The Mexican American War

Section I: Evaluation To what extent has foreign influence by the United States after the Mexican-American War affected Mexico socially and economically? The Mexican-American War took place from 1846 to 1848 and was the first war that the United States had fought mainly on foreign land. It was caused by the United States’ policy of Manifest Destiny, where the American citizens and President James Polk wanted to expand their nation by annexing Texas in 1845 and disputing that Texas ended at the Rio Grande while Mexico claimed that it stopped at the Nueces River. This war, in which the United States came out victorious, resulted in the United States gaining more than 500,000 square miles of Mexican land which extended from the Rio Grande to
It’s purpose is also to inform us on the causes and outcomes of The Mexican-American War, more specifically to inform Mexican students on this important event since it’s a chapter from a Mexican textbook. This source also helps us understand the political, social, and economic status of Mexico at the time of American immigration. It a well informs us on the causes that led up to the Mexican-American War and how it helped the United States grow at Mexico’s expense. Another thing that this source covers are the consequences that both nations had to deal with due to the war. However, Mexico had much more losses than gains due to this
For example, in the article written by Dr. Gayle Olson-Raymer, it states that “besides the thousands of military and civilian deaths during the battles, the war left tens of thousands of orphans, widows, and disabled” (Olson-Raymer). The Mexican-American War also made cities of Mexico suffer great losses and destruction due to small-arms gunfire and cannons. In addition to these tragedies, the war caused Mexico to lose half of it’s nation and to later find out that in early 1848, the year that the war had ended, one of the territories which is now the state of California had a total of two billion dollars worth of gold. According to Dr. Gayle Olson-Raymer another way Mexico was socially affected was by “the Mexican population suffering from severe psychological damage and by their national dignity and honor being shattered largely due to the humiliation of having their capital and much of the country occupied by enemy troops and the horror of a peace treaty that cost Mexico half of its national territory. Consequently, a deep and long-lasting feeling of resentment toward Americans arose within much of