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УДК 94(72/73)
Т. В. Пантюхина
АМЕРИКАНО-МЕКСИКАНСКАЯ ГРАНИЦА: ИСТОРИЯ ФОРМИРОВАНИЯ В КОНТЕКСТЕ КОНТИНЕНТАЛЬНОЙ ЭКСПАНСИИ США XIX ВЕКА
В статье освещается история формирования государственной границы между США и Мексикой в XIX веке в контексте внешней политики США, а также история освоения территорий, которые составляют приграничье современных США и Мексики. Основным направлением американской внешней политики XIX века была континентальная экспансия. Расширяя свои пределы за Запад, по направлению к тихоокеанскому побережью, США сталкивались с интересами европейских государств, прежде всего Испании, имевших колонии на континенте. Первое разграничение испанских владений и территории США на юго-западе континента было оформлено договором 1819 г Появившаяся в 1821 г. на карте Мексика унаследовала от Испании свои границы с США. Однако мексиканское приграничье, в особенности Техас, являлось объектом притязаний американских экспансионистов. После аннексии Техаса граница между Мексикой и США оставалась неопределенной в связи с претензиями обеих сторон на обширные территории между реками Нуэсес и Ри-о-Гранде. Пограничный конфликт стал поводом к войне 1846-1848 гг., в результате которой США
отвоевали более половины территории Мексики. Мирный договор Гуадалупе-Идальго 1848 г закрепил новые границы США, расширенные за счет мексиканских земель. Завершающим этапом формирования границы в ее современных очертаниях стала покупка мексиканской территории между реками Колорадо и Рио-Гранде в 1853 г Приграничные территории, независимо от нахождения в составе Мексики или США, оставались слабозаселенными вплоть до сер. XIX века и фактически контролировались индейскими племенами, причем индейское население преобладало. После военного разгрома Команчей и Апачей в 1870-80-х гг. этно-расовая панорама приграничья подверглась радикальным изменениям. К концу века доминирующие группы населения приграничья составляли мексиканцы (по мексиканскую сторону границы) и смешанные сообщества американцев европейского и мексиканского происхождения (по американскую сторону).
Ключевые слова: американо-мексиканская граница, США, Мексика, Техас, территориальная экспансия.
T. V. Pantyukhina
THE US-MEXICO BORDER: THE HISTORY OF SHAPING IN THE CONTEXT OF THE US CONTINENTAL EXPANSION IN THE XIX CENTURY
The paper features the history of shaping the state border between the USA and Mexico in the XIX century in the context of the US foreign policy as well as the history of colonization of the territories which now make up the borderland region of present-day Mexico and the USA. The main trend of American foreign policy in the XIX century was continental expansion. Pushing its boundaries westward, towards the Pacific, the USA confronted European powers which had their colonies on the continent. The first demarcation between Spanish colonies and the US territory was defined by the Treaty of 1819. Mexico, which won independence in 1821, inherited its borders with the USA from Spain. Nevertheless, Mexican borderland, Texas in particular, was a long standing objective of American expansionists. After annexation of Texas
the US-Mexico border remained unspecified due to the fact that both countries claimed vast spaces between the Nueces and Rio Grande Rivers. The borderland dispute ignited 1846-1848 War, as a result of which the US gained over half Mexican territories. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848 defined the extended American border. The purchase of Mexican territory between Colorado and Rio Grande Rivers in 1853 completed the formation of the current US-Mexico border. Irrespective of belonging to either Mexico or the US the borderlands remained underpopulated till the middle of the XIX century. In fact, the territories were dominated by the Indians. After the military defeat of the Comanches and the Apaches in the 1870-80s the borderlands underwent rapid and radical demographic transformation. By the end
of the XIX century the region changed from a zone dominated by indigenous people to a region totally controlled by a newly arrived non-Spanish Europeans.
Key words: the US-Mexico border, the USA, Mexico, Texas, territorial expansion.
The region that today constitutes the United States-Mexico borderland has evolved through various systems of occupation over thousands of years. Beginning in time immemorial, the land was used and inhabited by ancient peoples whose cultures can only be understood through the ar-cheological record and the beliefs of their living descendants. Many of the languages once spoken there are now lost and irretrievable, though in the Border States on the US side alone, people still speak more than fifty languages, not including Spanish and English.
