Adams-Onis Treaty, 1919

Settlement and
Immigration
“We didn’t cross the border-the border crossed us.”
Spanish America, 16th Century
Northward Expansion, 1598 to
1769
Boundary between U.S. and New Spain (Mexico), 1819
Adams-Onis Treaty,
1919
USA: Continental Empire
“This federal republic has been born a pygmy, but
the day will come when it will be a giant and an
enormous colossus on those regions…then its first
steps will be seizing the Floridas in order to
dominate the Gulf of Mexico and once it has
obstructed New Spain’s trade, it will aspire to
conquer the vast empire, which will not be able to
defend itself against such a formidable power
established on the same continent and contiguous to
it.”
--Count of Aranda, 1783, Spain’s ambassador to France
Texas Breaks Away from Mexico
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1820-1836: Mexican Land Grants to
Settlers like Stephen Austin
Anglo squatters and illegal immigrants
Anglos outnumber Mexicans 6 to 1 in 1830
Mexico worries about Anglo loyalty
Anglos side with Federalists in Mexican
Civil War, 1834, and declare independence
in 1836 days before the Alamo battle.
The Texas Republic, 1836-1845
Manifest Destiny and War with
Mexico, 1846-48
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U.S. annexation of Texas in 1845
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Boundary Dispute a pretext for War
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Congress declares war on Mexico, Pres. Polk
declaring that Mexico "invaded our territory and
shed American blood upon the American soil.“
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, 1848 [text online]
Mexico Cedes One-Half of the Country to the
U.S., the current states of California, Nevada,
Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas—and parts
of Colorado, Oklahoma, Kansas and Wyoming
U.S.-Mexico Border
Gadsen Purchase, 1853
Marking the 2000-mile U.S.-Mexico
Border, 1889
Preserving the Southwest for
the White Race
Texas congressman John C. Box told the
House Immigration Committee in 1930
that the American people must decide
whether "to preserve the Southwest as a
future home for millions of the white race
or permit this vast region to continue to
be used, as it is now being used, as a
dumping ground for the human hordes of
poverty stricken peon Indians of Mexico."
The “Mexicanization” of the
Southwest
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"We must decide now before it is too late, whether
we wish the complete Mexicanization of this section
of our country with all which it implies—enormous
decreases in the value of all property…the complete
nullification of the benefits derived from the
restriction of European and the exclusion of Oriental
immigration; a lowering of our standards of morals
and of our political and social ideals; the creation of
a race problem that will dwarf the negro problem of
the South; and the practical destruction, at least for
centuries, of all that is worthwhile in our white
civilization.”
Economist Roy L. Garis his report to the House Immigration and
Naturalization Committee, 1930
Recent texts that recapitulate the fear of
Mexican immigration:
Peter Brimelow, Alien Nation: Common Sense About
America's Immigration Disaster (1996)
Patrick J. Buchanan, State of Emergency: The Third
World Invasion and Conquest of America (2006)
Victor Davis Hanson, Mexifornia: A State of Becoming
(2003)
Samuel Huntington, “The Hispanic Challenge,” Foreign
Policy (March/April 2004) (text online)