The Mexican-American War - Essay Example

Insert Introduction: The Mexican-American War The Mexican- American war, also called the Mexican war/ the U.S-Mexican war/ the invasion of Mexico/ the U.S intervention/ the United States War against Mexico (Guerra de Estados Unidos a Mexico)/ the war of Northern Aggression/ Spanish Guerra de 1847 that took place in Texas, New Mexico, California, Mexico City, Northern, Central and Eastern Mexico from April of 1846 to February 1848 was an armed conflict between President James K Polk’s U.S.A against a politically divided and militarily inferior Mexico. The U.S had an expansionist agenda that led to a border dispute along the Rio Grande causing wars that saw a number of U.

S victories. In the end Mexico lost nearly a third of its territory including the present day California, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada. The war ended with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo between the United States and Mexico in Guadalupe Hidalgo. It was negotiated by American diplomat Nicholas Trist in which America claimed around 500,000 square miles of new lands including Texas, California, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, parts of Wyoming and Colorado and in return Mexico got 15 million USD and a further 3.

25 million USD from America to pay off American citizens’ claims against the Mexican government. According to Eisenhower (1989), the northerners who were partial to free labor quarreled with the southerners who desired to expand slavery over the fate of the new lands. Congressman David Wilmot’s proviso that barred slavery in the new lands was supported by the northern Democrats but objected to by the southerners. These disagreements were sorted out in the compromise of 1850 that accepted California as a free state, ending slave trade in Washington D.

C, solving the boundary quarrel between Texas and New Mexico, easing Southerners ability to recapture fugitive slaves and formation of Utah and New Mexico regions with issues regarding slavery in each to be settled by popular sovereignty (Singletary, 1960). Works Cited Eisenhower, John. So far from God: the U.S. war with Mexico, 1846-1848. New York: Random House, 1989. Print. Singletary, Otis. The Mexican War. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960. Print.