Title: Everything You Need to Know About the Mexico-United States Border - HISTORY
Headings: Everything You Need to Know About the Mexico-United States Border
Everything You Need to Know About the Mexico-United States Border
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Content: The secession of Texas in 1836, however, marked the beginning of the loss of Mexican territory that would become the present-day U.S. Southwest. The War with Mexico
U.S. President James K. Polk captured the White House in 1844 on a pledge to fulfill America’s “Manifest Destiny” to stretch from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. Relations with Mexico deteriorated after the United States annexed Texas in 1845. When Mexico refused an American offer to purchase California and New Mexico for $30 million, Polk dispatched 4,000 troops into land north of the Rio Grande and south of the Nueces River claimed by both countries. Following a Mexican cavalry attack in the disputed territory on April 25, 1846, that left 16 American soldiers dead or wounded, the United States declared war on Mexico. After a series of bloody battles and sieges, American forces captured the Mexican capital in September 1847. Under the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Mexico formally recognized the American annexation of Texas and agreed to sell more than one-third of its territory. For $15 million and the assumption of certain damage claims, the United States purchased more than a half million square miles that would encompass all or most of the future states of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada and Utah as well as portions of present-day Colorado, Wyoming, Oklahoma and Kansas. pinterest-pin-it
Map of Mexico with the new boundaries established by the Treaty of Guadalupe, 1848. ( Credit: