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Content: Mexico
surrendered all claims to Texas and gave up a vast territory known as the
Mexican Cession. The territory in the Mexican Cession eventually became the
present day states of California, Nevada, Utah, and parts of Arizona, Colorado,
and New Mexico. The U.S. agreed to pay Mexico $15 million and take over payment
of the damages claimed by Americans against Mexico. The
U.S. promised in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo to grant full citizenship
rights to Mexicans living in the Mexican Cession, and to respect religious
beliefs and property rights. With the Gadsden purchase in 1853 (a strip of land
in southern Arizona and New Mexico), the U.S. had acquired all of Mexico’s
territory north of the Rio Grande. Americans
who settled in the new territories did not respect the rights of 80,000 Mexicans
living there. Many of them lost their land and property and were transformed
from prosperous landowners into poor laborers in mines, or on railroads. Many
became field hands. The Mexican government was shattered by the defeat and could
do little to protect the rights of its former citizens except protest. The
Mexican government was very unstable after the war and Mexico began to focus on
its internal struggles rather than on its entry into the world marketplace.