La razón qué no se enseña tan activamente es que como estamos dominados por USA, pues no les agrada tanto ese tipo, porque gringo siendo gringos, ahora bien se puede decir que se apiado de nosotros
As an American, this was a clearer and much better explanation of the war than what we had in school. I wouldn't cry over losing a few red states though. Why don't you just take them back?
@@TheKeksadler America was a newer player at the time. Nowadays they would know that overextension is just a number, and the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans prevent a lot of AE from generating in Asia or Europe.
What I do find surprising is that (apparently) nobody brought up the Logan Act, which Trist probably violated. The Logan Act is, of course, a polite fiction, and the US never actually prosecutes people for violating it, but oh boy do politicians love to shout about it whenever given half the chance.
You could do this back in the days when communications took weeks. Trist could afford to ignore Polk during that time frame and hammer out a deal that favored Mexico but still secured territorial gains for the US.
@@wesleycanada3675 Weeeelll, that actually would've been a thorny matter. Not to say he couldn't have, or that the generals wouldn't have done so, if ordered. But remember who those generals are. Taylor? The politically influential Whig, who was against the war. Scott? The politically influential Whig who was against the war. I think removing Trist by force would've had further political blowback. Nothing tremendous, mind you, but for the Northern Democrats, it would further the argument from Whigs and anti-War Dems (who probably still favored the Texas annexation) that this was a rapacious land grab that was costing them American blood by quart. (the causality rate for the Mexican-American War, adjusted for scale, is unreal.)
I could argue that taking the whole country would have led to a different version of the Civil War and might have ended, in part, with Mexico regaining its independence, while the rest of the US is distracted.
Interesting! but I bet the Union would have just kept going once they polished off the confederacy. In Ken Burns' The Civil War, they point out that while the South was crippled by manpower shortages, mass desertion, bread riots, hyperinflation, in the North, Harvard and Yale were still having rowing competitions, they started the transcontinental railroad, continued westward expansion. My point being, they may not have been so exhausted by the war as to let Mexico regain independence without further conflict. It's kind of like how in 1944 or '45, before WWII had even ended Macy's released a consumer catalog. The UK wouldn't end rationing until the '50s and here US industry was already thinking of retail manufacturing. Then again, having the material, funding, manpower, and even experienced armies/generals in the field may not have mattered if the American public were too weary of war. If the public support and political willpower aren't there, everything else is sort of meaningless IMHO. What if Mexico had sided with the USA against the confederacy during the war though! Maybe there could have been a diplomatic play to bargain for independence!
You know I was just thinking about this knowing the the politics the south would claim it and be so cruel to them that when it's time for the civil war Mexico would be more of a liability to the south with it's rebellions wouldn't be surprised if the north went as far as to let some of Southern Mexico be independent for helping the north win the war
@@kevinyoung947 I know the Mexican government was going through power struggles that make Game of Thrones look like a Dr. Seuss book but I feel Thier racism along with Thier anti- Catholic sentiment would pair along with the fact that they wouldn't be considered human would lead to rebellion
Polk's ambassador going against him and letting Mexico exist is the political equivalent of you telling your friend you want a 10 peice and they bring back a 4 peice
Fun Fact: The famous Civil War general and later, President of the USA, Ulysses S. Grant served in the Mexican-American War as a Quartermaster. HIs first taste of combat saw a Mexican cannonball decapitate the man next to him. He personally resented the Mexican-American War as bold and greedy imperialist adventure. He viewed the American Civil War as a sort of punishment for the unjust war, saying: "Nations, like individuals, are punished for their transgressions."
Bro witnessed a man right beside him get decapitated by a fucking cannonball and was still able to win the American Civil War and become President? I would've just suffered from extreme PTSD and became a homeless dude after witnessing that.
@@frederickoftheartic2209 Ulysses S. Grant was famous for his stoicism. "Grant is a man of a good deal of rough dignity; rather taciturn; quick an[d] decided in speech. He habitually wears an expression as if he had determined to drive his head through a brick wall, and was about to do it. I have much confidence in him."- Colonel Theodore Lyman in a letter to his wife, March 1864.
I have a feeling that if the full annexation did go through the idea that it would be all slave territory especially as what would be dictated by the Missouri compromise would cause a far more severe form of bleeding Kansas wherein people are given a vote on whether or not they want slavery due to the fact people who were anti slavery already lived there unlike kansas who had little people living there. Much like Kansas this would cause an influx of people from north and southern states to come in likely coming to blows with the population causing riots and revolution potentially sparking the civil war early and seeing Mexico declare independence and joining the side that offers to keep it that way
Good thing, I like having somewhere I can go to when I need to buy vanilla extract made of real vanilla and go into a leather store that sells real leather.
Nah dude, les hubieramos pateado el trasero si hubieran tratado de tomar todo Mexico. Igual como nos independisamos de los otros imperios, Mexico hubiera peleado ala muerte por ser libre.
Abraham Lincoln notably opposed the Mexican American War when he was a Whig because it would've allowed slavery to expand out west. And thereafter for the rest of his political career this was an issue that rivals and enemies would point out and use to one up him. The land taken was seen as good and even the Whigs who had previously opposed the war ironically nominated war veterans for the presidency on the basis of being war vets
@@InfernosReaper we have better care for vets than most countries around the world. Not that there's not big problems that could easily be fixed with enough brainstorming. There's also the fact that some people arguably get unfair discharges when they've been serving in one way or the other for years and lose that retirement.
Ulysses S Grant once said “For myself, I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation. It was an instance of a republic following the bad example of European monarchies, in not considering justice in their desire to acquire additional territory.”
Fun fact: Yucatan wasn't actually Mexican at this time, but was an independent republic with a cool flag, and the Yucatecan delegation in Washington actually offered to be incorporated as a state, Polk agreed and made a bill, but the bill never passed in the Senate, which is the reason why Yucatan never became a U. S. state.
Yes, and we had to reannex to Mexico due to the Guerra de Castas, so as a state of the US things could have been controlled. I wish that bill was passed. Also, it is one of the few states with a flag, and we still use it.
@@genio2509Como siempre los yucatecos demostrando su falta de educación. Si los Anexaba EEUU, lo primero que pasaría es que todos los Yucatecos perderían sus tierras. Así le pasó a los Tejanos de origen Mexicano cuando Tejas se incorporó a EEUU.
I am not sure if you read comments suggesting video ideas, but have you ever considered making a video about the *_principality of Neuchâtel_* ? It was simultaneously a canton of the Swiss Confederation and a domain of the King of Prussia. It just seems like one of those little historical things that are rarely talked about but are actually quite intruiging.
Polk: Get me this land or you’re fired Trist: I’ve recognized that the president made a decision, but given it’s a stupid ass decision, I’ve elected to ignore it
My ancestors had the rather surreal experience of attempting to emigrate to Mexico from the U.S. as religious refugees, only to land in San Francisco and discover the U.S. had conquered it.
@@bigbloopboy8892 ... If he's referring to the Latter-day Saints aboard the Brooklyn, it was in 1846. They sailed from New York to San Francisco, to escape America's hypocrisy and find religious freedom. But, by the time they arrived, California was under U.S. occupation. At the same time, Brigham Young was leading the first LDS wagon companies in the Midwest.
Ironically there were also in Mexico a LOT of people that wanted war against the US, either for avenge Texas' loss and also bcz they wanted back Louisiana, given that when Nappy had sold those territories to the US, he'd sold also the SPANISH part of them. So a lot of generales and politicians tought that, with an army bigger than the US one, they could've gained back a lot of territories. Effectively the victory of the USA wasn't so foregone at the start, their army was very little and underfunded/undermanned(about 6500 men strong). P.s. One of the oppositors of the war was a young congressman, a certain ...A. Lincoln!
I read all the aristocratic Eurotrash thought Mexico would easily win. Not just because of the bigger army, but because of the moronic "noble blood." Mexico was still ruled Spanish Oligarchs after their independence, the elitist uppercrust 1%ers. Since they had "breeding," naturally they'd beat the slobby Americans. This same self-absorbed myopia carried over into the Civil War twenty years later, where the southern plantation owners thought there was "no way" a Southern gentlemen could ever lose to a mere northern shopkeeper.
There’s a reason that French although in small numbers still exists in Louisiana and Creole exists in Louisiana… I think you confused it with Florida maybe?
I've legit never heard of Nicholas Trist, which is crazy considering how important he was in the result of a war that defined a lot of America's and Mexico's future. Honestly, with all stuff I have researched, its crazy how our schools barely touch on this war.
Because talking about this war is talking about how Polk wanted to create more slave states and bringing slavery to places where it was already abolished. There are no good moral lessons about this war. It was the Civil War the defining moment for the US, because it dealt with the two different visions of the country.
@@erickalejandrotrechuelorui5610 the purpose of teaching history isn't to teach "good moral lessons". The purpose of teaching history is to teach history. Theres no good reason not to teach about this war.
On the topic of Mexico, it would be really cool to hear about Napoleon III and his attempts into trying to govern Mexico and his later life after the Franco-Prussian War
he didnt want to rule Mexico. He tried to counter the anglo-american influence, because he knew that the world order had already shifted in favor of the anglo protestants. Establishing a catholic empire was a way to counter the american influence in the Americas and re-establish France as a protector of catholic and christian, as well as boosting France influence, prestige and power obviously. Napoleon III was a very devout catholic and many of his policies were directed by this. Thats why he forbade the Italians to take Rome as their capital as he deemed Rome was the city of the Pope. Or thats why he wanted the Ottoman sultan to declare him Protector of the Christians in the Ottoman Empire instead of the russian Tsar. And Napoleon III was right in his predictions; without a strong catholic country to back them up and protect them, all latin american countries fell prey to the US. The Mexican emperor had way more progressive and liberal policies than the so called liberators of Mexico, that were backed up by the US. The US have been a plague during the XIXth and XXth century to many many latin american countries, preventing social reforms, backing up coups and dictators, training secret polices, utterly corrupting the political life of those countries. And as this video very subtly points out, they did it without one remorse as they saw the latin americans as inferiors.
Woah this Nicholas Trist seems like an incredibly consequential historical figure that I had absolutely no knowledge of prior to this video. Thanks for sharing.
Reminds me of Garvilo Princip, the teen who started WW1. Unremarkable figure who appeared out of nowhere, changed the world, and leaves the world without too much context.
Both Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee were loudly against annexing any land from Mexico. they both said the Civil War was the punishment the US had to pay for taking mexican land.
What is also interesting is that when the US occupied Mexico City, the Mexican government had evacuated and passed a law that anyone who surrendered would be considered a traitor and the treaty they signed would be null and void. After much scrambling, the US found someone who would sign (some undersecretary) because there was true fear that if Mexico didn't surrender, the US would annex all of it.
It would be impossible for Americans to annex all , to control to much territory with a diverse population it would changed the cursed of civil war ...
*California is still apart of Mexico, it was never ratified.* For an interesting Hollywood blindside about this unknown fact -- go watch the two Zoro films starring Antonio Banderas.
@@JuanDeLaRosaTV Because controversial things that don't necessarily violate their terms of service are quietly being stuffed away. I know of several people that were discredited, look at how RUclips puts the Wikipedia banner right at the bottom of many controversial videos even ones on channels that aren't *against the flow* so-to-speak. People used to get banned for talking against c o v i d guidelines but now they softened that up.
Kudos to Nicholas Trist for having balls of steel and acting on his conscience. He knew that kind of unwelcome contest was wrong, and kudos to him for probably saving both nations an ungodly amount of bloodshed in any insurgency to follow.
They were furious and denounced the surrender. They then seized German property and any Germans in Japan had restrictions placed on them. They had did the same to Italy when it surrendered in 1943. Japan then stated they would continue to fight for their own self preservation.
I heard that the phrase "indigestible peoples" was used to explain the US’ desire not to annex such large tracts of Mexican land and absorb the populations thereof. And that sounds exactly like something they would say back then.
Santa Anna was fond of telling foreign diplomats and American generals occupying Mexico City that Mexico was ungovernable except as a dictatorship because "Mexicans won't be ready for democracy for another hundred years" (he said that from time to time from about 1838 to 1848). The Treaty of Guadlupe-Hidalgo, formalizing the end of the war, offered the Mexican citizens in the newly acquired territory a choice of US or Mexican citizenship, although they could remain in place and retain their property even if they chose to continue as Mexican citizens. Also, the US paid Mexico $15 million for the lands ceded to the US, and at the request of the Mexican officials the US trained and equipped a new Mexican Army; and, the US assumed $3.5 million in Mexican debt owed to US citizens.
No disrespect to Mexico or anyone living in it, but the country probably would've been better off had the US taken the whole thing into their country considering the state it's in now.
@@NataliaYaremchuk0816 Correct, and don't forget to add crime as a daily encounter and shoot outs as background noice (ok, not that far) But the racist part isn't really true, each Spanish speaking country says in a joking manner that their Spanish is the best Spanish, and that the others are wrong (seems the same ehem US vs UK). And at least all the people I know are everything but racist, perfectly accepting anyone.
@@-Extra_Lives Yes, sadly the country itself sucks, the government is one of the most corrupt there are, and we basically don't have enough development to go ahead, we have mostly 0 safety in 30 out of the 32 states, and the economy is terrible. But we still have hope that maybe one day a not corrupt president will win and make change (like what happened with El Salvador) Here in Yucatán, right after the Texan independence, we also separated from the country (back then it also included current states of Campeche and Quintana Roo), out of wich Campeche and Yucatán are the 2 safe states I mentioned. And in the video, it also showed that the original plans were to anex it. So we were that close to being in a better place, but things changed and we had the indigenous people revel on the Gerra de Castas, wich forced the state back into the country. Who knows what would have happened, but at least right now these 2 states are actually good to live in.
In Mexico the educational system tries to not show too much of this war to us as mexicans. Many of us only learnt that we had a war with the USA and that's it, but they never explained to us why and how. I am from a city called Monterrey and I did not know Monterrey was invaded in the Mexican American wat until I was an adult (it was a shock to realize Monterrey battle was one of the worse in the Mexican American war)
@@freddyd17 : Likely because they lost most of the battles, despite having more (and often better) troops... Their generals and politicians were more interested in fighting each other and scrambling for power than actually defending the country, such as it was.
@@freddyd17 The Mexican gov't doesn't want to remind current Mexican citizens about it for the same reason there isn't any American Civil War memorial where Union general Thomas destroyed Confederate general Hood: the beating was so horribly bad, that it would be embarrassing to tell current day citizens of the area about it.
@@raymondpaller6475 Also, Mexico lost that war so horribly thanks to the constant treachery of all the Mexican generals. If Mexico had been more cohesive maybe they would have lost but with a better outcome or proposing a peace treaty
I'm sure part of it is also related to all of the "lost cause" and "ravangist" stuff around this ~100 year period. I imagine about ~20 years after this war Mexicans were teaching essentially "Yeah and then we fought a short war with America and lost, the end." Teaching broadly about this war, even today, would lead a lot of Mexicans to think "That's our land!" (to be fair, as an American, it is justifiably Native land, then Spanish/Mexican land, then American land, in that order) and/or "We should get revenge and take it back!" kinda stuff. Stoking ravangist notions amongst a populace isn't typically a good idea unless you have an extremely powerful state (and even then it's typically pretty bad), especially when it means ending up fighting the world's main superpower to get said revenge.
They have made zillion movies about WW2, some on Civil War, Vietnam. Occasionally a movie about WW1. Sometimes a producer will introduce a new war movie with a completely different twist or viewpoint but usually of WW2. Now to be really different, have a movie about this war and include US troops invading Mexico City. Which the latter quite remarkable of an amphibious followed by grueling march through rough terrain. For war college students also a study of logistics. But making such a movie especially these days will really put such movie makers in the hot seat. Even today many Latinos say, "we didn't move, the border did."
It’s not as impressive when you realize the Veracruz Fort garrison and the Cadets at Chapultepec castle were the only units defending Mexico City, as Santa Anna took all of the Mexican Army north to try and beat back the US forces. And yea, pretty much every general in the Mexican army at that time was a traitorous idiot.
Nicholas Trist still working as the Official Envoy for the US despite being fired is amazing. He knew that the fate of two nations were in his hands and didn’t want to be the man to wipe a nation off the face of the planet and from history.
@@sojourner. With Mexico's that Polk wanted you are taking a lot of the land that generate big parts of Mexican's current economy. It would be a Mexico without its Oil, without the big tourisms generated by Mayan Riviera, Cabos, Mazatlan, Tijuana; and without the big industries that are located in Monterrey and other cities in the north. Just Monterrey is one of the cities that gives a lot of taxes to the nation. At the end, Mexico would probably be pretty similar to Guatemala or El Salvador in terms of economy if Polk had gotten everything that he wanted
@@beastmode6609 why would I want our country flooded with 3rd worlders? Wouldn’t it be best to just enforce immigration laws like every other nation on the planet…
*Fun fact: Baja California was included in the sale, but the United States eventually agreed to omit the peninsula because of its proximity to Sonora which is located just across the narrow Sea of Cortés.*
@@reycesarcarino4653 That was before Mexico had been defeated after its capital was captured. If America wanted the California peninsula, it could’ve easily captured it. That fact stands true even today.
@@Nonamelol. Likely story but still the protracted resistance he led made the American hold on the Baja California peninsula unsecure, and prompted American statesmen to omit in the final peace treaty, their original demand for the annexation of Baja California and Baja California Sur
You forgot to mention that sentiment for annexing Mexico was very strong in Washington and many other parts of the country. It was largely through the efforts of John Calhoun and other South Carolina officials who strongly argued against annexation that quashed the movement. Calhoun vehemently argued that the United States should be a white country, and that Mexicans would contaminate that ideal.
@@ivangarcia1327 lol americans call half the country nazis/commies and accuse their closest friends of the vilest shit every 2 years just because they wore a hat of the wrong color. There is no country more divided. Catalonians will break bread with Spanish Royalists before a Democrat accepts a Republican as a fellow human being.
@@crash.override Yes - the old sense of "begs the question" is over. "Begs the question" now invariably means "raises the question", so why not just say that? As he does (so full marks)
A little piece of Mexico - now part of southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico - was added five years after the U.S.-Mexican War, The Gadsden Purchase was negotiated in 1853 to add land that would allow a railroad from New Orleans to the Pacific. That land purchase, negotiated by James Gadsden and authorized by President Franklin Pierce, finalized the borders of the current 48 contiguous states of the Union.
Of course, the great irony was that it was Southern Democratic slaveholders who pushed hardest for annexation of as much of Mexico as they could manage, with the hope of expanding slavery into this new territory through popular sovereignty..... While Northern abolitionist Whigs fought them tooth-and-nail opposing the expansion of "slave power." Both ignored the fact that the Mexican population had its own distinct feelings about slavery.... They absolutely and implacably opposed it. The poor hated it, the Church opposed it, the middle class viewed it as an aristocratic affectation, and even the Spanish ancestry elites felt it was an institution whose time had long passed. And this played out dramatically in the places the US did annex. In point of fact, when it came time to decide whether California would enter the Union as a slave or free state, the American immigrant population split almost equally between Southern slavery advocates and Northern free-soil proponents. The tie was broken by the native Californio population, who pre-dated the Gold Rush of 1848.... Many who were holders of vast tracts of ranch land confirmed in their possession by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Despite the promises by Southerners that they could become rich via slavery and plantation agriculture, they universally rejected allowing slavery in the California constitution...or splitting the state in two with both slave and free sections. I've always wondered what would have happened if a few key Whigs would have actually understood that Mexicans would so vehemently oppose slavery.....and allow the Southerners to convince Congress to annex the whole of Mexico. Yes, there doubtless would have been revolts and uprisings... (...although between Bleeding Kansas and Mexico not being invaded by France in the 1860s, it is questionable whether they would have been worse than what did happen...) Likely, the cure for them would have been to push for statehood for 2-4 key regions, and the raising of militia companies of Mexicans led by American officers to put down revolts. With each Mexican state reinforcing their anti-slavery native beliefs. The American Civil War likely would happened even faster, as the Southern slave interests would find themselves outvoted even faster.....and sandwiched between two anti-slavery regions, North and South. Imagine the problems the Western Confederacy (Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma territory) would have had w/o being able to import weapons & military gear through Matamoros, Mexico....or worse, threatened by invasion along their Southern border by anti-slavery Mexican militias.
Suggestions: 1) How good were the five good emperors of Rome? 2) Why did Denmark-Norway ally with Napoleon? 3) Why didn't Portugal fight in WWII in spite of its alliance with Britain?
There's actually a story behind the third one. Portugal actually offered to uphold their treaty during ww2 but Winston Churchill rejected their offer fearing that it may cause Spain to side with the Axis and leave no friendly countries on the continent.
@@Sceptonic MARCV AVRELIVS WAS AMAZING in how bad a father he was. Too busy giving advice on beign a parent. And while he let Romans murder Christians, he was too busy to stp that nonsense because he was riting about virtue and justice. PFF!
Maybe the Zimmerman Telegram would've been more of a "If you revolt and cause chaos and instability in the Americas, then we'll guarantee your Freedom." Kinda similar to what the British did against the Ottomans.
Its not like america could hold mexico anyway... The public perception was alredy shifting to an anti-war instance. Together with the slavery question and the segregation of the catholics the US would lose control of mexico after some time. With a high risk of breaking itself in the process
Winning a war is one thing, occupying and governing a nation that has a different language, culture, governing philosophy are two way different things. I suspect they were smart enough to realize than in the long run, it would have been more trouble than it was worth.
Yes and in the video is was not explained that the areas except Tejas were very very thin populated, they were not proper colonized. So no Mexican resistance in those regions.
Some guy just being like "nah" and deciding to act out alone based on nothing but petty, moralistic spite, is the most American thing ever. Clearly, he was destined to succeed.
he wasn't acting out on petty moralistic spite, he was acting out of a deep conviction that America was a republic and not one of europes old kingdoms. A republic must answer to it's people. a kingdoms subjects must answer to its king. see the difference? I'm glad he didn't take mexico proper.
@@paullim1933 I'm also glad he didn't take all or most of Mexico as well, and I understand his motivation, but conviction is just another form of moralization. If it makes you feel any better, I don't think he cares, as he's long dead.
Que patético ir a "conocer" la historia con los gringos (y su perspectiva) teniendo aquí en México varios historiadores (de varias perspectivas, tanto nacionales como malinchistas)
@@abrahamg3354 trail of tears, Albert pike, freemason boss over Andrew Jackson, etc. buffalo soldieres, Somoza dynasty in nicaragua, Bumarack ruling for 30 tears in Egypt, etc. etc.!!!
