It all started when the british empire were colonizing the eastern parts of north America. The drew a line between them and the west to avoid them from going to war with the native Americans or piss off France who also had land in the west. This line was ignored by the settlers who eventually declared independence from Britain and from there the flood gates were open for expansion. This westward expansion was made possible by the mass slaughter of the natives who occupied the land. During the mid 1800s, as the expansion went on, the stated to bump into the newly independent country of Mexico. The northern part of Mexico was called Tejas and what we know today as Texas and it was populated mainly with native groups who had nothing to do with the US or mexico.
Mexico wanted to make Tejas economically viable so the incentivize the area. The started to rent huge areas of land to America settlers so that the will come in and settle on the land with hope that their economic proceeds will help the development of Mexico's economy. This did exactly the opposite. This plan completely backfired as the Americans came with slaves and a dominating attitude. The Mexicans realized this and sent in the Mexican military to remind the settlers that the are still in Mexico on a rented land. This set the stage for a battle and the American settlers lost initially. After this the recouped and more people came to join them for the next battle with the Mexican military which the won and declared a new country. The republic of Texas.
Although mexico accepted defeat in the war. The were still against the size of the new country on the map, claiming the claimed much more land on the map than the actually occupied. This lead to a land dispute between the republic of Texas and mexico. Then on 1845, Texas became a state of the united states. This resulted in the land dispute being between the USA and mexico. Let's not forget the native Americans who still occupy these lands and are now being suffocated by two nations. From here the story gets crazy and it's because of one man. President James k. Polk who comes to office with a list of 4 big things he wants to do. This list includes getting California from mexico as a priority. He first tries to buy California from mexico for $25 million which mexico rejected. So Polk pulled a dirty move. He faked an invasion into the disputed land, prompting the Mexican military to respond killing some of the soldiers. This was exact what Polk wanted. So he went to congress and said the mexico invaded American territory and shed American blood on American soil even though this land wasn't American and was still in dispute.
This didn't matter because the death of Americans was able to rally congress and war was declared against mexico. The US easily won the war and the did so quickly. But then there were critics of this move by Polk, whom included Abraham Lincoln who said that this allowed the president to make war at pleasure. Nevertheless, the US paid mexico $15 million and it forfeited the disputed land and California. The US initially wanted to take over all of Mexico but a pro slavery senator said:
So instead the US went for sparsely populated areas where the can vacant the natives and move in white settlers. So in conclusion the us stole parts of Mexico because the Mexicans accepted them with open arms and the personal interest of the then president Polk and the people who suffered the most of all these are the native American who were mass slaughtered and driven away from their land.
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