After Spanish explorers opened the door to Hispanic settlement in the XVII-th century, the Spanish were still drastically outnumbered by Native peoples who forged alliances and warred with one another. This demographic imbalance persisted well into the XVIII-th and XlX-th centuries. Even after Mexico became independent it could not dominate Comanches, Apaches and other Indians. Mexicans were greatly outnumbered by Native people in the borderland, who controlled most territory in there.
The border itself was not clearly defined and remained so until the early XIX-th century. In 1819 the USA and Spain signed the Adams-Onis (or Transcontinental) Treaty, which defined a boundary stretching across the continent of North America: from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean. The line began on the Gulf, at the mouth of the Sabine River, continuing north along the western bank of that river, then running along the Red River and the Arkansas River. Then the line stretched from the source of the Arkansas River to the north up to the 42-nd parallel and further along the parallel to the Pacific [12, p. 254-256].
The Republic of Mexico, which became independent from Spain in 1821, inherited its northern border from its colonial past. Officially Mexican-American boundary was defined by the Treaty of 1828 (ratified in 1832) in strict accordance with the 1819 line [13, p. 372-376].
The Treaties with Spain and Mexico didn't mean that Americans considered their southern boundaries as fixed and unchangeable. Westward expansion was a key trend of American foreign policy in the 1-st half of the XIX century. Here are some key points of early US continental expansion.
When the United States signed the peace treaty with Great Britain in 1783, its borders were the Mississippi River to the west, Canada to the north,
and Florida to the south. The first major enlargement was made in 1803. President Thomas Jefferson bought the huge swath of territory (827,987 square miles) between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains - the region called Louisiana. He doubled the size of the country with a stroke of a pen. The next step was Spanish Florida. After American military invasion to Florida in 1818 Spain lost control over the territory and had to sell Florida to the USA under Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819.
The Louisiana Purchase and the Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819 were all outgrowths of American expansionist tendencies.
The Monroe doctrine of 1823 claimed the Western Hemisphere as the area of American dominance, an area destined for control by the US [9, p. 304-305].
For 30 years after the doctrine was announced American foreign policy was concerned exclusively with the Western Hemisphere. In particular, the US was vitally interested in acquiring all the land between the Louisiana Purchase and the Pacific Ocean.
The movement to push the country's boundaries to the Pacific peaked during the 1840-s. In 1845 journalist John O'Sullivan coined the phrase "manifest destiny". He wrote that it was "our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for ... our yearly multiplying millions" [10, p. 795-798].
The phrase "manifest destiny" quickly became part of the American vocabulary. It implied that America's expansionist drive was both inevitable and divinely blessed. Americans were convinced that the USA was the greatest country on earth, with a special role to play in the world. They ideal-istically believed that westward expansion would extend American democracy and would bring American system of government to less fortunate people. Of course, such idealism was self-serving. It also implied racism. Mexicans and Central and South Americans were seen as inferior, fit to be controlled and conquered.
Among the long standing objectives of expansionists was Mexican Texas. At that time Texas was much bigger than the present-day state. Besides Texas itself it included parts of present-day Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico. The Texas issue was in the centre of Mexican-American relations. Soon after the
Louisiana Purchase president Thomas Jefferson claimed that Texas was an integral part of the Louisiana territory. The claim was absolutely groundless. Still it was brought up again during the Spanish-American demarcation of 1819 and the following ratification of the Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819 in the US Senate. In the period from Mexico's independence in 1821 till Texas rebellion in 1835 the American government made an offer to purchase Texas four times (in 1825, 1827, 1829 and 1835). But the Mexican government was not inclined to sell their land and refused to even negotiate the issue [1, p. 66].
Mexico tried to form a buffer zone at the border that could prevent possible invasion from the North. Texas was sparsely populated with fewer than 4,000 inhabitants. In the 1820-s Mexico passed a series of "colonization" laws meant to augment thin Mexican population in the borderland, still greatly outnumbered by Native people. The Mexican government encouraged their citizens to settle in the region. It even offered inexpensive land to immigrants from the United States with the aim of populating the area. In order to encourage immigration to the region Mexico gave grants of land to empresarios (land agents) who brought in settlers from the US. The government of Mexico recognized that it could not keep Americans out of empty lands. So it preferred to at least control those who came to Texas.
