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Slavery: The Most Significant Cause Of The Mexican-American War

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In 1836, Texas secured its independence from Mexico following the Battle of San Jacinto and the signing of the Treaty of Velasco. Texas became an independent country, yet almost immediately began looking to join the United States. In 1845, the U.S. annexed Texas, making it the 28th state. The causes of the Mexican-American War were slavery, and America's greed for land and manifest destiny. Although slavery was an important cause, the most significant reason was the American belief in manifest destiny to expand to California and the Pacific. Slavery was one cause of the war. In Charles Summer's speech to the state legislature of Massachusetts, he states, ¨From which slavery has already been excluded, and with the object of extending slavery and strengthening the ¨Slave Power.¨ The growth of the slaves was from a power that supported slavery. Slave power is trying to gain control of other nations to spread slavery throughout the country. If the slaves moved more to the West they would be more powerful because they have more land. Another quote that Summer stated was, ¨By a powerful nation against a weak nation.¨ This is significant because …show more content…

In John O'Sullivan's article, ¨Annexation¨ he talks about manifest destiny was to spread over the continent. He makes it known that Texas is theirs by saying, ¨She is no longer to us a mere country on the map.¨ This explains that it was time for Texas to be known as something besides an alien. The painting ¨American Progress¨, by John Gast, shows an angel flying over the people leading them to the west. She is carrying light to the western frontier. In the painting, the western frontier is represented as dark and the angel is making it shine for them. She represents the freedom and enlightenment that Americans would bring to the west. This highlights why manifest destiny was the most significant reason for the Mexican-American

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Starting off with how Comanches, Kiowas, Navajos, and other Indian tribes increased their attacks on Northern Mexican settlements which led to countless raids. Some of the reasons that cause this war were boundary disagreements and Manifest destiny. Americans overall outnumbered Mexicans during this time, which an advantage to Americans. In addition, Mexicans were viewed in a bad way, they saw them as weak and not intelligent. In 1845, Texas was annexed to the United States, the war ended in 1848 with the Treaty of Guadalupe – Hidalgo.

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[When Texas was annexed, as part of the United States, Mexico and the United States had a disagreement on the border of Texas. The Mexican’s believed that the border was the Nueces River, while America believed that the border was the Rio Grande. This disagreement caused the war with Mexico in 1846. ] The United States was justified to go to war with Mexico.

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Also, Texas struggled economically after declaring independence from Mexico. Annexation to the United States was seen as an economic advantage to many Texans. They would be able to trade freely with other states within the Union, without paying tariffs if they joined the US. Therefore, boosting the economy of Texas and create jobs. Thus, many

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This is significant for both

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Polk still having in mind the idea about manifest destiny, thought that he had to defend Texas’ land and to do this he sent troops, but Mexico

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Manifest destiny also affected the relationship with Mexico. Several factors led to the Mexican- American War in 1846. The factors were that the U.S citizens were moving into California and Mexico. Since there were many revolutions happening in Mexico throughout this time period the Mexican government was not able to protect the U.S citizens in this region. Another factor was that Mexico was upset that Texas declared independence from them and then the U. S annexed Texas in 1845.

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In 1846, both Mexico and the United States were at fault for going to war. The main factor causing the conflict between the two countries was the disputed area, Texas. Texas won its freedom from Mexico in 1836. It then aspired to join itself to America. Problems arose as a result of Mexico's continued claim to the area.

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I agree with the statement: Slavery was the primary cause of the American Civil war, because some politicians wanted to abolish slavery in fear of the separation of the Union, also citizens in the northern states also were affected by slavery, and slavery also affected other races other that the blacks and the whites. The issue of slavery became a priority of the united states congress and thus the civil war began. The fear of the separation of the union was in the minds of many of the northern congressmen. For example in John C. Calhoun states in document A, “The agitation of the subject of slavery would, if not prevented by some timely and effective measure, end in disunion.”

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“Mexico attacks U.S territory, sixteen Americans were either wounded or killed” read the headlines on U.S weekly. After winning their independence from Mexico, Texas wanted to become a part of the U.S.A and not be an independent country anymore. Mexico did not like this, thinking it was their territory because of the agreement they made with the Texans in 1821. This agreement said that American settlers could move into Texas for a cheap price but they had to convert to Christianity and had to follow the rules of the Mexican government. The Texans did this for a little bit but then wanted their independence to become a new, free country.

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Slavery was the primary cause of the Civil War. It may not be completely responsible, nevertheless most of the other reasons the Civil War broke out were caused by the disagreements on slavery. For instance, the Confederacy breaking away from the Union may be a big part, if not entirely the reason the Civil War happened, but this was mostly a result of the South and North holding entirely different opinions on the topic of slavery. Overall, slavery caused a chain reaction that led to one of the bloodiest wars in the history of the United States. However, even now, there was almost nothing that could have prevented the war from happening, making the Civil War a necessary, blood soaked, chain of events forever engraved in our nation’s history.

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Slavery is one of the top reasons as they felt like they didn’t need Mexico anymore. Throughout the time there was many battles fought against each other in many cities in Texas. Many battles were won by Mexico since their army was bigger than what Texas had at the time. The Texans felt that they could be their own state since they had all the necessities to survive their own economy and felt that with all the slave they had they could do a lot more. A lot of Texans and people from the United States wanted to help out Texas get its independence from Mexico which is what caused battles like in the Alamo.

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Once again, Anglo settlers were outnumbering the Tejanos in Texans, therefore fulfilling Manifest Destiny. (Tejanos are Spanish speaking Texans/Mexicans.) Furthermore, the newcomers saw Mexicans as inferior, and expected them to be inferior. Examples of this include Mexicans having to always formal with Americans, but Americans could be informal with Mexicans. Mexico wanting Texas reannexed led to the Battle of 1846.

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John Gast brings to light the idea of America expanding to the west in his painting. Some folks were unsure at the time, but John Gast believed it

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To a greater extent, slavery was the greatest cause of the outbreak of the civil war in 1860. Disputes of slavery caused economic and political troubles between the northern and southern states leading up to the civil war. The fact the the northern and southern states were different in almost every way caused them to turn out like completely different territories, one of their greatest differences was the fact that most southern states economy relied on hard labour, agricultural jobs like tobacco in Maryland, and cotton in Virginia; this caused their economy to be more based on the labour of slaves than the more developed territories in the north (Harrold), who after this time was starting to not need the slave labour in their territories because after early 1800’s, the industrial revolution had been spreading to America, and the country developed very quickly. But in this expansion, only the north states were getting the effect of the industrial revolution, meaning the north would not need slave

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INTRODUCTION Throughout the 1840s and 1850s a major war happened called the Mexican American War which drastically changed the U.S. and Mexico and lead to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo to be signed and which established the Rio Grande and not the Nueces River as the U.S Border. This also lead to the U.S. annexation of Texas and lead to the Mexico agreeing to sell California and the rest of the territory for 15 million. So you 're probably wondering why the war was fought but you 'll find that out later.

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