MEXICO THE GREAT
“no city of the new continent, without even excepting those of the United States, can display such great and solid scientific establishments as the capital of Mexico”
Mexico City – Palace of Mines designed + built between 1793-1813
What lead Alexander Van Homboldt to write in 1804, “no city of the new continent, without even excepting those of the United States, can display such great and solid scientific establishments as the capital of Mexico.”?
let us begin….
The well-known US artists and architect I cite took their inspiration from both Mesoamerican and contemporary Mexican culture. They share with us, firsthand, a glimpse of the enormous richness of Mexican culture. Many other extraordinary Mexicans not included simply because I know not of a direct line of influence to peoples of the United States.
Before jumping into these artists and architect’s contributions having their foundation in Mexican culture, here’s a look at how almost 200 years ago Mexico became ½ it’s size while the United States doubled it’s land mass, having just doubled in size a little over 200 years ago with the Louisiana Purchase! Going back even further to the colonies, we took from the indigenous populations, driving them off their homelands. This habit of not integrating the indigenous population was unique to US in the Northern Hemisphere. Whereas Central and South America, infiltrated by the Spanish, integrated their population with Native Cultures.
But the 18th President of the US (1869-78) Ulysses S Grant’s religious faith influenced his policy towards Native Americans, believing that the “Creator” did not place races of men on earth for the “stronger” to destroy the “weaker”.
Grant wrote in his memoir on the Mexican-American War:
“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.”
The United States + New Spain before the Louisiana Purchase of 1803
New Spain (Mexico) 1819 Adams-Onis Treaty
THE GREAT USA LAND GRAB / MANIFEST DESTINY
Here, in the US we grow up assuming Mexicans are simple, uneducated migrant workers begging us for a better life. The sentiment being at all costs, when they are not toiling for us for migrant wages, we have to keep them south of the border. In the U.S. we are the ones who are not educated in the richness of Mexico’s history. Nor are we aware of our great land grab – taking over 1/2 of Mexico’s land mass to double our own size. Presently we lack an understanding of their post revolutionary drive, while unseating themselves from Spain’s rule, to move themselves as far away from the clutches of corporate culture as possible.
Political cartoon of the 1848 presidential election, in the aftermath of the Mexican War.
Half the landmass we are sitting on today was land we took from Mexico in 1848 in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo during their time of great weakness when they were pulling away from Spain, that we took from Mexico ½ its land mass. The States we now call New Mexico, California, Arizona, Texas, Colorado, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nevada, Utah and as far north as Wyoming - all these State names are either Spanish or Native American in origin - were scantily populated at the time Mexico was fighting its own war with Spain. Therefore they became an easy target for US to come in and claim the land as their own not only through mass settlements and the use of firearms but as South Carolina Senator John C. Calhoun put it: “the murder of Mexicans upon their own soil, or in robbing them of their country.”
Avenging our own deaths during the war from Mexican guerrilla warfare, the US indiscriminately targeted innocent townspeople, looting raping and killing Mexican civilians, including young boys - while burning their homes.
EAGLE MAP of US 1833 -before the great Mexican land grab
Here is an artist’s depiction of the National Symbol of the United States: the Bald Eagle. The Bald Eagle is a predatory bird and stands for strength, bravery and freedom. Although there are other varieties of eagles this one is only indigenous to the US. In 1782 this iconic image was placed on the Official US Seal.
– THE MEXICAN WAR 1848 –
When leadership in Mexico was changed at a rate of 48 times between 1825 and 1855, this period of Civil War with Spain and the Mexican-American War resulted in the loss of Mexico's northern territories to the United States.
For Mexico, the war remained a painful historical event for the country, losing territory and highlighting the domestic political conflicts that were to continue for another 20 years.
The military defeat and loss of territory was a disastrous blow to Mexico, causing the country to enter "a period of self-examination ... as its leaders sought to identify and address the reasons that had led to such a debacle." In the immediate aftermath of the war, a group of prominent Mexicans compiled an assessment of the reasons for the war and Mexico's defeat.
They wrote that for "the true origin of the war, it is sufficient to say that the insatiable ambition of the United States, favored by our weakness, caused it."
Mexico 1824 - Mexico 1848 US Land Grab - Cession in White
WELCOME TO OUR MANIFEST DESTINY - THE CIVIL WAR
Ralph Waldo Emerson, one of our most prominent writers as well as being a philosopher rejected the Mexican American War, toward the end of the war he wrote: "as a means of achieving America's destiny the United States will conquer Mexico, but it will be as the man swallows the arsenic, which brings him down in turn. Mexico will poison us."
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The Republican Congressional Committee described the war as "Feculent, reeking Corruption" and "one of the darkest scenes in our history—a war forced upon our and the Mexican people by the high-handed usurpations of President Polk in pursuit of territorial aggrandizement of the slave oligarchy." Polk felt that he could open these territories up to slavery thus having an upper hand on the amount of States that permitted slavery. For the first time he had the newly founded institution and mass disseminated ideas of the press behind him. (Before this only politicians would stand at their pulpit and expound on their political leanings and concepts.)
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Grant also expressed his view that the war against Mexico had brought punishment on the United States in the form of the American Civil War:
"The Southern rebellion was largely the outgrowth of the Mexican War. Nations, like individuals, are punished for their transgressions. We got our punishment in the most sanguinary and expensive war of modern times.”
These blog entries on MEXICO are a consolidation of various topics I’ve been researching for years. In order to offer you a fuller picture, I have included links to a couple of my references.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_Memoirs_of_U._S._Grant