The first of these land grants went to American land agents Moses and Stephen Austin, who promised to bring in 300 American families as permanent settlers. Americans were offered land virtually free. Austin's success in attracting acceptable settlers led the Mexican government to open its doors to more immigrants. As a result, thousands of Americans, attracted by reports of rich land for planting cotton, streamed into Texas. In order to incorporate these settlers and ensure that they cut ties with their former home in the United States, Mexican law required that they swear allegiance to the Republic of Mexico and become Mexican citizens as well as convert to Catholicism and learn Spanish. They were forbidden from settling within seventy miles of the US-Mexico border. However, the Mexican government was not strong enough to enforce those laws and most of the immigrants in Texas did not "Mexicanize." They settled wherever they wanted and continued speaking English. In large areas of the province English was the only language spoken. American settlers ignored local laws and oppressed local Mexicans. They continued practicing Protestantism, and conducting most of their trade with the United States. By 1835, the population of An-
glo-Texans outnumbered the Mexican-Texans ten to one [5, p. 56].
The Mexican authorities took alarm at the flood of American settlers and their independent ways. In 1830 Mexican government banned further immigration from the USA but the new law didn't stop strangers from coming. Settlers fought with Mexican troops, settled illegally, and began to demand some privileges of self-government. When the Mexican government attempted to tighten its control over the region, a rebellion erupted (1834).
The rebellion lasted 6 months and consisted of two major battles, the first of which - the battle of Alamo - is worth mentioning as it created one of the most dramatic tales of bravery in American history.
In the small town of San Antonio there was an old Spanish mission of Alamo. And there, a force of only 200 men, American Texans, held off 5,000 Mexican troops for 13 days. All the defenders of Alamo died in the battle. Among them there were legendary frontiersmen Dave Crockett and Jim Bowie. Although the defense of the Alamo was a foolhardy military tactic, it created one of the most dramatic legends in national mythology. "Remember Alamo!" became the Texan's rallying cry [11, p. 518-519].
In 1836 Texas won independence. Mexican troops were defeated and President Santa Anna was taken prisoner. He was forced to sign the Treaty of Velasco recognizing the Republic of Texas. The treaty fixed the new republic's southern and western boundaries - at the Rio Grande (boundaries which had formerly been at the Nueces River). The change gave Texas a great deal of new territory. In response to the Treaty Mexican congress deposed President Santa Anna and renounced the Treaty of Velasco which he had signed.
After winning independence Texas soon sought annexation to the USA. To many Texans an independent republic was but a means to join the Union. The new republic sent an envoy to Washington to ask for annexation to the USA. Initially, the United States declined to incorporate it into the union, largely because northern political interests were against the addition of a new slave state.
In 1836 Texas congress passed the law which established the state boundaries of the Republic unilaterally. The Texas-Mexico boundary line began at the mouth of the Sabine River, running west of the Gulf to the mouth of the Rio Grande, thence up the Rio Grande to its source. Then the line ran straight to the north to the 42-nd parallel thence along the border line as defined in the US-Spain treaty of 1819.
Texas claims to such an immense territory (over 1 million square km) were not corroborated by either historic background or real power to control. Primordial Texas territory included just 3 districts. The western boundary traditionally lay along the Nueces River, it never stretched up to the Rio Grande. Therefore, the Republic of Texas claimed the territories of other Mexican states, including the city of Santa Fe, the capital of New Mexico. In reality Texans were unable to control such a vast space. All their attempts to institute control over the territories failed.
After Texas winning independence American southern boundary fell into three parts. The eastern part bordered Texas. The western part bordered Mexico. As for the central part, its status was unclear. Official documents didn't cast light upon what exactly Americans thought about which country they bordered in the disputable part: Mexico or Texas. Even Convention for marking the boundary between the US and Texas (1838) avoided the question about the disputable part [2, p. 125; 3, p. 511].
