civil dissension and other troubles,
including an invasion by France at
Veracruz in 1838. In the first of many
comebacks, Santa Anna returned from
ignominy to lead the victorious expulsion
of the French. He lost part of his left leg
in the battle, but his peg leg served as a
badge of honor and helped win him
another period of dictatorship
(1841–1844).THE U.S.–MEXICAN WAR
While Mexico was occupied with
repelling the French, the Republic of
Texas, founded in 1836 with Sam
Houston as its first elected president, had
begun an independent existence. It
became known as the Lone Star Republic
for its flag with a single star, but the
ambition of many Texans, including
Houston, was to join the other stars of
the United States flag soon through
annexation. Some voices in the United
States called for annexation, but others
resisted. Texas would enter the Union as
a slave state, upsetting the already precar-
ious balance of free and slave states in
Congress. Further, annexation of Texas
would probably lead to war with Mexico,
since Mexico still claimed Texas as its
own. Eventually the United States did
annex Texas, and inevitably, war with
Mexico followed in a conflict called the
U.S.-Mexican War or, simply, the
Mexican War (1846–1848).The Buildup to War
The years 1836 to 1846 were tense ones
in the disputed borderlands that are now
the American Southwest. Texas was inde-
pendent and growing in population, but
plagued by debt and embroiled in wars
with Native Americans. Mexico did not
recognize the Lone Star Republic’s inde-
pendence, invading twice in 1842 but fail-
ing to capture any territory. Even if
Mexico had recognized Texas, the two
nations would have disagreed about
boundaries. Texas claimed, on the basis of
Santa Anna’s forced agreement with Sam
Houston, that the Rio Grande from
mouth to source was the republic’s south-
ern and western border, an assertion that
would have allotted Texas parts of whatare now New Mexico and Colorado.
Mexico argued that the southern border
of Texas since the time of Spanish rule had
been and still was the Nueces River, about
150 miles north of the Rio Grande.
Some Texans had even grander
notions of their republic’s extent, assert-
ing dominion as far as the California
coast. In 1841 Texan president Mirabeau
Buonaparte Lamar (1798–1859) sent an
expedition of 300 merchants and soldiers
to Santa Fe, not only to trade but to try to
convince the Nuevomexicanos to revolt
against Mexico. The expedition of these
so-called Santa Fe Pioneers was a disaster.
They became lost in the wilderness, suf-
fered attacks from Comanche and Kiowa,
and were finally captured by New
Mexico’s governor Manuel Armijo. The
would-be conquerors were marched to
Mexico City, from which they were
released only after American and British
protests.
Tensions rose not only between
Mexico and Texas but between Mexico
and the United States. In October 1842
American Commodore Thomas Catesby
Jones, acting on a rumor that war had
broken out, sailed to Monterey,
California, and forced the Mexican garri-
son there to surrender. The embarrassed
officer was forced to give Monterey back
the next day on learning that he had been
mistaken. The incident was a blunder, but
it raised Mexico’s suspicion of its neigh-
bor’s intentions.
Mexico had reason to be suspicious,
for California was becoming ever more
attractive to the United States. New
England shipowners were getting rich
on the maritime trade with the California
ports of Monterey and San Francisco.
New England whalers docked in those
ports on their hunting expeditions. In
1844 a treaty opened five Chinese ports
to American commerce, increasing the
importance of having Pacific harbors
available on the American mainland.
American merchants had much to trade,
because American manufacturing was on
the rise, as the country rebounded from a
depression that had lasted from 1837 to- Through immigration and natural
increase, the population of the United
States was burgeoning, nearly doubling
from 12.9 million in 1830 to 23.2 million
in 1850—and many of those people want-
ed nothing more than cheap land, no
matter how far west it lay. In addition to
88 ATLAS OF HISPANIC-AMERICAN HISTORY
Sam Houston (Library of Congress)“Texas, to be respected must be
polite. Santa Anna living, can
be of incalculable benefit to
Texas; Santa Anna dead, would
just be another dead Mexican.”— Sam Houston