An important reason why democracies find it often difficult to annex large chunks of territory: All the people you just annexed can now upset the balance of power in your own legislature.
This is why northern Irish elections had property qualifications. So a democracy could discriminate not specifically on religious grounds (which would cause even more unrest) but obfuscate the discrimination since protestant populations were the vast majority of landowners, even though they were nominally less of the population in many areas. Gerrymandering is another good way to go about it, but these likely wouldn't have worked in the Mexico case without time for WASP populations to migrate to the region (assuming they were even willing)
Teddy Roosevelt was not an imperialist. He was the original Trump and leader of the original Progressive Movement, which were mostly Republicans who were focusing on social problems and fixing the major problems of the Gilded Age because Americans were so poor they couldn't feed their families. Teddy Roosevelt fought the monopolies and corrupt politicians. The geopolitical situation was also destabilizing because the European colonial empires got stronger after carving up the continent of Africa and the Unification of Germany meant the German Empire was competing with the British Empire. The invention of the ironclad during the American Civil War revolutionized naval warfare and acted as a great equalizer. The enormous wooden sailing fleet of the British Empire had to be constantly rebuilt by more and more costly steel warships in a massive arms race between European empires. This meant European powers needed more money and were more aggressive. America had to join in and be strong or end up in a major war.
@@ElBandito Lol, okay. Still Teddy was the trust-busting monopoly destroying big stick-yielding moose-riding badass of the Progressive Era, which led to the economic boom of the Roaring '20's.
I'm confused on what this would have meant? Would former Mexico have partnered with the Union considering it's anti-slavery stance? Or would they just seize back their lands while the troops were fighting eachother (and possibly attacked our country once both sides were heavily damaged)?
@@Syn410 mhm, I think most likely the most Mexican populated areas would try to rebel and even try to sign deals with the north to supply them in return for their independence. Most of these regions would prob be more southern so the us of today would include Baja California and prob more land around Texas, Arizona and New Mexico. That’s of course assuming that the us wouldn’t just go back in and take it back after the war.
The Confederacy would have more resources, better logistics. But given that it would be very unlikely for mexicans to fight in favor of white enslavers, I'd say the man force would be pretty the same, given the time window
@@neewk You forget about Belize my friend. Belize was a British Colony at the time and the British were sympathetic to the Southern cause. In our timeline, Belize sent guns and ammo to the Southern cause. Imagine having the Southern control area bordering Belize at that time. When the South lost the war. The Country most Southerners fled to was Belize where they were given farming lands and tax incentives as well.
The USA might not join the war, but Germany and the central powers would still lose. It would just take a little bit longer. The war itself would probably not be affected much. The post-war situation is a different story, though. With no American involvement in the war, there would also likely be no American influence on the treaties that shaped Europe after the war, so Woodrow Wilson's 14 points wouldn't exist or be relevant, and many of the new countries that were given independence after the war might not have been given it or their borders might look different.
@@_chew_ well, yes, but no, the main issue, it is too far in this what if, the civil war in the usa would be an entirely different thing (could be a three way run between mexican independence added, or mexican and south seceding and both against the north or any other combination or just not even happening, also with many more chance for foreign interference) and from there, more or less the entire history changed.
This would have never lasted. France invaded Mexico shortly after this American Mexican war, with plans to take the US. I can imagine Mexicans welcoming French soldiers in exchange for freedom.
A few ideas for videos in the future: -Why did the crusades fail? (Detail on each crusade) -Why was Russia not divided after 1989? -How did the rest of the world react to September 11, 2001? -Ten Minute History: The Boar Wars -How did the world react to the atomic bomb droppings in 1945?
I'm an American and I'm very happy we didn't seize all of Mexico. Not only does it have a unique identity, but considering its history of rebellion, it would have likely been a nightmare to keep and would have potentially crippled the US. Similar to when Napoleon conquered Spain but it cost a lot of troops to keep and weakened his capacity for war.
It would have also been a permanent moral stain on our conscience. If we oppose wars of conquest waged by others, we must oppose them for ourselves too
@@MrLeemurman The native Americans were not so much conquered as they were displaced or driven to extinction.... Dare I say, little individual acts of Ethnic Cleansing. From the very start, the US was never entirely clear on what it would do with the Phillipinnes. By the 1930s, they moved on the path to granting it autonomy with the goal of eventual independence. WW2 interrupted this, but after liberating the Philippines from the Japanese (who had completely destroyed whatever welcome mat they may have received), the US made good on its promise in 1946 iirc.
I have relatives (the Spanish who intermixed with the indigenous people’s) who owned land in the territories of New Mexico, Arizona and Southern Colorado. Thankfully, they were not pushed out. Many, including my grandfather, were ordered by the Federal Government, to learn English. So, they had to go to Catholic convents designed as State run Catholic Schools to play soccer and learn English. If they spoke a word of Spanish, they’d get a demerit and wouldn’t get any candy. I have an old letter from my grandfather that is in English only asking for socks and talking about the soccer match between 2 of these small Catholic schools. He learned English rather quickly at the age of 10.
@@AlbertoGomez-oi5ou , not surprising, since half of North America was colonized and ruled by the Spanish Empire and the remaining Spanish colonizers took over all of Central and South America.
My family has the same experience! They were also hit and humiliated if caught speaking anything other than English, and forced to soil themselves if they couldn't ask to go to the bathroom in English, among other abuses. A whole culture wiped away starting with kids, cultural genocide
Before 1848 California and Texas used to part of Mexico. Maybe with the way the U.S. is right now they could rejoin Mexico. Actually I think that they might be happier doing so.
The land that was annexed by the US was still mostly unsettled. The Spanish tried to colonize New Mexico in the 1600s but were kicked out by the natives. They didn't start building missions in California until the 1770s and then only did so because they were worried that the Russians would beat them to it.
I had always believed it had more to do with that second reason given towards the middle of the video, i.e. that many in the United States did not want to incorporate a lot of the Mexican population as part of its country, and indeed, the northern Mexican states and territories were much more sparsely populated than the country's interior. I'm glad this video gave me some useful insights.
@@ericleon6482 What exactly is the Latino side of this? That valiant Mexicans fought so hard that the cowardly Anglos didn't dare take more land? I'm honestly confused by your point.
@@argosime The USA didn't "annex" part of Mexico as "explained" in this shitty unaccurate video. Ignoring the Mexican side of the story is ridiculous, we all know too well that USA always want to portray themselves as the winners of all wars, but in this case the main reason was that the Mexican government was essentially bankrupt after decades of internal Independence wars and our traitor "president" Santa Anna sold the land for a ridiculously low price, he asked for way less than the gringos expected to pay for it and so they bought it in a snap.
Your videos are well done--small correction: Polk was born in North Carolina and made his career in Tennessee. Your video implies he was from Virginia (1:06).
Once again you have produced a gem. Interestingly, while you cite one future president who supported annexing all of Mexico (James Buchanan), you left out another one (Abraham Lincoln) who opposed the war altogether.
Finally someone explains it! I remember seeing a battles of the Mexican-American War map with just 95% of them being American victories all over Mexican territory at the time going far into Mexico proper, the Americans had reached so far South and I've always wondered why the U.S. just settled for such relatively small concessions!
The civil war probably would have happened a bit earlier if Mexico was annexed. Could also see Mexico using that chaos to then fight for independence as well
@@hiimjustin8826 You talk like they wouldn't be used as slaving states despite being a young nation that fought to be free just to later on be defeated in an unfair war
I was born and raised in Mexico. I remembered as a little child my mom praying with us kids for the Cold War and the safety of the people in the USA. I remembered feeling fear and sympathy for our neighbors, especially since we lived only a couple hundred miles away from the border. I can’t even imagine the impact that the Cold War cause to the US citizens during that time. I know Mexico has a lot of issues but the fear of being nuked by other countries is unheard of in Mexico. There is pros and cons when it comes to living in this great country.
I love history because it shows you how vastly different the world could have turned out. Like the U.S having more states and land in this examples, but there’s also the idea that Great Britain could have been way bigger than it is now if it had suppressed the colonist rebels. However, my favorite one, is that England was very close to being called Sexland. England comes from Angland, which is named after the Anglo peoples. At the time, another group called the Saxons was living there. A king (forget his name) founded the country of Angland, and named it such to gain the support of the Anglo people living in it at the time. HOWEVER, the Anglos were a minority, and the Saxons were a majority. The king himself was actually a Saxon too. Angland eventually changed into England. This means that if the country was named after the Saxons, Saxland may very well have become Sexland. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
Sorry to screw your comment but, if England was dominated by the saxons(which technically it was since the kingdom of Wessex was saxon), they would call tehir country "Saxland", not "sexland".
@@leonardoleo5740 That's not what OP said... they said if it were named Saxland it could've eventually become Sexland. The Same way Angland became England.
And then as far as this theme of video goes, you learn about how Mexico was off to a better start than the US but somehow they managed to fold it. The word “dollar” comes from the Spanish dólar and the money sign comes from the Spanish shield with the pillars of Gibraltar the two lines through the S. Additionally, Mexico had the first printing press in the Americas, all American wine comes from Mexico which had the first winery/vineyard also (1596). Mexico had the first university before the pilgrims even stood at Plymouth. Mexico would have succeeded in rebuilding its monarchical form of government with a descendant of the former ruling house of the Mexican kingdom on its throne (Habsburgo). But the Americans certainly did their magic on the whole thing, “losing” weapons at the border and meddling in others affairs.
School is obsolete in most cases, except that they're businesses, and most people are stupid so they believe taht you can't teach something unless you have a paper saying yuo can teach it. So how did the first man to get his degree, get his degree, if we need them to be correct or good at anything?
It was basically because the US wanted to build a southern railroad across the US and the land in that part of the US was full of mountains, while there was some land a bit south that was more suitable.
As a Mexican studying history, I smiled stupidly when he said "They were seen as... different". But yeah... That was a smart decision. I would have also taken the northern territories but no Yucatan. Yucatan is... uh... lots of Mayans. It was hard even for us who were a bit more open to indians.
Mayans were all wiped out by the Spanish who coughed on them. Smallpox was devastating to peope who didn't have vaccination. Except what I just typed is sarcastic, proving vaccination is overrated, and history proves this. Also, Spain committed no genocide. See my series on the overrated British Empire for more.
@@bjarniiii even today that whole Southern region is a bit unstable at times. Expensive to maintain and not much value in it. Until recently most people there considered themselves more Native than mixed race like the rest of Mexico. Plus it's often forgotten infrustructure wise by the government due to the reasons above. Because we have huge neighbors people forget Mexico is a big country in its own right, and has had many problems keeping it all together. I think most states have tried to separate at one point.
Nah not really; there’s lot of economic importance due to Tijuana being at the other side of San Diego. I was born in Mexicali, the actual capital of Baja California -it’s a “Why is Albany and not NYC the capital of New York?” situation-; so I have an idea of the topic. But you’re making the wrong assumption that our military is actually able to defend our country. If for some reason someone invaded us, we would definitely ask for American aid; and the Americans would say yes because they see us as their “backyard” and they don’t want more Hispanics up north -both things being insulting but true-
@@davidandremelchorzavala2100 Esto es un escenario más irreal que la mierda, el único que nos invadiría es Estados Unidos y si eso pasara; dado el estatus neutral de México con el mundo ( Estados Unidos y México NO son aliados, solo socios comerciales ), China y Rusia saltarían a darnos armas a lo loco dado que nunca desperdiciarían la oportunidad de tener armas en la frontera de su mayor rival geopolítico, en todos los escenarios de invasión a México por los Estados Unidos, Estados Unidos pierde.
