HISTORY FINAL

VICTOR GARZA

"Geography is said to be destiny. In the American experience, the West’s bounty and
boundlessness have always exercised a magical allure. Moving westward was one of the primary
sources of energy and hope in the development of the United States." (Shi, 2017)

THEME: EXPANTION AND DESTINY MANIFEST

Wars have been said to start many years before the first shot. I am convinced of the certainty of
this said especially in the case of the war between the United States and Mexico. But, how long?,
10 years before when gave the separation from Texas? 25 years before when they founded the
Mexican state? I agree with those who they claim that the die was cast when United was born as a
country and began its inexorable westward growth.

Western expansion is one of several factors attributed to war. The others are known: the southern
slave objectives, commercial interests of New England, western territorial cares, Destiny
Manifesto, Warhawks, James K. Polk. As for those who hold Mexico accountable: their internal
divisions, inability to populate and rule its northern territories, rampant militarism, and rampant
arrogance.

American expansion or growth, to using a less belligerent term, was, in my opinion, the main cause
of this great conflict; without it, the war would be simply incomprehensible. You could almost say
the expansion - to take a phrase from William James– it was an “irreducible gross fact”. Within the
general concept of expansionism, it locates the doctrine of Manifest Destiny, of immense
fascination for many Mexican scholars. In this essay I will dedicate brief observations to the
concept Manifest Destiny, I will explore briefly the human aspect: its effect on the lives of those
who lived through the conflict, scarcely fear explored as well the historical legacy. And finally, the
impact of and my role.

I will start with the first mention that Shi's book has about Destinymanifest :

"The feverish expansion of the United States into new Western territories brought Americans into
more conflict with Native Americans, Mexicans, the British, and the Spanish. Only a few people,
however, expressed moral reservations about displacing others. Most Americans believed it was
the “manifest destiny” of the United States to spread throughout the continent—at whatever cost
and at whomever’s expense. Americans generally believed that they enjoyed the blessing of
Providence in their efforts to consolidate the continent and bring it under their control." (Shi, 366)

It is dangerous to underestimate the power of an idea, especially when it has spread to a whole
people; Manifest Destiny had that strength. Accepting the idea of spreading American democracy
to the rest of the continent meant laying a cloak of legitimacy over what actually constituted an
insatiable territorial ambition.

Some have argued that it was a villainy, in the words of Walter Lippman, "clothed in the armor of a
just cause." It is difficult to argue against democracy and its spread to the most remote corners of
the continent. However, Josefina Zoraida Vázquez has pointed out that, in this case at least,
expanding the area of freedom also meant expanding the area of slavery.

The assertion of the superiority of the American race and the concomitant denigration of

Mexico constitutes another element of Manifest Destiny. Walt Whitman asked contemptuously:
"What does that miserable and inefficient Mexico have to do - with its superstition, its farce of
freedom, its tyranny of the minority over the majority - what has to do with the great

mission to populate the new world with a noble race? It is up to us to achieve that mission ”

Those of us who admire Whitman as the foremost of American poets, only we can express
disappointment at his stance on war. Is this the same poet who glorified the equality and respect
of the other when he said: "Every atom that belongs to me also belongs to you"? Or when he
wrote: "He who degrades another degrades me, and what is done or said returns to me again?"

How to reconcile this contradiction? The same poet of the body and soul explained it when he
affirmed: "I am vast, I confine multitudes". Painful exercise is seeing ourselves in the mirror of our
past and discovering ourselves deficient. It is sobering to read that we were defeated because we
were a people backward and decadent. I cannot believe that Mariano Otero and Carlos María
Bustamante, two of the illustrious ancestors of the Mexican people, were the product of a
decadent race. However, we Mexicans cannot and should not ignore the weakness and
underdevelopment we found ourselves in the first half of the 19th century. Nor do we ignore that
this underdevelopment was the product of complex and far-reaching historical forces.
Our school text puts it this way:

"Yet the motley American troops outmatched larger Mexican forces, which had their own
problems with training, discipline, morale, supplies, and munitions. Many of the Mexican soldiers
had been forced into service or recruited from prisons, and they made less than enthusiastic
fighters. Mexican artillery pieces were generally obsolete, and the gunpowder was so faulty that
American soldiers could often dodge cannonballs that fell short and bounced ineffectively along
the ground." (591, Shi)

And I had already mentioned it before, as a student of history, whether from our country or from
all, I do not try to judge or censure. My opinion is this: the expansion was a historical process that,
like a hurricane wind, swept everything in its path. Neither Mexico nor any force of this or any
other Continent may have stopped him. It is not, therefore, a question of right or wrong, or of guilt
or innocence. It is rather a demographic issue. European immigration caused an explosive
population growth that inevitably led to expansion. The expansion sparked the war.

