Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The southwest would probably look a lot like the Northern Mexican states.
There certainly wouldn't be any Hoover Dam, Golden Gate Bridge, Casinos in Las Vegas, or interstate highway system if the southwest had remained in Mexico's hands.
There certainly wouldn't be any Hoover Dam, Golden Gate Bridge, Casinos in Las Vegas, or interstate highway system if the southwest had remained in Mexico's hands.
Mexico's control over Northern California was like the Somali government's control over the Somaliland or Punt ; i.e. in name only. Russia and Britain were also interested in grabbing it, and it could have very well wound up as part of what is now Canada if there had been a different US administration than Polk's.
As for casinos: the Mexican government banning casinos in the late 1930s had a lot to do with making Vegas possible.
I highly doubt the southwest would have remained in Mexican hands if there was no Mexican-American War. If anything, there might have been an even smaller Mexico. The people living in the southwest did not see themselves as Mexican, as I pointed out in an earlier post in this thread only those living in central Mexico at the time would have viewed themselves as "Mexican". They identified with their regions not with the nation as a whole, which they saw as an oppressive force. There was no Mexican national identity prior to 1860
Texas was part of Coahuila once, so that would probably be the name of this state.
Coahuila y Tejas was a stupid idea once Texas actually had a population of settlers. It worked out well enough as long as most of the folks in Texas were Indians who did what they wanted without wondering if Mexico thought it was legal. It was too big in area once people lived in Texas who actually cared about respecting Mexican law and government (It should be noted the US government thought Texas was too big to be a state when it joined the US). The Mexican government largely refused to relent on it because they did not trust the settlers from the US, and this issued rankled the settlers at least as much as anything else that drove them to fight for their independence.
Had the Southwest remained in Mexican hands the Indian Wars would have continued into the 20th century. With a few execptions, such as the Spaniard Juan de Anza, the Spanish and then the Mexicans sinply did not know how to fight the mounted warrior tribes, and the Comanche, Apache, Navajo, and Ute roamed and raided almost at will. The battles and fighting of the Texas revolution took place in the eastern part of the state, away from Comancheria.
At the time of the Mexican-American War it was thought by Europe that Mexico would win.
The north of Mexico was indeed sparsely populated but it is a myth to believe that it was empty.
There were Spanish land grant holders as far north as Colorado. They simply did not hand over their land willingly or abandon it when some treaty was signed in some far away place especially since that treaty guaranteed them the right to their land would be respected by American law, much of it was not in the end.
It is true that the northern provinces felt especially cut off from the capital in Mexico but they still maintained trade and cultural links to a strong degree. Those in the capital knew what was going on in Santa Fe, California, or Bexar.
If Mexico had won the gold strike that began one year after the war would have profited that nation.
The cattle market would have remained purely Mexican even so many a Mexican vaquero made it up to the railroad to markets in Kansas on cattle drives working for Americans.
Who knows if Mexico would have ever embraced republicanism as America has. As is Mexico is not a poor nation it is just the wealth is concentrated in just a few hands. This is slowly changing, their middle class rises as ours falls but they are far from meeting in the middle, all nations grow some just do so faster with enough resources, but if there is nothing to fight over then people are kept as peasants.
In either way it would be very likely that if Mexico had won and kept her land that the shared border with America would not be like it is today. Most know much about it so one little known detail is that a secure border is also needed to keep American guns out of Mexico which fuel the drug war there. Guns 'Made In USA' are doing horrible psychological damage to Mexico.
Mexico was not destined to win. Today as it stands, America treats the average Mexican better that Mexico does.
Mexican birth rate at that time was very low compared with American birth rate. Waves of Americans would have invaded the place like locust, forcing Mexicans to abandon the land. More so, American illegals were lawless and very violent, they never respected Spanish titles and settled on Mexican property killing their owners.
This is true for most if not all of the American 'illegal' immigrants of that era. They had no respect for their new land and it was not as many of their myths claim that the land was barren and there was nothing to respect on it.