Not really, there are not many important ports around there, no much population, no easy route to the capital. The real entry point from the pacific is Acapulco
Na, f*ck Trist. The guy ignores the point of war - getting land. America should've annexed all of Mexico, then annex Canada, then annex all of the Americas.
Ulysses Grant who fought as a junior officer in the War wrote in his autobiography that the War was unjustified. Not annexing Mexico probably saved the United States. The annexation would have been catastrophic. The US would still be fighting civil wars there, and it probably would have torn the nation apart.
imagining a US civil war including Mexico is... fun. if the Dixies seceded, Mexico would have tried seceding as well, but would the conflict end up a messy free for all or would there be backroom dealings between the Mexicans and one of the two other sides? could Mexico use the opportunity to sap both sides' strength for a chance at reclamation?
@@ericktellez7632 Yeah sure. HItler or the Bolsheviks would have triumphed in Europe. There would have been no Marshall Plan.Democracy would have vanished from the world, and some clueless guy named Erick Tellez would be happy.
How did the Mexican Government treat the Native Americans in the, now, US territories? 🤔 I've visited some of the reservations that were once Mexico and never thought about that, till now.
The Mexican goverment was bad with the natives, thats the reason of a lot of rebeliones. Like la guerra de castas, la guerra del Yaqui, las guerras apaches, las guerras comanches, etc. And the reason whay the natives fight for the french in the Second french Mexican war.
Personally IDK, but it's plausible for such Army Centric place as Sparta that Navy.... was part of the Army. Subordinate unit that was needed sometimes. But IDK. I guess I could research though.
@@jannegrey They did have a navy(although it wasn’t very potent). This navy included admirals, if you wanna find out there names there’s a whole Wikipedia article on Spartan admirals
The gringos ruined California and made it so bad that there's an exodus today, of libterals who can't stand liberal policies. Everyone who believes in dumbocracy (a bandwagon fallacy) is a nonfreethinking liberal. So all Republicans are actually liberals, by a higher standard than their shitty one.
You should talk about this war more often. The Monterrey battle was unique, the Mexicans won but they didn't finish the Americans, so Polk sent another battalion and won the whole war
![Stromae, Pomme - “Ma Meilleure Ennemie” (from Arcane Season 2) [Official Visualizer]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/1F3OGIFnW1k/mqdefault.jpg)
As a Mexican, I've never heard of Trist and I'm pretty sure nowhere here teaches about him. Thank you for sharing, I'll research more about his life.
Honestly, I am shocked that he isn`t more well known in Mexico.
La razón qué no se enseña tan activamente es que como estamos dominados por USA, pues no les agrada tanto ese tipo, porque gringo siendo gringos, ahora bien se puede decir que se apiado de nosotros
As an American, this was a clearer and much better explanation of the war than what we had in school.
I wouldn't cry over losing a few red states though. Why don't you just take them back?
@@matthewtymczyszyn8948 that would end badly kid
@@matthewtymczyszyn8948 Why don’t you just move to Cuba?
You see, the US wanted to, but they couldn't demand territories that would exceed their war score over 100
Think of the overextension....
@@TheKeksadler America was a newer player at the time. Nowadays they would know that overextension is just a number, and the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans prevent a lot of AE from generating in Asia or Europe.
Squashing rebels for the next 50 years or so.
Can’t wait for Victoria 3 coming soon this month, hopefully it's not a buggy disaster so fingers crossed.
@@brandonlyon730 "hopefully it's not a buggy disaster so fingers crossed." This your first paradox release? of course it's going to be a buggy mess
For those who don't know, the missing part of southern Arizona was acquired later in the Gadsden Purchase (1853).
It was basically the Gadsden Robbery.
Yes he should have mentioned that
"Acquired"
More like "Either sell it or we'll invade you again".
Fuck the USA
Yes. but first the american army invaded that territory.. then they made their demands...
We lost "la mesilla". :(
"Polk fired him. The problem was that Trist simply ignored him." Now THAT'S a baller move.
tf they gonna do? march a army down to mexico city? oh wait
he is of true American
What I do find surprising is that (apparently) nobody brought up the Logan Act, which Trist probably violated. The Logan Act is, of course, a polite fiction, and the US never actually prosecutes people for violating it, but oh boy do politicians love to shout about it whenever given half the chance.
You could do this back in the days when communications took weeks. Trist could afford to ignore Polk during that time frame and hammer out a deal that favored Mexico but still secured territorial gains for the US.
@@wesleycanada3675 Weeeelll, that actually would've been a thorny matter. Not to say he couldn't have, or that the generals wouldn't have done so, if ordered. But remember who those generals are. Taylor? The politically influential Whig, who was against the war. Scott? The politically influential Whig who was against the war.
I think removing Trist by force would've had further political blowback. Nothing tremendous, mind you, but for the Northern Democrats, it would further the argument from Whigs and anti-War Dems (who probably still favored the Texas annexation) that this was a rapacious land grab that was costing them American blood by quart. (the causality rate for the Mexican-American War, adjusted for scale, is unreal.)
I could argue that taking the whole country would have led to a different version of the Civil War and might have ended, in part, with Mexico regaining its independence, while the rest of the US is distracted.
That's an interesting set up for an alt history plot
Interesting! but I bet the Union would have just kept going once they polished off the confederacy. In Ken Burns' The Civil War, they point out that while the South was crippled by manpower shortages, mass desertion, bread riots, hyperinflation, in the North, Harvard and Yale were still having rowing competitions, they started the transcontinental railroad, continued westward expansion. My point being, they may not have been so exhausted by the war as to let Mexico regain independence without further conflict. It's kind of like how in 1944 or '45, before WWII had even ended Macy's released a consumer catalog. The UK wouldn't end rationing until the '50s and here US industry was already thinking of retail manufacturing. Then again, having the material, funding, manpower, and even experienced armies/generals in the field may not have mattered if the American public were too weary of war. If the public support and political willpower aren't there, everything else is sort of meaningless IMHO.
What if Mexico had sided with the USA against the confederacy during the war though! Maybe there could have been a diplomatic play to bargain for independence!
You know I was just thinking about this knowing the the politics the south would claim it and be so cruel to them that when it's time for the civil war Mexico would be more of a liability to the south with it's rebellions wouldn't be surprised if the north went as far as to let some of Southern Mexico be independent for helping the north win the war
@@waidwml2166 be hard for them to be as cruel as the Mexican government was.
@@kevinyoung947 I know the Mexican government was going through power struggles that make Game of Thrones look like a Dr. Seuss book but I feel Thier racism along with Thier anti- Catholic sentiment would pair along with the fact that they wouldn't be considered human would lead to rebellion
Polk's ambassador going against him and letting Mexico exist is the political equivalent of you telling your friend you want a 10 peice and they bring back a 4 peice
Are you calling me fat?
Friend’s eyes: Yes
What is a "peice"?
@@David-qi1ys Friend's mouth: Yes and now take two chairs and sit down.
what?
@@andrasszabo1570 a typo of piece, referring to the different sizes of McDonald's Chicken McNugget packages available for purchase
Fun Fact: The famous Civil War general and later, President of the USA, Ulysses S. Grant served in the Mexican-American War as a Quartermaster. HIs first taste of combat saw a Mexican cannonball decapitate the man next to him. He personally resented the Mexican-American War as bold and greedy imperialist adventure. He viewed the American Civil War as a sort of punishment for the unjust war, saying: "Nations, like individuals, are punished for their transgressions."
Bro witnessed a man right beside him get decapitated by a fucking cannonball and was still able to win the American Civil War and become President? I would've just suffered from extreme PTSD and became a homeless dude after witnessing that.
Man that guy was tough as shit then.
@@frederickoftheartic2209 Ulysses S. Grant was famous for his stoicism.
"Grant is a man of a good deal of rough dignity; rather taciturn; quick an[d] decided in speech. He habitually wears an expression as if he had determined to drive his head through a brick wall, and was about to do it. I have much confidence in him."- Colonel Theodore Lyman in a letter to his wife, March 1864.
Wasn't he sharing the boat with LT Robert E. Lee at that time?
Respect for that man.
Trist just went "I'm the captain now" and saved Mexico's whole existance
I have a feeling that if the full annexation did go through the idea that it would be all slave territory especially as what would be dictated by the Missouri compromise would cause a far more severe form of bleeding Kansas wherein people are given a vote on whether or not they want slavery due to the fact people who were anti slavery already lived there unlike kansas who had little people living there. Much like Kansas this would cause an influx of people from north and southern states to come in likely coming to blows with the population causing riots and revolution potentially sparking the civil war early and seeing Mexico declare independence and joining the side that offers to keep it that way
Good thing, I like having somewhere I can go to when I need to buy vanilla extract made of real vanilla and go into a leather store that sells real leather.
It was smart move. Eventually Mexico would wear down amercian forces just as it happened with France.
Right, although part of me wonders if an overexpanded empire like Rome would simply bust and end right there
Nah dude, les hubieramos pateado el trasero si hubieran tratado de tomar todo Mexico. Igual como nos independisamos de los otros imperios, Mexico hubiera peleado ala muerte por ser libre.
Abraham Lincoln notably opposed the Mexican American War when he was a Whig because it would've allowed slavery to expand out west. And thereafter for the rest of his political career this was an issue that rivals and enemies would point out and use to one up him. The land taken was seen as good and even the Whigs who had previously opposed the war ironically nominated war veterans for the presidency on the basis of being war vets
America loves her vets
@@justvibing1601 yep, up until it comes time to help them out with anything important
In retrospect, now a martyr among presidents, it only serves to further bolster his memory
Benjamin Lundy wrote a newspaper tract 'War in Texas' about the entire debacle.
@@InfernosReaper we have better care for vets than most countries around the world. Not that there's not big problems that could easily be fixed with enough brainstorming. There's also the fact that some people arguably get unfair discharges when they've been serving in one way or the other for years and lose that retirement.
Ulysses S Grant once said “For myself, I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation. It was an instance of a republic following the bad example of European monarchies, in not considering justice in their desire to acquire additional territory.”
Mclovin
yep, everything Washington opposed, imperialism.
Based chad Grant
@@aaronmarks9366 not based at all. He was a corrupt asshole.
And they continued to this day
Because they feared that they would lose funding from James bissonette or Kelly moneymaker
James Bissonette is secretly Mansa Munsa and is maintaining the global market singlehandedly.
The biggest source of federal revenue lol
RIP David Archeologist
Uhm?
@Corinthian James Bisonette is history matters?
Fun fact: Yucatan wasn't actually Mexican at this time, but was an independent republic with a cool flag, and the Yucatecan delegation in Washington actually offered to be incorporated as a state, Polk agreed and made a bill, but the bill never passed in the Senate, which is the reason why Yucatan never became a U. S. state.
Yes, and we had to reannex to Mexico due to the Guerra de Castas, so as a state of the US things could have been controlled. I wish that bill was passed.
Also, it is one of the few states with a flag, and we still use it.
