The Mexicans made strong appeals to U.S. troops to switch sides, targeting immigrants and Catholics in particular. Their broadsides emphasized the injustice of the invaders’ cause in the eyes of "civilized people" and stressed what North American Catholics had in common with Mexican Catholics. Alluding to well-known riots by U.S. Protestant nativist mobs, a Mexican pamphlet asked, "Can you fight by the side of those who put fire to your temples in Boston and Philadelphia?" Mexico also offered land grants to opposing soldiers who would desert and claim them: two hundred acres for a private, five hundred for a sergeant. Together, the inducements and propaganda had an effect. The first shots in the war were fired on April 4, 1846, not between Mexican and U.S. troops, but by American sentries at an immigrant deserters swimming across the Rio Grande to the Mexican side…Among three hundred U.S. deserters, the great majority of them Catholics and/or immigrants, joined the Mexican army.
That is from the excellent What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848, by Daniel Walker Howe. The rate of desertion in the Mexican-American War was the highest in American history and twice that of Vietnam.
This is fascinating info and why I love “marginal revloution”; by the way, I always like to cite the Mexican War to those Lou Dobbs anti-Hispanic immigration types: it may be wrong to cross the border illegally, but it was just as wrong for the US to steal by force Mexico’s northern territories
Enrique, the US did not “steal by force” Mexico’s northern territories. Those lands were ceded by the perfectly valid treaties of Guadaloupe Hidalgo and Gasden Purchase.
Now you may try to argue that all war-ending treaties where the losing side loses land are “illegal”, but that would be an interesting position to take as it would invalidate almost all treaties. Maybe the US should give up its eastern half (“stolen” from Britain in the Treaty of Paris) and Mexico return Chiapas back to Guatemala (stolen in the 1840s to 1880s).
I propose giving back some of that stolen land and building a fence around it.
Lots of Irish immigrants fought for the Catholic side.
For what it’s worth, the telenovela adaptation of Ramona (starring Kate del Castillo) made Ramona’s father an Irish-American deserter named Angus O’Faill (in Helen Hunt Jackson’s original novel he was a wealthy Scottish shipowner named Angus Phail).
David –
let’s return to those high minded days of war for the improvement of humanity.
‘A joint session of Congress approved the declaration of war, with southern Democrats in strong support because they saw the annexation of Mexico as an opportunity to increase the number of slave states.’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican-American_War
Ooops – I guess a war to expand slavery through conquest doesn’t fit most people’s definition of making ‘the world a much better, more prosperous place.’
Oh well – better luck with the next war to improve the world.
My main complaint about the Mex-American war is that we didn’t take enough territory. I mean, come on, Baja California is rightfully ours.
It’s undeniable that the land under American rule has been more prosperous and productive than it was, or would have been, under Mexican rule.
Look, every country’s borders are the result of war, conquest and tribal conflict. The Mex-American War was just one that radically improved the world. And, as wars go, it was relatively quick and painless. A win-win.
So Anderson, what is your excuse for why the rest of Latin America isn’t “especially prosperous”?
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