In 1844 the issue of Texas annexation came up on the American political agenda. It was still a highly explosive issue but by that time the control over American foreign policy was in the hands of southern expansionists, who were ready to risk facing both home and foreign complications for the sake of acquiring new lands. In 1845 Texas was admitted to the union. The Congress passed the joint resolution, and the President approved it on March, 1, 1845 [6, p. 797-798; 8, p. 148].
Up until the annexation the Mexican government continued to insist that Texas was not an independent nation but was simply in rebellion. After the annexation Mexico immediately broke off diplomatic relations with the USA. War loomed.
The pretext upon which the United States declared war on Mexico was a border dispute. The two countries did not agree on which river the international boundary lay: the Rio Grande or the Nueces. In other words, the dispute was over Texas boundaries, which were not officially defined. Texans had fixed their southern and western borders at the Rio Grande, under the Treaty of Velas-co forced on Mexican president Santa Anna. But Mexico still insisted that the southern boundary was at the Nueces, a river 150 miles farther north. Although unable to reclaim all of Texas, Mexico clung to this piece of territory, known as the Nueces Strip.
In July 1845, American President Polk ordered troops into disputed territory that lay between the Rio Grande and the Nueces rivers. He knew that Mexico would view it as a provocation. Actually,
he would have preferred to buy land from Mexico. Later that year, Polk sent a diplomat to Mexico with an offer to purchase California and New Mexico and to settle the boundary dispute. The mission failed. The Mexican government refused to even receive the American diplomat. After that, the US army moved to the mouth of the Rio Grande River, which the state of Texas claimed as its southern boundary.
Mexico considered the advance of American army an act of aggression and in turn sent troops across the Rio Grande (April, 1846). On May 11, 1846, President Polk asked Congress for the declaration of war on the grounds that Mexican military had shed American blood on American soil. Two days later the USA declared war.
The US-Mexican War, known in Mexico as the North American Invasion, was extremely unequal. By any objective measure Mexico was almost destined to lose. Mexico's central government was weak and unstable. The little army was undersup-plied, untrained and undisciplined. The national treasury was empty. The government's efforts to collect money for the war effort only inspired fierce resistance and further rebellion [7, p. 3].
The war was quick, brutal, and thoroughly successful for Americans. It ended in 1848 with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which gave the US the territories of New Mexico and California. These include the territories of 5 present-day American states: New Mexico, California, Nevada, Utah and Arizona. The Treaty also defined the Rio Grande River as the southern and western border of Texas. So, all controversy over Texas and the disputed territory between the Rio Grande and the Nueces were abandoned [14, p. 926-928].
The results of the war for the USA were both positive and negative. The winner gained 525,000 square miles (1,360,000 square km) of land, which completed American continental expansion in the 1840-s. It also secured outlets for trade all along the Pacific coast. Last but not least, Americans acquired valuable natural resources. Compared to later wars, the costs to the USA in lives and money were small (13,000 dead). The negative consequence of the war was the intensification of the sectional conflict over the expansion of slavery to the new territories seized in the war.
The results of the war for Mexico were devastating. It lost over half its territory and 50,000 men [4, p. 360].
The costs of the war to Mexican-American relations were high, too. Mexican losses, coupled with the racial prejudice Americans displayed toward the Mexicans embittered Mexicans against their aggressive North American neighbour and left a long-term legacy of mistrust and enmity.
The implications of the war also ignited political firestorms in both countries that resulted in civil wars over a decade later. Mexicans fought over who was to blame for their devastating loss and how to recover whereas US leaders debated whether to allow slavery to spread into their new territories. American Civil War hero and president Ulysses Grant later reflected: "The Southern rebellion was largely the outgrowth of the Mexican War. Nations, like individuals, are punished for their transgressions." [7, p. 4].
In 1853 the Gadsden Purchase completed the formation of the current US-Mexico border. The immediate cause of the purchase was the construction of a railroad system. A survey of possible routes for an intercontinental railroad found that the shortest southern route lay across Mexican territory south of the Gila River. James Gadsden, an American envoy to Mexico, was sent to negotiate a treaty. In 1853 he purchased 45,000 square miles of the southern Arizona desert for $10 million [15, p. 1031-1037]. The US Senate approved the Treaty quickly while in Mexico it was very unpopular because Gadsden had obtained the agreement by threats of force [4, p. 375-376]. The only reason why the Mexican government agreed to cede the land was its desperate financial situation.