@@genio2509más vende patrias no se puede
@@genio2509Como siempre los yucatecos demostrando su falta de educación. Si los Anexaba EEUU, lo primero que pasaría es que todos los Yucatecos perderían sus tierras. Así le pasó a los Tejanos de origen Mexicano cuando Tejas se incorporó a EEUU.
@@genio2509no andes de lame huevos no te van a dar la residencia 😂
@@genio2509no andes de lambizcon, no te darán la residencia 😂
I am not sure if you read comments suggesting video ideas, but have you ever considered making a video about the *_principality of Neuchâtel_* ?
It was simultaneously a canton of the Swiss Confederation and a domain of the King of Prussia.
It just seems like one of those little historical things that are rarely talked about but are actually quite intruiging.
+
Vic2 wildness
I've been to Neuchâtel several times but I didn't know that.
I'm Swiss and I didn't know about this
Vic 2 moments
Polk: Get me this land or you’re fired
Trist: I’ve recognized that the president made a decision, but given it’s a stupid ass decision, I’ve elected to ignore it
Where is Trist when we need him now?
@@robertrobert7924 you cannot ignore presidential orders now that we have instant communications like phone calls
The U.S. also paid Mexico $15 million or so for the trouble of fighting the war - conscience money.
@@hkchan1339 bruh what, did you not pay attention to the trump presidency? Especially the behavior of the fbi heads?
Don’t forget, also, Mexico was a catholic country.
My ancestors had the rather surreal experience of attempting to emigrate to Mexico from the U.S. as religious refugees, only to land in San Francisco and discover the U.S. had conquered it.
Onboard the Brooklyn?
That probably would've been a decade or two before the War I imagine
@@bigbloopboy8892 ... If he's referring to the Latter-day Saints aboard the Brooklyn, it was in 1846. They sailed from New York to San Francisco, to escape America's hypocrisy and find religious freedom. But, by the time they arrived, California was under U.S. occupation. At the same time, Brigham Young was leading the first LDS wagon companies in the Midwest.
@@dobbysboggart6883 Darn. Maybe Mitt Romney would have been President of California
@@dobbysboggart6883 I mean shunning a system of child brides and polygamy isn't exactly hypocritical. Early Mormonism was pretty fucked...
Ironically there were also in Mexico a LOT of people that wanted war against the US, either for avenge Texas' loss and also bcz they wanted back Louisiana, given that when Nappy had sold those territories to the US, he'd sold also the SPANISH part of them. So a lot of generales and politicians tought that, with an army bigger than the US one, they could've gained back a lot of territories. Effectively the victory of the USA wasn't so foregone at the start, their army was very little and underfunded/undermanned(about 6500 men strong).
P.s. One of the oppositors of the war was a young congressman, a certain ...A. Lincoln!
Nappy ? That's hilarious 😂
I read all the aristocratic Eurotrash thought Mexico would easily win. Not just because of the bigger army, but because of the moronic "noble blood." Mexico was still ruled Spanish Oligarchs after their independence, the elitist uppercrust 1%ers. Since they had "breeding," naturally they'd beat the slobby Americans.
This same self-absorbed myopia carried over into the Civil War twenty years later, where the southern plantation owners thought there was "no way" a Southern gentlemen could ever lose to a mere northern shopkeeper.
Louisiana was a French territory. And we purchased it from them
There’s a reason that French although in small numbers still exists in Louisiana and Creole exists in Louisiana… I think you confused it with Florida maybe?
@@hunterashwill-ng4ew West of the Mississippi was spanish, then was "acquired" by Napoleon that sold the whole stock to the USA.
I've legit never heard of Nicholas Trist, which is crazy considering how important he was in the result of a war that defined a lot of America's and Mexico's future. Honestly, with all stuff I have researched, its crazy how our schools barely touch on this war.
Because talking about this war is talking about how Polk wanted to create more slave states and bringing slavery to places where it was already abolished. There are no good moral lessons about this war. It was the Civil War the defining moment for the US, because it dealt with the two different visions of the country.
Because it shows how hypocritical and evil the usa is, especially when they talk about china lol
Interestingly, Mexican schools also talk very little about this war.
@@kenozis because it's embarrassing
@@erickalejandrotrechuelorui5610 the purpose of teaching history isn't to teach "good moral lessons". The purpose of teaching history is to teach history. Theres no good reason not to teach about this war.
On the topic of Mexico, it would be really cool to hear about Napoleon III and his attempts into trying to govern Mexico and his later life after the Franco-Prussian War
he didnt want to rule Mexico. He tried to counter the anglo-american influence, because he knew that the world order had already shifted in favor of the anglo protestants. Establishing a catholic empire was a way to counter the american influence in the Americas and re-establish France as a protector of catholic and christian, as well as boosting France influence, prestige and power obviously. Napoleon III was a very devout catholic and many of his policies were directed by this. Thats why he forbade the Italians to take Rome as their capital as he deemed Rome was the city of the Pope. Or thats why he wanted the Ottoman sultan to declare him Protector of the Christians in the Ottoman Empire instead of the russian Tsar.
And Napoleon III was right in his predictions; without a strong catholic country to back them up and protect them, all latin american countries fell prey to the US. The Mexican emperor had way more progressive and liberal policies than the so called liberators of Mexico, that were backed up by the US. The US have been a plague during the XIXth and XXth century to many many latin american countries, preventing social reforms, backing up coups and dictators, training secret polices, utterly corrupting the political life of those countries.
And as this video very subtly points out, they did it without one remorse as they saw the latin americans as inferiors.
@@Chrysobubulle or latin americans are just terrible people who brought ruin to thier own nations
@@Chrysobubulle thanks for the added information! I don’t know enough about Mexican History so this really helps kickstart my research!
@@Chrysobubulle Always nice to see Maximillian get the respect he deserved.
I’ve just read a brilliant book on that by Eudmund Shawcross
Woah this Nicholas Trist seems like an incredibly consequential historical figure that I had absolutely no knowledge of prior to this video. Thanks for sharing.
Reminds me of Garvilo Princip, the teen who started WW1. Unremarkable figure who appeared out of nowhere, changed the world, and leaves the world without too much context.
@@pancholopez8829 yea but everyone knows who he was.
A traitor.
@@pancholopez8829 the serbs still thibk he is some kind of hero
@@clawcross Yep. They even "graffiti" his face on the walls! He's a freedom fighter to them.
I really like these videos. They're short, concise, and give you enough so that if you want to go learn more on your own later, you can.
Both Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee were loudly against annexing any land from Mexico. they both said the Civil War was the punishment the US had to pay for taking mexican land.
We actually paid mexico for the land.
@@chucksucks8640 no, it was taken, the US took advantage of a nation that had just finished a war with France and therefore was weaker from that war.
@@chucksucks8640 yeah let me go to your house hold a gun and ask you to nicely give your house for pennies, then say you paid me for it lol.
@@chucksucks8640 Don't be a fool. America paid what would be less than $2 an acre in TODAY'S money.
@@sleepybear7642 Apparently so sacks of trash can say it never counted now.
SHOULD NOT HAVE PAID ANYTHING!!!!!
What is also interesting is that when the US occupied Mexico City, the Mexican government had evacuated and passed a law that anyone who surrendered would be considered a traitor and the treaty they signed would be null and void. After much scrambling, the US found someone who would sign (some undersecretary) because there was true fear that if Mexico didn't surrender, the US would annex all of it.
It would be impossible for Americans to annex all , to control to much territory with a diverse population it would changed the cursed of civil war ...
*California is still apart of Mexico, it was never ratified.*
For an interesting Hollywood blindside about this unknown fact -- go watch the two Zoro films starring Antonio Banderas.
So basically the USA was worse than the Russians today
Why RUclips hide your comments?
@@JuanDeLaRosaTV
Because controversial things that don't necessarily violate their terms of service are quietly being stuffed away.
I know of several people that were discredited, look at how RUclips puts the Wikipedia banner right at the bottom of many controversial videos even ones on channels that aren't *against the flow* so-to-speak.
People used to get banned for talking against c o v i d guidelines but now they softened that up.
As a Mexican, that thumbnail will haunt me for years to come.
I also love history, and I've researched this topic a lot. Awesome video man!
Mexican? No no no you mean American....
No sea payaso
I mean the cartel pretty much runs a good chunk of your nation, do they not? I'd rather live under US jurisdiction thank you.
@@B-52H I’m American, just dumb, not fat, just dumb
@@saturn6563 i defy all stero types not dumb knows geography not fat also not strong like the other half
Kudos to Nicholas Trist for having balls of steel and acting on his conscience. He knew that kind of unwelcome contest was wrong, and kudos to him for probably saving both nations an ungodly amount of bloodshed in any insurgency to follow.
What was Imperial Japan's reaction to the fall of Nazi Germany?
“They lost”
“Then why haven’t they all killed themselves yet??”
I believe it was something along the lines of
"Oh no.
Anyway"
Japan: Addy?? Hellloooo, Adolph??? I kind of pissed off the Americans here. Call me back...
Well… shit
They were furious and denounced the surrender. They then seized German property and any Germans in Japan had restrictions placed on them. They had did the same to Italy when it surrendered in 1943. Japan then stated they would continue to fight for their own self preservation.
James "I guess its okay if you secede" Buchanan.
Comedy Gold in my opinion
Followed by Abraham “not it is not” Lincoln.
Yeah that killed me lol
Luckily Abraham “traitor hater” Lincoln saved us
@@thiccchungo1041 Nah, he sent 600,000 young men to an early grave needlessly. Fuck that guy.
@@ohhellyeah2878 it definitely was not “needlessly” he did it to preserve the Union and to end slavery
I heard that the phrase "indigestible peoples" was used to explain the US’ desire not to annex such large tracts of Mexican land and absorb the populations thereof. And that sounds exactly like something they would say back then.
Back then, and now, and in the future lol.
And eating Tacos and Burritos left and right,.
The only thing indigestible is Muricans arrogance and pregideous towards other ppls.
Santa Anna was fond of telling foreign diplomats and American generals occupying Mexico City that Mexico was ungovernable except as a dictatorship because "Mexicans won't be ready for democracy for another hundred years" (he said that from time to time from about 1838 to 1848).
The Treaty of Guadlupe-Hidalgo, formalizing the end of the war, offered the Mexican citizens in the newly acquired territory a choice of US or Mexican citizenship, although they could remain in place and retain their property even if they chose to continue as Mexican citizens.
Also, the US paid Mexico $15 million for the lands ceded to the US, and at the request of the Mexican officials the US trained and equipped a new Mexican Army; and, the US assumed $3.5 million in Mexican debt owed to US citizens.
Hey they were right it would have been a mess.
Indigestible? 😂
I mean… yeah… we fart a lot 😂
As an American we lucked out with our neighbors to the south. Great culture, great food, great weather, beautiful country.
@@NataliaYaremchuk0816 you guys are both right
No disrespect to Mexico or anyone living in it, but the country probably would've been better off had the US taken the whole thing into their country considering the state it's in now.
Enemies for life add that too
@@NataliaYaremchuk0816
Correct, and don't forget to add crime as a daily encounter and shoot outs as background noice (ok, not that far)
But the racist part isn't really true, each Spanish speaking country says in a joking manner that their Spanish is the best Spanish, and that the others are wrong (seems the same ehem US vs UK). And at least all the people I know are everything but racist, perfectly accepting anyone.
