| rdfs:comment | - When Texas won its independence in 1836, the US and Mexican governments fought politically over the status of the new Republic of Texas. France, the United States and Iberia had already recognized it, while Mexico, Britain, Russia, and Austria all refused to recognize the state. The Americans had also made very powerful pushes west, in a spirit they called Manifest Destiny, and they were threatening Mexico's land. The Mexican government of Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna clung to power by a slim thread as his political enemies gained ground, and he needed a scapegoat by which his government could hold onto power. He decided to turn his country's anger towards the expansive Americans.
|
| abstract | - When Texas won its independence in 1836, the US and Mexican governments fought politically over the status of the new Republic of Texas. France, the United States and Iberia had already recognized it, while Mexico, Britain, Russia, and Austria all refused to recognize the state. The Americans had also made very powerful pushes west, in a spirit they called Manifest Destiny, and they were threatening Mexico's land. The Mexican government of Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna clung to power by a slim thread as his political enemies gained ground, and he needed a scapegoat by which his government could hold onto power. He decided to turn his country's anger towards the expansive Americans. The United States seemed to many in Mexico an imminent threat, so much so that Santa Anna, whose country was on the brink of civil war, decided to paint the Americans as expansive beasts. Meanwhile, in America, the Mexicans seemed to be a nuisance in the South West that blocked America's standing dream of controlling land from "sea to shining sea," and that therefore many in Congress, and especially in their relations with Texas. To America, many saw it that all they had to do was fight a war with Mexico, and that it would be sufficient for connecting the country. While Mexico was clearly weakening, Santa Anna still kept a standing army to maintain order, while the American Army was undergoing a deep era of military reform that integrated the new system of railroads into the developing system. While America's military looked towards the future, the military of Mexico stagnated, as training quality decreased, foreign weapon suppliers could not be paid, and the Mexican government filled itself with corruption. Another big source of conflict was California, although it was owned by Mexico, it had been populated by Americans, and was swaying towards annexation by popular opinion to the US. The Mexicans could simply not keep a cap on the American immigration, and the independence and annexation movements they caused. Tensions continued to increase between the two sides as the American settlers clashed with the Mexican authorities that ran the territory. But while tensions rose in the west, in Texas, relations reached a heating point betweent the three main states vying for control, the United States, the United Mexican States, and the Republic of Texas. In 1845, Texas was annexed by the United States, and Mexico demanded the Americans relinquish their hold on Texas, when neither side backed down, Mexico declared war.
|