The Treaty of 1853 signified the completion of the process of American-Mexican boundary formation. For a short period of time (1821-1853) Mexico ceded to the USA 2,5 million square km, or 55 % of its territory. On the other hand, the USA expanded its territory tremendously. Vast land acquisitions were the result of American expansionist policies which combined military force, diplomatic means and private initiative exercised by colonists and land agents.
The Treaty of 1853 closed out a period of dramatically rapid growth for the USA. Less than a century after winning independence from the British Empire, the United States had gone far in creating its own empire extending across the continent to the Pacific, to the 49th parallel on the Canadian border, and to the Rio Grande in the south. Having transformed a group of sparsely settled colonies into a continental power of immense potential, many Americans thought the achievement stunning. It was for them proof that God had chosen the United States to grow and flourish.
As for the borderland, the United States, having greatly improved its strategies and weapons during the US-Mexican War, emerged as an undisputed military power in the region. It had won a nearly 300-year-old contest for the lands between the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean and started to consolidate the power through political
incorporation. Texas became a state first, in 1845. Next, California was admitted to the union in 1850. Arizona and New Mexico became states in 1912.
In a few decades after the War the borderland experienced a huge demographic transformation. After the war the US and Mexican governments had to decide what to do with about 100,000 Mexicans living in what had become the United States. The members of the stranded population were given a choice. They could relocate to Mexico and maintain their Mexican citizenship. Another option was to remain in the USA retaining Mexican citizenship. Finally, the people could stay in the United States and eventually gain US citizenship [7, p. 5]. The majority elected to stay and try their chances in the United States. Under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo Mexicans in the USA were granted the privileges and immunities of citizenship. In reality they confronted discrimination and violations of their civil and property rights. They became an ethnic minority and did not enjoy the same constitutional protections as did the dominant population. Hundreds of summary executions, extrajudicial killings, and outright lynchings of Mexicans were common.
Mexicans played an important role in settling and developing the southwest of the United States. The former Mexican citizens who stayed in the transferred territories and Mexican immigrants provided labor as well as local knowledge about farming, ranching and mining techniques. They built canals and railroads, mined the earth for gold, silver and copper and set up homesteads, farms and ranches. Mexicans worked and mixed with people from all over the USA, Europe and China. In the former Mexican territories these various groups of population encountered, comingled, and competed with each other [7, p. 5-6].
On the Mexican side of the new international boundary political leaders were determined to fortify what remained of their northern frontier. Once again they turned to immigration as the solution. The Mexican government set up a series of repatriation programs to encourage displaced citizens to "return to the homeland" hoping that this group of migrants returning from the United States with negative experiences would feel anti-American and therefore loyal to Mexico. They would serve as better barriers and agents of civilization than the pre-war Anglo-American immigrants [5, p. 5]. As a Mexican official wrote in 1855, "there can certainly be no better colonists for our borders, than those instructed with hard experience, as with the falsehood of encouraging promises that the Americans are used to making to those . . . found in the most intimate contact with them." [5, p. 78-79].
This time Mexico's immigration policy was more successful than in the 1830-s. About 25 percent of people of Mexican origin from California, New Mexico and Texas moved back to Mexico in the four decades following the War [5, p. 225]. Those repatriates provided an important source of labor for railroads, mines and farms in the underpopulated regions of northern Mexico.
As for Native Americans, their situation was even more tragic than that of Mexicans. For about thirty more years, Indians fought both the Mexican and American governments. Eventually, they lost because of demographic shift at their borders,
decimation of the bison, and advanced military technology. They were finally military defeated in the 1870s (the Comanches) and in the 1880s (the Apaches). The Indians got a status of wards of the state on reservations without formal citizenship.
The demographic transformation of the borderlands was extremely rapid and radical. In only two or three generations in the middle of the XIX-th century the area changed from a zone dominated by indigenous people, though formally belonging to Mexico, to a region totally controlled by a newly arrived non-Spanish Europeans.
Источники и литература / References
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