@@-Extra_Lives Yes, sadly the country itself sucks, the government is one of the most corrupt there are, and we basically don't have enough development to go ahead, we have mostly 0 safety in 30 out of the 32 states, and the economy is terrible. But we still have hope that maybe one day a not corrupt president will win and make change (like what happened with El Salvador)
Here in Yucatán, right after the Texan independence, we also separated from the country (back then it also included current states of Campeche and Quintana Roo), out of wich Campeche and Yucatán are the 2 safe states I mentioned. And in the video, it also showed that the original plans were to anex it. So we were that close to being in a better place, but things changed and we had the indigenous people revel on the Gerra de Castas, wich forced the state back into the country. Who knows what would have happened, but at least right now these 2 states are actually good to live in.
In Mexico the educational system tries to not show too much of this war to us as mexicans. Many of us only learnt that we had a war with the USA and that's it, but they never explained to us why and how. I am from a city called Monterrey and I did not know Monterrey was invaded in the Mexican American wat until I was an adult (it was a shock to realize Monterrey battle was one of the worse in the Mexican American war)
I wonder why the Mexican government doesn’t talk much about that war?
@@freddyd17 : Likely because they lost most of the battles, despite having more (and often better) troops... Their generals and politicians were more interested in fighting each other and scrambling for power than actually defending the country, such as it was.
@@freddyd17 The Mexican gov't doesn't want to remind current Mexican citizens about it for the same reason there isn't any American Civil War memorial where Union general Thomas destroyed Confederate general Hood: the beating was so horribly bad, that it would be embarrassing to tell current day citizens of the area about it.
@@raymondpaller6475 Also, Mexico lost that war so horribly thanks to the constant treachery of all the Mexican generals. If Mexico had been more cohesive maybe they would have lost but with a better outcome or proposing a peace treaty
I'm sure part of it is also related to all of the "lost cause" and "ravangist" stuff around this ~100 year period. I imagine about ~20 years after this war Mexicans were teaching essentially "Yeah and then we fought a short war with America and lost, the end." Teaching broadly about this war, even today, would lead a lot of Mexicans to think "That's our land!" (to be fair, as an American, it is justifiably Native land, then Spanish/Mexican land, then American land, in that order) and/or "We should get revenge and take it back!" kinda stuff. Stoking ravangist notions amongst a populace isn't typically a good idea unless you have an extremely powerful state (and even then it's typically pretty bad), especially when it means ending up fighting the world's main superpower to get said revenge.
Polk: you’re fired.
Trist: no.
Should have added a "fun fact, " before the "no".
Polk: well ok then. 😂
They have made zillion movies about WW2, some on Civil War, Vietnam. Occasionally a movie about WW1. Sometimes a producer will introduce a new war movie with a completely different twist or viewpoint but usually of WW2. Now to be really different, have a movie about this war and include US troops invading Mexico City. Which the latter quite remarkable of an amphibious followed by grueling march through rough terrain. For war college students also a study of logistics. But making such a movie especially these days will really put such movie makers in the hot seat. Even today many Latinos say, "we didn't move, the border did."
It’s not as impressive when you realize the Veracruz Fort garrison and the Cadets at Chapultepec castle were the only units defending Mexico City, as Santa Anna took all of the Mexican Army north to try and beat back the US forces.
And yea, pretty much every general in the Mexican army at that time was a traitorous idiot.
Nicholas Trist still working as the Official Envoy for the US despite being fired is amazing. He knew that the fate of two nations were in his hands and didn’t want to be the man to wipe a nation off the face of the planet and from history.
To be fair Mexico would have existed even if the US went by Polk's wishes. It just would have been _considerably_ smaller instead of a little.
@@sojourner. also poorer
@@alantorres3601 In land value? Yeah definitely. The US probably would have been paying more for more land though.
@@sojourner. With Mexico's that Polk wanted you are taking a lot of the land that generate big parts of Mexican's current economy. It would be a Mexico without its Oil, without the big tourisms generated by Mayan Riviera, Cabos, Mazatlan, Tijuana; and without the big industries that are located in Monterrey and other cities in the north. Just Monterrey is one of the cities that gives a lot of taxes to the nation. At the end, Mexico would probably be pretty similar to Guatemala or El Salvador in terms of economy if Polk had gotten everything that he wanted
@@sojourner. yeah I'm glad it came out the way it did.
As someone at the time said, what the US wanted was the maximum of Mexico with the minimum of Mexicans
sounds about white
@@beastmode6609 I think it was for the best
@@comona I guess now Mexicans disregarding USA immigration laws is also for the best.
@@beastmode6609 why would I want our country flooded with 3rd worlders? Wouldn’t it be best to just enforce immigration laws like every other nation on the planet…
Mexico is Mexico. Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California is Maximum
Mexicans. Mexico lost the battle, but baby they won the war.
*Fun fact: Baja California was included in the sale, but the United States eventually agreed to omit the peninsula because of its proximity to Sonora which is located just across the narrow Sea of Cortés.*
They didn't annex Baja because of Manuel Pineda a Guerilla General who had defeated US forces at the Battle of Mulege
@@reycesarcarino4653 That was before Mexico had been defeated after its capital was captured. If America wanted the California peninsula, it could’ve easily captured it. That fact stands true even today.
@@Nonamelol. Likely story but still the protracted resistance he led made the American hold on the Baja California peninsula unsecure, and prompted American statesmen to omit in the final peace treaty, their original demand for the annexation of Baja California and Baja California Sur
It would have been like a second Florida lol
The American army did occupy the northern half of Baja California during the war.
You forgot to mention that sentiment for annexing Mexico was very strong in Washington and many other parts of the country. It was largely through the efforts of John Calhoun and other South Carolina officials who strongly argued against annexation that quashed the movement. Calhoun vehemently argued that the United States should be a white country, and that Mexicans would contaminate that ideal.
How very racist of them.
Wish they would’ve, then we’d have more beautiful blonde blue eyed Tejanas/Chicanas everywhere up & down the country.
As a mexican i am glad that their racism played against them and allowed me to be a mexican.
@@ivangarcia1327 ¿Que?
@@ivangarcia1327 lol americans call half the country nazis/commies and accuse their closest friends of the vilest shit every 2 years just because they wore a hat of the wrong color.
There is no country more divided. Catalonians will break bread with Spanish Royalists before a Democrat accepts a Republican as a fellow human being.
Bless you, sir, for always using "raises the question" instead of "begs the question".
hear hear - absolutely right
Meh, the old sense of the term is moribund anyway.
Who cares?
@@crash.override Yes - the old sense of "begs the question" is over. "Begs the question" now invariably means "raises the question", so why not just say that? As he does (so full marks)
@@WowPlusWow Well you don't, so why bother with this comment. Nothing better to do?
A little piece of Mexico - now part of southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico - was added five years after the U.S.-Mexican War, The Gadsden Purchase was negotiated in 1853 to add land that would allow a railroad from New Orleans to the Pacific. That land purchase, negotiated by James Gadsden and authorized by President Franklin Pierce, finalized the borders of the current 48 contiguous states of the Union.
Of course, the great irony was that it was Southern Democratic slaveholders who pushed hardest for annexation of as much of Mexico as they could manage, with the hope of expanding slavery into this new territory through popular sovereignty..... While Northern abolitionist Whigs fought them tooth-and-nail opposing the expansion of "slave power."
Both ignored the fact that the Mexican population had its own distinct feelings about slavery....
They absolutely and implacably opposed it. The poor hated it, the Church opposed it, the middle class viewed it as an aristocratic affectation, and even the Spanish ancestry elites felt it was an institution whose time had long passed. And this played out dramatically in the places the US did annex.
In point of fact, when it came time to decide whether California would enter the Union as a slave or free state, the American immigrant population split almost equally between Southern slavery advocates and Northern free-soil proponents. The tie was broken by the native Californio population, who pre-dated the Gold Rush of 1848.... Many who were holders of vast tracts of ranch land confirmed in their possession by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Despite the promises by Southerners that they could become rich via slavery and plantation agriculture, they universally rejected allowing slavery in the California constitution...or splitting the state in two with both slave and free sections.
I've always wondered what would have happened if a few key Whigs would have actually understood that Mexicans would so vehemently oppose slavery.....and allow the Southerners to convince Congress to annex the whole of Mexico. Yes, there doubtless would have been revolts and uprisings... (...although between Bleeding Kansas and Mexico not being invaded by France in the 1860s, it is questionable whether they would have been worse than what did happen...) Likely, the cure for them would have been to push for statehood for 2-4 key regions, and the raising of militia companies of Mexicans led by American officers to put down revolts. With each Mexican state reinforcing their anti-slavery native beliefs. The American Civil War likely would happened even faster, as the Southern slave interests would find themselves outvoted even faster.....and sandwiched between two anti-slavery regions, North and South. Imagine the problems the Western Confederacy (Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma territory) would have had w/o being able to import weapons & military gear through Matamoros, Mexico....or worse, threatened by invasion along their Southern border by anti-slavery Mexican militias.
Suggestions:
1) How good were the five good emperors of Rome?
2) Why did Denmark-Norway ally with Napoleon?
3) Why didn't Portugal fight in WWII in spite of its alliance with Britain?
1) Alright
2) Because Britain destroyed their ships unprovoked
3) They were fascist leaning
There's actually a story behind the third one. Portugal actually offered to uphold their treaty during ww2 but Winston Churchill rejected their offer fearing that it may cause Spain to side with the Axis and leave no friendly countries on the continent.
@@Internet_Canuck yup, there was an interesting speech and stuff
2) didnt denmark join the war against the brits
@@Sceptonic MARCV AVRELIVS WAS AMAZING in how bad a father he was. Too busy giving advice on beign a parent.
And while he let Romans murder Christians, he was too busy to stp that nonsense because he was riting about virtue and justice. PFF!
AlternateHistoryHub needs to do a video on this. If there's no Mexico, there's no Zimmerman Telegram.
Maybe the Zimmerman Telegram would've been more of a "If you revolt and cause chaos and instability in the Americas, then we'll guarantee your Freedom." Kinda similar to what the British did against the Ottomans.
yeah but the british would have found a way to pull the us in anyway...
Germany was already sinking their boats and also the UK and France had depts to pay to the US that they couldn’t if they lost
Its not like america could hold mexico anyway... The public perception was alredy shifting to an anti-war instance. Together with the slavery question and the segregation of the catholics the US would lose control of mexico after some time. With a high risk of breaking itself in the process
No Taco Bell
This channel never ceases to answer questions I never asked but still want the answer to anyway
"to manifest destiny" is my new favorite verb
Winning a war is one thing, occupying and governing a nation that has a different language, culture, governing philosophy are two way different things. I suspect they were smart enough to realize than in the long run, it would have been more trouble than it was worth.
Yes and in the video is was not explained that the areas except Tejas were very very thin populated, they were not proper colonized. So no Mexican resistance in those regions.
History Matters just sugar coatef everything. The US just didnt want to govern a huge population of non-protestants people of color lol
@@heinrich6294 and the Yucatan. That area had a fierce native resistance that caused major headaches for the Mexican government
Well, they managed to govern California (et al) well enough, which had the same language, culture and governing philosophy as the rest of Mexico.
The Mexican pop. was over 7M strong so it wouldn't have been an easy occupation.