Y bueno, ya hablamos sobre el legado inmaterial de la guerra y brevemente sus orígenes o

fundamentaciones ideológicas, ahora considero adecuado describir los resultados materiales para
ambas partes:

"The Mexican War cost the United States 1,733 killed in battle, 4,152 wounded, and, as usual, far
more—11,550—dead of disease, mostly dysentery and chronic diarrhea (“Montezuma’s
revenge”). It remains the deadliest war in American history in terms of the percentage of
combatants killed. Out of every 1,000 soldiers in Mexico, some 110 died. The next highest death
rate would be in the Civil War, with 65 dead out of every 1,000 participants. The Mexican War was
a crushing defeat for Mexico and a defining event for the United States. As a result of the conflict,
the United States expanded its national domain by over a third. It acquired more than 500,000
square miles of territory (almost 1 million, counting Texas), including the future states of
California, Nevada, and Utah and parts of New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and Wyoming. Except
for a small addition made by the Gadsden Purchase of 1853, these annexations rounded out the
continental United States and doubled its size." (Shi, 599)

And so the new dividing line between the two Republics was marked from the Gulf of Mexico,
three leagues out of the land, facing the mouth of the Rio Grande, called by another name Río
Bravo del Norte, or the deepest of its arms, if at the mouth it has several arms: it will run through
the middle of said river, following the deepest channel where it has the most channel, to the point
where said river cuts the southern border of New Mexico.

THE HISTORICAL LEGACY

It has been said that the United States gained territory and Mexico learned valuable lessons, but
the sudden acquisition of territory became a heavy burden. Let us return to Whitman, in his Canto
to the Open Road of 1856, he wrote: "It is provided in the essence of things that from any
achievement of any success, no matter what, something will arise that demands a greater
struggle." Could this be a harbinger of the civil war that was already looming? And what can be
said about Mexico? Admittedly, he learned some valuable lessons, including the stronger
nationalist sentiment. But it did not rise like the Phoenix Bird from the ashes of conflict as Japan
and Germany did in the 20th century. In fact, it had not flown very high in the 30 years before the
war. In many ways, Mexico still needs to take flight. And I had already mentioned it, many of our
people (Mexicans) still regret the territory that was lost. But a country is not measured by the
quantity of its land, but by the quality of its people and the strength of its institutions.

THE IMPACT OF MY ROLE

My personal responsibility from the historical knowledge of the war between two countries to
which I belong is to be able to use history as an ideal instrument for development, not only Mexico
as a less developed country, nor completely for the United States called developed. This class
seems to me to be a tool for integrating knowledge to arm citizens with their own and necessary
skills for their personal development, but also for the collective development of the society of
which they are a part. We can use it as the mirror in which to look at ourselves, taking advantage
of the opportunity to reflect on ourselves to achieve greater and better social self-knowledge, with
the positive repercussions that could be obtained from it.

It was important for me to understand the origin of the conflict and the mechanisms that both
countries used to justify their Expansion or even indifference (many agricultural sectors of the
population refused to go to war because they were literally starving to death with their crops and
did not feel that They could earn something valuable enough to risk their people living on
destitution if they did not return.) The military strategies of Taylor, Scott and also the political
dichotomy and the electoral environment that derived from each decision made. I think I can now
understand that I can choose strategies to participate in society and that each decision I make will
have consequences that impact both people close to me or even groups of people I do not know
but who are part of the power interactions in which everyone we are part.
REFERENCES:

Google Map of The Mexican-American War of 1846–1848

Shi, 2017. America a narrative history. W.W. Norton Company Inc.

"Treaty of Peace, Friendship, Limits and Definitive Agreement between the United Mexican States
and the United States of America.". Archived from the original on April 9, 2020.