an act of aggression caused shots to be fired sending Mexican troops across the Rio Grande.

The Mexican-American war altered the United States environmentally, culturally and politically. First, on February 2, 1848, Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo two years post the beginning of the war. The treaty not only achieved President Polk’s goal to achieve California from Mexico but also granted the U.S. over 500,000 square miles of new territory. The new land caused approximately 90,000 spanish speaking, mostly Catholic Mexicans under American jurisdiction. Second, Nativism, a rising anti-catholic and anti-immigrant deemed the Mexicans inferior.

In the Mexican-American war of 1846 the United States of America was justified in going to war with Mexico because of many reasons. First Texas decided that did not want to part of Mexico they wanted to be part the Union (United States). It was America’s Manifest Destiny to go out and conquer the land, and the Mexican government wasn’t stable enough to handle their lands. “Texas had determined…to annex herself to our Union” because of the increasing numbers of American settlers that filled the northern part of the Rio Grande. This led Texans to successfully go for an annexation causing a war between the United States and Mexico.

The Mexican-American War “Although most Americans believed in Manifest Destiny, few could agree on exactly which lands the United States was supposed to govern.” -Charles W. Carey Jr. The Mexican-American War, also known as the Mexican War, was a war between the United States and the Centralist Republic of Mexico occurring between April 25, 1846 and February 2, 1848. It all began when a Mexican cavalry attacked a group of U.S. soldiers in the disputed zone under the command of General Zachary Taylor, killing around a dozen troops. When Texas gained their independence from Mexico in 1836, the United States declined to add the territory into the union because of politics. If Texas was occupied as a state, the addition of another slave

Louisiana The Louisiana Purchase in 1803, was negotiated with Napoleon during the presidency of Thomas Jefferson; the territory was acquired from France for $15 million . A small

Although, this was a bad idea. Mexico was mostly Catholic, anti-slavery, while the American settlers were not. Texas applied to the U.S. for annexation. However, both times Texas’s request for annexation was rejected by the United States Congress. When James K. Polk became president, he convinced Congress to let texas be annexed.

With the losses adding up, Mexico turned to recent standby General Antonio Lopez Delaware Santa Ana, the strong man who had been living in exile in Cuba. Santa Ana convinced President Polk that, if allowed to come back to United Mexican States, he would finish the war on terms that would be considered favorable to the us. However, once he arrived, he straight off double-crossed President Polk by taking management of the Mexican army and leading it into battle. At the Battle of Buena Vista in February 1847, Santa Ana suffered serious casualties and was forced to withdraw. Despite the loss, he assumed the Mexican presidency the next