Some guy just being like "nah" and deciding to act out alone based on nothing but petty, moralistic spite, is the most American thing ever. Clearly, he was destined to succeed.
he wasn't acting out on petty moralistic spite, he was acting out of a deep conviction that America was a republic and not one of europes old kingdoms. A republic must answer to it's people. a kingdoms subjects must answer to its king. see the difference? I'm glad he didn't take mexico proper.
@@paullim1933 I'm also glad he didn't take all or most of Mexico as well, and I understand his motivation, but conviction is just another form of moralization. If it makes you feel any better, I don't think he cares, as he's long dead.
@@soffren fr I'm just glad Mexico exists this happened a very while ago.
@@paullim1933 no americans like him exist anymore, america has always been an empire disgised as a republic
And Americans still try to say USA is not an empire. You guys are as bad as the Soviet Union, just that they didn't try to look like a "liberator".
You should do more videos about Mexico ! We are full of crazy historical events 🇲🇽
Que patético ir a "conocer" la historia con los gringos (y su perspectiva) teniendo aquí en México varios historiadores (de varias perspectivas, tanto nacionales como malinchistas)
Like what?
@@abrahamg3354 trail of tears, Albert pike, freemason boss over Andrew Jackson, etc. buffalo soldieres, Somoza dynasty in nicaragua, Bumarack ruling for 30 tears in Egypt, etc. etc.!!!
@@Arturo939
Amigo, es solo un video de historia rapido, velo o vete al d1ablo
My wife is from michocan, theres still alot of crazy 💩 going on there.
I may be a Canadian but I'm also a history buff so I really always did wonder about this.
Trist's negotiations are a perfect example of "it is a joke, but if you want, it is not a joke."
Trist is a man worthy of respect.
They couldn't because we had the pipila powers
Y al Chapulin colorado tambien
Nos la pelaron mi buen David
Yes
Exactly
"Why didn't America annex Mexico"
Um maybe because America isn't really the iMpERiALiSt CoLoNiZeRs that whiny leftists claim?
Oe em gee! Its Sr Pelo!
let’s be honest the signs are what make the video like 10 times funnier
An important reason why democracies find it often difficult to annex large chunks of territory: All the people you just annexed can now upset the balance of power in your own legislature.
This is why Lithuania never annexed Kaliningrad.
This is why northern Irish elections had property qualifications. So a democracy could discriminate not specifically on religious grounds (which would cause even more unrest) but obfuscate the discrimination since protestant populations were the vast majority of landowners, even though they were nominally less of the population in many areas.
Gerrymandering is another good way to go about it, but these likely wouldn't have worked in the Mexico case without time for WASP populations to migrate to the region (assuming they were even willing)
Great pfp! Did you draw it?
Trist: "America can't be both a Republic and an Empire."
Papa Teddy: I'm about to do what's called a pro-gamer move
Even before Teddy's term there was the Philippine-American War. Well, the war continued into his term but it had started during McKinley's term.
@@seneca983 So the republic-empire began under McKinley! Thanks for pointing it out!
Teddy Roosevelt was not an imperialist. He was the original Trump and leader of the original Progressive Movement, which were mostly Republicans who were focusing on social problems and fixing the major problems of the Gilded Age because Americans were so poor they couldn't feed their families. Teddy Roosevelt fought the monopolies and corrupt politicians. The geopolitical situation was also destabilizing because the European colonial empires got stronger after carving up the continent of Africa and the Unification of Germany meant the German Empire was competing with the British Empire. The invention of the ironclad during the American Civil War revolutionized naval warfare and acted as a great equalizer. The enormous wooden sailing fleet of the British Empire had to be constantly rebuilt by more and more costly steel warships in a massive arms race between European empires. This meant European powers needed more money and were more aggressive. America had to join in and be strong or end up in a major war.
@@purplespeckledappleeater8738 'Trump' and 'progressive' do not belong in the same sentence.
@@ElBandito Lol, okay. Still Teddy was the trust-busting monopoly destroying big stick-yielding moose-riding badass of the Progressive Era, which led to the economic boom of the Roaring '20's.
"This is the deal, bite me"
true history right there
As always 💡👏🧠🧠 I live for these short but insightful history videos.
"imma negotiate peace with Mexico"
"no! you're fired"
*"did I stutter?"*
negotiates peace anyways like a chad
When he was being asked by polk about why was he still negotiating, he wrote 48 different excuses just to stay there.
Imagine how even more dangerous the Civil war would be.
I'm confused on what this would have meant? Would former Mexico have partnered with the Union considering it's anti-slavery stance? Or would they just seize back their lands while the troops were fighting eachother (and possibly attacked our country once both sides were heavily damaged)?
@@Syn410 mhm, I think most likely the most Mexican populated areas would try to rebel and even try to sign deals with the north to supply them in return for their independence. Most of these regions would prob be more southern so the us of today would include Baja California and prob more land around Texas, Arizona and New Mexico. That’s of course assuming that the us wouldn’t just go back in and take it back after the war.
The Confederacy would have more resources, better logistics. But given that it would be very unlikely for mexicans to fight in favor of white enslavers, I'd say the man force would be pretty the same, given the time window
The Mexicans would fight with the Union since they abolish Slavery so the South would had lost no matter
@@neewk You forget about Belize my friend. Belize was a British Colony at the time and the British were sympathetic to the Southern cause.
In our timeline, Belize sent guns and ammo to the Southern cause. Imagine having the Southern control area bordering Belize at that time.
When the South lost the war. The Country most Southerners fled to was Belize where they were given farming lands and tax incentives as well.
Disregarding the civil war, how would WW1 be like? If there is no Mexico for Germany to get caught sending a message to, how would it affect the war?
Don't worry they'll make a reason
Probably wouldn’t change much. It’d go from taking back land lost to regaining back independence.
The USA might not join the war, but Germany and the central powers would still lose. It would just take a little bit longer. The war itself would probably not be affected much. The post-war situation is a different story, though. With no American involvement in the war, there would also likely be no American influence on the treaties that shaped Europe after the war, so Woodrow Wilson's 14 points wouldn't exist or be relevant, and many of the new countries that were given independence after the war might not have been given it or their borders might look different.
@@_chew_ well, yes, but no, the main issue, it is too far in this what if, the civil war in the usa would be an entirely different thing (could be a three way run between mexican independence added, or mexican and south seceding and both against the north or any other combination or just not even happening, also with many more chance for foreign interference) and from there, more or less the entire history changed.
This would have never lasted. France invaded Mexico shortly after this American Mexican war, with plans to take the US. I can imagine Mexicans welcoming French soldiers in exchange for freedom.
"Why didn't the USA annex all of Mexico in 1848?" Too hot
A few ideas for videos in the future:
-Why did the crusades fail? (Detail on each crusade)
-Why was Russia not divided after 1989?
-How did the rest of the world react to September 11, 2001?
-Ten Minute History: The Boar Wars
-How did the world react to the atomic bomb droppings in 1945?
Redpill me on the Boar Wars yo
"The rest of the world..."
So it basically boils down to everyone growing tired of the whole ordeal and going "ugh FINE whatever" at the first reasonable proposal.
Thank you! Fast, direct and informative! Do more!!!
I'm an American and I'm very happy we didn't seize all of Mexico. Not only does it have a unique identity, but considering its history of rebellion, it would have likely been a nightmare to keep and would have potentially crippled the US.
Similar to when Napoleon conquered Spain but it cost a lot of troops to keep and weakened his capacity for war.
It would have also been a permanent moral stain on our conscience. If we oppose wars of conquest waged by others, we must oppose them for ourselves too
@@balargus319
Not really
@@bruhbruh-us6gl I must agree to disagree with you then.
@@balargus319 We didn't have a problem conquering the natives, nor taking over the Phillipines. Don't think it would have mattered.
@@MrLeemurman The native Americans were not so much conquered as they were displaced or driven to extinction.... Dare I say, little individual acts of Ethnic Cleansing.
From the very start, the US was never entirely clear on what it would do with the Phillipinnes. By the 1930s, they moved on the path to granting it autonomy with the goal of eventual independence. WW2 interrupted this, but after liberating the Philippines from the Japanese (who had completely destroyed whatever welcome mat they may have received), the US made good on its promise in 1946 iirc.
I have relatives (the Spanish who intermixed with the indigenous people’s) who owned land in the territories of New Mexico, Arizona and Southern Colorado. Thankfully, they were not pushed out. Many, including my grandfather, were ordered by the Federal Government, to learn English. So, they had to go to Catholic convents designed as State run Catholic Schools to play soccer and learn English. If they spoke a word of Spanish, they’d get a demerit and wouldn’t get any candy. I have an old letter from my grandfather that is in English only asking for socks and talking about the soccer match between 2 of these small Catholic schools. He learned English rather quickly at the age of 10.
And nowadays it's funny how without learning English you can survive in this country lol
@@AlbertoGomez-oi5ou , not surprising, since half of North America was colonized and ruled by the Spanish Empire and the remaining Spanish colonizers took over all of Central and South America.
You have to be in your 70s or 80s, no?
That's called cultural and linguistic genocide and it is really sad.
My family has the same experience! They were also hit and humiliated if caught speaking anything other than English, and forced to soil themselves if they couldn't ask to go to the bathroom in English, among other abuses. A whole culture wiped away starting with kids, cultural genocide
This fits perfectly with the part of history I'm casually studying right now
History always is a bit awkward when you’re a Texan Mexican
¡Viva Seguín!
Tejanos Unite 😉
Tejano Gang
Before 1848 California and Texas used to part of Mexico. Maybe with the way the U.S. is right now they could rejoin Mexico. Actually I think that they might be happier doing so.
A Texican, if you will.
The land that was annexed by the US was still mostly unsettled. The Spanish tried to colonize New Mexico in the 1600s but were kicked out by the natives. They didn't start building missions in California until the 1770s and then only did so because they were worried that the Russians would beat them to it.
I had always believed it had more to do with that second reason given towards the middle of the video, i.e. that many in the United States did not want to incorporate a lot of the Mexican population as part of its country, and indeed, the northern Mexican states and territories were much more sparsely populated than the country's interior.
I'm glad this video gave me some useful insights.
Don't believe everything on this channel. I menos en lo que tiene que ver en lo que paso en esto.
Unaccurate insights, load of crap, don't just take the gringo side of the story.
@@ericleon6482 What exactly is the Latino side of this? That valiant Mexicans fought so hard that the cowardly Anglos didn't dare take more land?
I'm honestly confused by your point.
@@argosime The USA didn't "annex" part of Mexico as "explained" in this shitty unaccurate video. Ignoring the Mexican side of the story is ridiculous, we all know too well that USA always want to portray themselves as the winners of all wars, but in this case the main reason was that the Mexican government was essentially bankrupt after decades of internal Independence wars and our traitor "president" Santa Anna sold the land for a ridiculously low price, he asked for way less than the gringos expected to pay for it and so they bought it in a snap.
@Eric León Então conta aí, chicano. Qual parte da surra ficou mal explicada?
I haven't wondered at this since 6th grade. Thanx for solving this mystery I totally forgot about it!
Turns out the answer was racism all along.
Your videos are well done--small correction: Polk was born in North Carolina and made his career in Tennessee. Your video implies he was from Virginia (1:06).
Well yes, he was from Vagina. All of us were.
Not really, but I get what you mean
Once again you have produced a gem. Interestingly, while you cite one future president who supported annexing all of Mexico (James Buchanan), you left out another one (Abraham Lincoln) who opposed the war altogether.
