Comments off the Lincoln Madison blog
Before the Mexican-American War, did Mexico actually even have any more right than the U.S. to possess the southwest? They had basically inherited it as booty from their war of independence from Spain. The large number of American Indian groups throughout the region certainly didn't ever want Spain or Mexico, or the U.S., to occupy the land. Granted, the Mexican population is largely of indigenous origin, but does being descended from, say, the Aztecs give one a right to land once held by the Chumash or Hopi? If so, this is simply a racial question (in that case, it would appear that the Castilian-looking Jorge Ramos is out of luck).
Putting aside those considerations, Mexico anyway held the southwest for a mere 25 years, during which time it was essentially frontier land over which they had very limited control. At the time of the Mexican-American War, the entire city of Los Angeles had a population of **2000.** By comparison, New York had a population of about 1 million! The southwest has now been part of the U.S. for over 150 years and its huge growth and development since the War has been due almost exclusively to its being incorporated into the U.S.
Essentially what you're saying is that Mexico inherited Mexico as booty in its war of independence. You might as well say that the United States inherited Tennessee as booty from its war of independence. The question of the claims descended from European empires pitted against the indigenous peoples is trickier, certainly.
Your point about Mexico holding the southwest for only 25 years is specious, though, because Mexico held the southwest for much longer than that — it's utterly silly to measure that possession from the time of independence rather than from the time that the predecessor Spanish territorial government held that territory. By that measure, the southwest was Mexican longer than it has been American.
You make a much stronger point about the fact that the settlement and development of the region has been almost entirely in the century and a half of U.S. control, but we can only speculate what would've happened to the southwest — and to the rest of Mexico — had things gone a little differently in the 1830's and 1840's. Maybe Mexico would've developed at least some of the immense agricultural potential of California and Texas, as well as California's gold fields, the silver in Nevada, and even the ski slopes of Colorado and Utah.
My point about newly-independent Mexico's obtaining control of the Southwest was simply that it was no more legitimate than the U.S.'s doing the same 25 years later - not that it was or wasn't legitimate. The Spanish took it from the various resident American Indian tribes, the Mexicans gained control of it when they became independent of Spain, then the U.S. took it from Mexico.
If my wife steals a car and drives it for a year, and then I get divorced from her and drive it myself for another year, would I have any right to complain if some third person then made off with it?
Well then, your point is ridiculously over-specific in applying it to this instance. By your logic, the entire European settlement of the western hemisphere is illegitimate, which is arguable on a theoretical basis but moot on any practical level. For all that Europeans and now U.S. Americans like to get on our high horses about morality and justice, the reality is that when the people with guns come and tell you that they're taking your land, there's not much you can do about it if you don't have people with guns on your side.
Spanish settlement in the area that is now the southwestern United States dates back to at least 1515, which is the point from which Mexico's claim originated. Thus, Mexico claimed the land and held at least parts of it for over 300 years, still more than twice the period that the United States has claimed it. It is absurd to pretend that Mexico "obtained control" of that territory for only 25 years, as if independent Mexico were some entity entirely alien to Spanish Mexico.
My point stands however you draw the distinction between Spain/New Spain and New Spain/Mexico -- which is that the Spanish/New Spanish/Mexicans had about much right as the U.S. at the time of the Mexican-American War to hold the southwest.
The fact that Spain established missions all around the southwest to subjugate the natives didn't give them some special right to the land, did it? Wouldn't that like be like arguing over who owns that stolen car?
No, your point in fact is that Spain/Mexico had less right to what is now the southwestern United States than this country has. The mere fact that the land was already stolen doesn't justify stealing it again.
And yes, actually the fact that Spain established missions did give them some special right to the land. It gave them control and thus ownership. It wasn't pretty, it wasn't moral, it wouldn't be legal today, but there were no voices in Washington in 1848 crying out to liberate the Pueblo and the Navajo from their Mexican overlords.
So, in other words, your point is lacking in historical perspective and also rather beside the point.
So let's agree on your idea that Spain had gained some right to the southwest via its establishment of missions in the region. Would you say that now, in 2008, the claim of Mexicans and Spaniards to the southwest are negligible at best because of the massive development and population of the region by the U.S. since the M-A War?
I would say, first of all, that it's not the least bit relevant to the discussion at hand. What I said in the first place was that Mexico might be a very different place in the 21st century had things gone differently in the mid-19th.
Now, in 2008, I would say that Mexico has no claim at all to ownership or control of the southwestern US, but I would also note that it has never officially asserted any such claim, at least not in more than a century. Thus, again, your point is moot.
Enough said; I'm closing this thread to further comments, especially since the original article is two years old.
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