Moses Austin when first making a bid for legal immigration into New Spain agreed his settlers would learn Spanish and become good Catholics and for the most they already were. When governments changed and it became Mexico his son honored the same deal.
You are right though in that Mexico could never have kept her northern territories due to the higher birthrate of Americans at the time and their refusal to respect the Mexican government even if they immigrated to Mexico.
Had not Santa Anna suspended the 1824 Mexican Constitution who knows though perhaps it would had been different. That action above all is what caused the Texians to first rebel. At the Alamo they even flew, fought for, and died under the Mexican banner (it had the numbers 1824 instead of the eagle and snake symbol). That is the Alamo defenders were officially defending the 1824 Constitution of Mexico.
So has Santa Anna not suspended that constitution in favor of a centralist government events could have been different. Who knows maybe it was all planned. After all both Santa Anna and Sam Houston were Freemasons. Legend goes that Santa Anna made a mason hand signal which made it so that Sam Houston could not execute him since they were on the 'same side'.
Any general who wasted so many of his forces, as Santa Anna did at the Alamo, thousands died over less than 200 Alamo defenders, then he camped his troops at San Jacinto with river on all three sides except for one, where they were attacked by the Texians, it just appears he wanted to lose.
Without the gain of Texas it is doubtful the rest could have been taken. Though Texas apparently was meant to be won over as well as the rest, not just because the Americans had began their push westward way before they even came upon Texas but because of those higher birthrates.
Still it should not be ignored Mexico would have in time colonized the north completely. They had their own Indian wars as is that had to be won before they could even enter Texas when they did.
The Comanche did not even appear until the late 1700's in Texas but it is true the Plains Indians with their horses were a different animal. Toward the end the Comanche were raiding deeper and deeper into Mexico unopposed.
In either case during the 1880's the Porfirio Diaz administration had tamed the north of Mexico completely and had not the border been in place they would have kept taming more north.
The Comanche did not even appear until the late 1700's in Texas.
It is unsure just when the Comanche first arrived in Spanish America, since tribal names were often confusing and conflicting, but the southward migrating Comanche, after obtaining horses, certainly arrived early in the 18th century. They may have visited Taos in 1706 to trade, according to some sources. By the 2nd quarter, they were raiding in Texas and New Mexico, and driving out the other native tribes, mainly the Lipan Apache. By the middle of the 18th century they were the dominent tribe in Texas, well on the way to establishing a huge area that would be known as Comancheria, and causing major problems for the Spanish.
The Comanche were part of the Shoshone until some got the horse and broke away before the 1700's. Both men and women would ride making the whole of their society highly mobile. They had many more herds, they were expert riders, skilled thieves, and refused to eat dogs.
Their memory still haunts as long ago Mexican children were told if they act bad that the Comancheros would come and get them. That later changed to the rinches. Then it simply became the cucui.
They used to kidnap Mexican children vice verse. Then Anglo children as Quannah Parker, a Comanche chief, was the son of an American colonist kidnapped at age nine.
The Tonkawa were cannibals and would actually eat Comanche who when they first arrived in Texas were horrified at the practice. When the Comanche became a threat New Spain sided with the Apache to try and exterminate them and later Texas Rangers looked the other way when Comanche were consumed after a battle.
Here in San Antonio a street downtown called Dolorosa means sorrow in Spanish and is named in memory of when they attacked. Where the hills to Ingram mall are at is the closest that the Apache would come during a certain era. The Comanche on the other hand raised cane for quite a while in the city.
page 99 of this book describes a battle with some detail
The first documented sighting in Texas was in 1743 but it was not until 1758 where they conducted their first raid in Texas.
They were there years before that. The below link gives a good brief summary of the Indian wars in Spanish America. Note that in 1716 the Apaches were being driven off of the plains by the invading Comanche. Also note that by 1730 the Comanche had control of the Texas Panhandle, Northeastern New Mexico, and Central Texas. By 1758 there had been years of warfare between the Spanish and Comanche, and Comanche and other tribes. In March of that year the Comanche destroyed the the mission at San Saba. Comanche-Part Two
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
