How US got California, other states from Mexico for $15 million in 1848

The protests in Los Angeles, a response to the immigration policies of the Trump administration, continue to rage.

Though US President Donald Trump has sent thousands of National Guard troops as well as hundreds of marines, the demonstrators seem to be undeterred.

Interestingly, one facet of the protest is that the flag of Mexico is being seen on the streets of America.

It has become a symbol of the movement against Trump and his government’s immigration policies.

Which makes sense given that many people in Los Angeles and California have Mexican ancestry.

In fact, the United States purchased California as well as half of Mexico’s territory in 1848.

More from Explainers

LA riots: Is Trump taking a political and personal revenge on California? ‘No Kings’ protests erupt in US cities over Trump’s ‘authoritarian’ policies

That came in the aftermath of the Mexica-American War and as the concept of “manifest destiny” began to take hold in the United States.

But how did it all come about? Let us take a closer look

The lead up

It all kicked off way back in the 1840s.

Tensions between the two countries had been growing for years.

On the one side you had the US evangelists of the concept of “manifest destiny” –  which preached the superiority and the seemingly divine right of Americans to colonise whatever lands they saw fit on the continent – and on the other you had a wary Mexico.

By 1844, James K Polk was running for president as a Democrat.

Though Polk did not coin the term manifest destiny, he do more to propagate it than any other US president during his time in office.

Editor’s Picks

1

Trump's troops in Los Angeles: What is the National Guard? Is the deployment legal? 2

After National Guard, Marines deployed in LA: Why Trump’s use of military on US soil has sparked fears

Indeed, Polk, a slaveholder from Tennessee, had promised voters he would take Texas – which had declared its independence from Mexico nearly a decade earlier after a brief and bloody war – as well as Oregon.

America previously under President Martin Van Buren – the eighth president of the United States – had declined to do so after a threat from Mexico.

In the meantime hostilities had nearly broken out between the two countries after the US Navy in 1942 – wrongly believing that war had broken out – seized Monterey in California.

While Monterey was immediately returned, it was a harbinger of things to come.

In 1845, outgoing President John Tyler annexed Texas as his final act in the US’ highest office.

By then, Mexico had severed diplomatic relations with the United States.

Polk began with diplomacy – he initially attempted to buy California, New Mexico and land near Texas for $30 million.

In November 1845, he even sent US diplomat John Slidell to open negotiations with Mexico.

However, Slidell was soundly rebuffed – the Mexican government refused to even see him.

But Polk was prepared– he had already sent US Army commander Zachary Taylor to occupy disputed land.

When Mexican troops fired on Taylor and his forces, Polk had the pretext he needed.

Polk immediately moved Congress for a declaration of war against America’s neighbour.

He famously claimed that Mexico had “invaded our territory and shed American blood on American soil”.

On May 13, 1846, Congress obliged – putting the two nations at war.

Mexican-American War and the purchase of the land

The Mexican-American War would end the US comprehensively defeating its neighbour.

American armies led by General Zachary Taylor and General Winfield Scott, often outnumbered, would defeat Mexican troops again and again in a series of pitched battles.

The US lost more soldiers to infection and disease than actual battle.

Ulysses S Grant and Robert E Lee, the men who would respectively lead the Union and Confederate armies during the Civil War, received their first taste of real combat in Mexico.

By September 1847, General Scott had taken Mexico City – bringing an end to the war.

Polk in April 1847 sent Nicholas Trist – the then chief clerk to Secretary of State James Buchanan – to negotiate with the Mexican government.

Trist, an aristocrat who had married Thomas Jefferson’s daughter, had served as a private secretary to both Jefferson and Andrew Jackson.

Trist had already begun peace talks with the three representatives of the Mexican government – Don Bernardo Couto, Don Miguel Atristain, and Don Luis Gonzaga Cuevas – when Polk decided to recall him to Washington.

Incredibly, Trist ignored the order – thinking that Washington had no idea of the situation on the ground – and continue to negotiate with the Mexican representatives.

“Knowing it to be the very last chance and impressed with the dreadful consequences to our country which cannot fail to attend the loss of that chance, I decided today at noon to attempt to make a treaty; the decision is altogether my own,” Trist wrote to his wife in December 1847.

On February 2, 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo was signed between the two countries – bringing an end to the war and securing America the rights to California and around 55 per cent of Mexico’s territory for a cool $15 million.

This included all of Texas, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Colorado and Wyoming.

The US now had extended its boundary west all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

But Polk, who wanted even more land from Mexico, was irate with Trist.

However, fearing political fallout and further delay, Polk decided to send the treaty to the Senate for ratification – where it passed 34-14.

Polk never forgave Trist his subordination.

After Trist returned to Washington, he was summarily fired by the president and denied any salary earned during the negotiations.

Trist eventually received his backpay during the Ulysses S Grant administration in 1871.

Trist died in 1874 – an unheralded part of American history.

With inputs from agencies