Finally someone explains it! I remember seeing a battles of the Mexican-American War map with just 95% of them being American victories all over Mexican territory at the time going far into Mexico proper, the Americans had reached so far South and I've always wondered why the U.S. just settled for such relatively small concessions!
Same.
Then the USA paid Mexico anyway lol
He doesn’t do a very good job explaining it though. It goes over so little it distorts what happened.
@@PaxAmericana76 what happened?
I wouldn't call losing almost 1/2 of your country a small concession 🤔
The civil war probably would have happened a bit earlier if Mexico was annexed. Could also see Mexico using that chaos to then fight for independence as well
I don't know why you assume Mexico would want to be independent from the U.S.
@@hiimjustin8826 Because they're a vastly different culture and probably wouldn't want to be ruled by white supremacists?
@@hiimjustin8826 idk, cos they dont have much in common?
@@hiimjustin8826 You talk like they wouldn't be used as slaving states despite being a young nation that fought to be free just to later on be defeated in an unfair war
@@aaroncousins4750 um immigration rates would suggest Mexicans are able to look past that
I was born and raised in Mexico. I remembered as a little child my mom praying with us kids for the Cold War and the safety of the people in the USA. I remembered feeling fear and sympathy for our neighbors, especially since we lived only a couple hundred miles away from the border. I can’t even imagine the impact that the Cold War cause to the US citizens during that time.
I know Mexico has a lot of issues but the fear of being nuked by other countries is unheard of in Mexico.
There is pros and cons when it comes to living in this great country.
It's interesting to think about what the whole world but especially US and Mexico would have been like if that one man did not decide as he did.
We love our neighbour’s to the south ❤️
@@shadow6543 That is not true, the average American has no interest in the Mexican.
@TroyeDuaCamila AllieGrimesMinaj you sound like you're not american lol
@@cakecwkecake7479 i never say that i was an american !!!
Amazing how one man's actions can impact the outcome of the world by that much.
I love history because it shows you how vastly different the world could have turned out. Like the U.S having more states and land in this examples, but there’s also the idea that Great Britain could have been way bigger than it is now if it had suppressed the colonist rebels.
However, my favorite one, is that England was very close to being called Sexland. England comes from Angland, which is named after the Anglo peoples. At the time, another group called the Saxons was living there. A king (forget his name) founded the country of Angland, and named it such to gain the support of the Anglo people living in it at the time. HOWEVER, the Anglos were a minority, and the Saxons were a majority. The king himself was actually a Saxon too. Angland eventually changed into England. This means that if the country was named after the Saxons, Saxland may very well have become Sexland.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
and we would be talking Sexlish insted of English.😁
Sorry to screw your comment but, if England was dominated by the saxons(which technically it was since the kingdom of Wessex was saxon), they would call tehir country "Saxland", not "sexland".
@@leonardoleo5740 That's not what OP said...
they said if it were named Saxland it could've eventually become Sexland. The Same way Angland became England.
@@leonardoleo5740 The word "Sax" has changed to "Sex" over time: Middlesex, Wessex, Essex, Sussex etc.
And then as far as this theme of video goes, you learn about how Mexico was off to a better start than the US but somehow they managed to fold it. The word “dollar” comes from the Spanish dólar and the money sign comes from the Spanish shield with the pillars of Gibraltar the two lines through the S. Additionally, Mexico had the first printing press in the Americas, all American wine comes from Mexico which had the first winery/vineyard also (1596). Mexico had the first university before the pilgrims even stood at Plymouth. Mexico would have succeeded in rebuilding its monarchical form of government with a descendant of the former ruling house of the Mexican kingdom on its throne (Habsburgo). But the Americans certainly did their magic on the whole thing, “losing” weapons at the border and meddling in others affairs.
Amazing video as always.
Largely because they’re a completely different culture and we knew that there’d constantly be regional separatism going forward.
It also used to be different before the European came
@OtterMarten Unfortunately that was sabotaged like he said in the video.
Another person who doesn't use the word completely correctly.
@OtterMarten What/where is Tamico? I looked it up and couldn't find anything
Nicholas Trist is one of the most honarable men who has ever existed in this world and he should be remembered that way
Polk: "You're fired."
Trist: "What if I wasn't?"
Polk: you're fired!
Triss: oh no, anyway...
I teach about the Mexican War to my Dual Credit US History class in two weeks. This video is now apart of my slideshow notes. Gracias!
School is obsolete in most cases, except that they're businesses, and most people are stupid so they believe taht you can't teach something unless you have a paper saying yuo can teach it. So how did the first man to get his degree, get his degree, if we need them to be correct or good at anything?
@@scintillam_dei L+Bozo
Well you'll want to add alot of context
@@scintillam_dei My guy I'm really not sure what you think is gonna happen by telling that to a teacher. What do you expect them to do?
@@cwovictor3281 I'm a teacher too. I'm honest enough to admit that school is obsolete in many cases.
This video is like watching a very good South Park episode.
Would love to see a part 2 about the Gadsden Purchase! :)
It was basically because the US wanted to build a southern railroad across the US and the land in that part of the US was full of mountains, while there was some land a bit south that was more suitable.
@@scoobiusmaximus9508 Thanks, but I was asking for the channel owner's take, not a wiki cut-n-paste ;)
1:13 many politicians today still have this as their biggest issue
As a Mexican studying history, I smiled stupidly when he said "They were seen as... different".
But yeah... That was a smart decision. I would have also taken the northern territories but no Yucatan. Yucatan is... uh... lots of Mayans. It was hard even for us who were a bit more open to indians.
Mayans were all wiped out by the Spanish who coughed on them. Smallpox was devastating to peope who didn't have vaccination.
Except what I just typed is sarcastic, proving vaccination is overrated, and history proves this. Also, Spain committed no genocide. See my series on the overrated British Empire for more.
The Americans would probably kill off most of them and stick the rest into reservations
bruh
@@bjarniiii even today that whole Southern region is a bit unstable at times. Expensive to maintain and not much value in it.
Until recently most people there considered themselves more Native than mixed race like the rest of Mexico. Plus it's often forgotten infrustructure wise by the government due to the reasons above.
Because we have huge neighbors people forget Mexico is a big country in its own right, and has had many problems keeping it all together. I think most states have tried to separate at one point.
Well yeah but if americans took it over, there wouldnt be any indians left
Damn. When Mexicans come to California, they are basically coming to former Mexican territories. Pretty cool.
No. It's not "cool" at all.
@@noco7243what's we do except go, huh, this would have been Mexico in an alternate time line? In that sense, it is actually cool
@@noco7243es el karma bro
Love your vids! They are great!
James “I guess it’s okay if you secede” Buchanan is incredible writing
I was thinking about Baja California the other day. I guess it's very important to Mexico, as it rather "protects" much of their west coast.
Would've been moot had those in Washington gotten the original demand and received everything north of the Mazatlan-Tampico line
@OP: Good point.
Nah not really; there’s lot of economic importance due to Tijuana being at the other side of San Diego.
I was born in Mexicali, the actual capital of Baja California -it’s a “Why is Albany and not NYC the capital of New York?” situation-; so I have an idea of the topic.
But you’re making the wrong assumption that our military is actually able to defend our country.
If for some reason someone invaded us, we would definitely ask for American aid; and the Americans would say yes because they see us as their “backyard” and they don’t want more Hispanics up north -both things being insulting but true-
@@davidandremelchorzavala2100 Esto es un escenario más irreal que la mierda, el único que nos invadiría es Estados Unidos y si eso pasara; dado el estatus neutral de México con el mundo ( Estados Unidos y México NO son aliados, solo socios comerciales ), China y Rusia saltarían a darnos armas a lo loco dado que nunca desperdiciarían la oportunidad de tener armas en la frontera de su mayor rival geopolítico, en todos los escenarios de invasión a México por los Estados Unidos, Estados Unidos pierde.
Not really, there are not many important ports around there, no much population, no easy route to the capital.
The real entry point from the pacific is Acapulco
This Trist guy is an absolute legend. Letting the Americans win a war and then completely troll them as to the end result
Na, f*ck Trist. The guy ignores the point of war - getting land. America should've annexed all of Mexico, then annex Canada, then annex all of the Americas.
Nicholas Trist sound like a decent man.
Ulysses Grant who fought as a junior officer in the War wrote in his autobiography that the War was unjustified. Not annexing Mexico probably saved the United States. The annexation would have been catastrophic. The US would still be fighting civil wars there, and it probably would have torn the nation apart.
imagining a US civil war including Mexico is... fun.
if the Dixies seceded, Mexico would have tried seceding as well, but would the conflict end up a messy free for all or would there be backroom dealings between the Mexicans and one of the two other sides? could Mexico use the opportunity to sap both sides' strength for a chance at reclamation?
Yeah indeed. Civil wars are caused by different ideologies, and annexing a whole population would have brought more unstability to the United States
That would’ve been a net gain for the entire world then, no US? Much better world
@@ericktellez7632 Yeah sure. HItler or the Bolsheviks would have triumphed in Europe. There would have been no Marshall Plan.Democracy would have vanished from the world, and some clueless guy named Erick Tellez would be happy.
@@trajan75 fewer Johns in the world = no nazis, have you thought about that though
How did the Mexican Government treat the Native Americans in the, now, US territories?
🤔
I've visited some of the reservations that were once Mexico and never thought about that, till now.
Also murder, which is why Geronimo waged war against them.
The Mexican goverment was bad with the natives, thats the reason of a lot of rebeliones. Like la guerra de castas, la guerra del Yaqui, las guerras apaches, las guerras comanches, etc. And the reason whay the natives fight for the french in the Second french Mexican war.
@Trump lost, move on exactly 💯
Pretty much the same but everyone got mixed eventually where as in the US you don't see much mixing between the natives
@@marioelburro1492 a lot of gringos mixed with Indians, wtf are you talking about?
Missed opportunity
@bernardm_88Of course a Neo Confederate loser would say that.
The kings commanded the Spartan army, however how did the average soldier rise to the rank of admiral?
I would assume that the soldier would first have to leave the army to join the navy to become a sailor. That would probably be step 1
@@Wasthere73 true, however it is barely if ever depicted how a Spartan becomes a sailor, let alone an admiral
Personally IDK, but it's plausible for such Army Centric place as Sparta that Navy.... was part of the Army. Subordinate unit that was needed sometimes. But IDK. I guess I could research though.
@@jannegrey They did have a navy(although it wasn’t very potent). This navy included admirals, if you wanna find out there names there’s a whole Wikipedia article on Spartan admirals
kick enough people down wells that you can stand on a raft of them. ;)
Polk: "You're fired."
Trist: "Oh no! Anyway..."
The US did gain a number of future Pacific facing ports, San Francisco, San Diego and Monterey etc.
We don't acknowledge the existence of L.A
The gringos ruined California and made it so bad that there's an exodus today, of libterals who can't stand liberal policies. Everyone who believes in dumbocracy (a bandwagon fallacy) is a nonfreethinking liberal. So all Republicans are actually liberals, by a higher standard than their shitty one.
I’ve always thought it was odd they didn’t take the Baja peninsula with the CO river as the border.
You should talk about this war more often. The Monterrey battle was unique, the Mexicans won but they didn't finish the Americans, so Polk sent another battalion and won the whole war
Polk: We want all this land.
Trist: Best I can do is half of that.
Better than nothing