- Back when the British
empire was colonizing all of this land, they drew a line. The line went right along
this little mountain range and it was meant as a boundary. Back in London, there were saying that no English settler was allowed to settle West of this line. The British empire did this
because they were worried that if settlers started
to expand into the West they would bring the British Empire into a war with native populations. They also didn't wanna
unnecessarily piss off France who also had land in the West. So they told their settlers to settle, but not pass this line. And then the settlers
completely ignored it. (upbeat music) These settlers would
eventually declare independence from Britain and start their own country. And from there the flood gates were open for westward expansion. - [Announcer] A frontier
people had remade a continent. Virtually all productive land
had been put to the plough. A free and independent
way of life prevail. (upbeat music) - This westward blitz
was made possible through the mass slaughter of people
who were living on this land, which this little time lapse ignores. How that all went down will be
the subject of another video. But right now I want to
talk about what happened when the U.S. got here. (upbeat music) It's the mid 1800s and
the U.S has 27 States and a bunch of territories in the West, but the country doesn't stretch from sea to shining sea quite yet. At this point, they start to bump in to the recently independent
country of Mexico. (upbeat music) The Northern part of Mexico
was called Tejas or Texas, and it was populated
mainly with native groups who had nothing to do
with the U.S. or Mexico. They had just been living
there for centuries. So Mexico is looking at this fairly new sparsely populated
part of their country and thinking what you know, what do we do with all this land? They want to incentivize people to go with and settle in this land so it would potentially be
more economically productive for the country of Mexico. So they made a plan. They started to rent huge swaths of land to American settlers so
that they would come in and settle the land. And then return, these American settlers would recruit more settlers
to come in and settle the land again, all with the hope that it would benefit Mexico's
economy eventually. It did exactly the opposite. American settlers fled into Texas onto this newly rented land, just as the Mexican government hoped for, but with them they brought slaves, which was totally illegal
in Mexico at the time. They also brought with them an attitude of independence and frontier fever. This American obsession with
moving West to settle new land. - [Narrator] The westward movement, was like a great title wave. The odd corners were rapidly engulfed. - Mexico soon realized that
this plan completely backfired and that the Americans that
had rented land from them were now not interested in having Mexico as their government. So Mexico sends in the
military to remind the settlers that they're still in Mexico and that they're technically
renting this land from Mexico. Well, this eventually escalated and they started to fight all out battles. And the American settlers lost. The big battle here was called
the Battle of the Alamo. This guy, David Crockett, who was like the symbol of Westward
expansion, died in this battle. And this loss spurred even more settlers to come to Texas and joined
the next fight against Mexico, which the American settlers won. And with that, they declared a new nation independent of Mexico,
the Republic of Texas. And now the map looks like this. A newly declared country
of American settlers in between Mexico and the United States. But not everyone actually agreed that the map looked like this. While Mexico conceded
that they lost the war. They disputed this map saying that the border of the
new Republic of Texas was actually here. And that all of this was still Mexico. So now you have a big land
dispute between Mexico and the Republic of Texas. Well soon it's 1845 and Texas becomes the 28th
state of the United States. And yet this land is still disputed, but now it's a land dispute between the United States
of America and Mexico. Let's keep in mind that
despite all of this map drawing there are still loads of
native peoples who've lived on this land for years and
are now being suffocated by all these nations
trying to take their land. Again, that's another episode and it's an important episode
and I want to do it justice. But for now what happens next in the Mexico story gets kind of nuts. And the reason it gets
kind of nuts is mainly because of this guy,
president James K. Polk. James Polk wins the presidency and comes into office with
a list of four big things he wants to do. It's his big wishlist. At the top of this wishlist
is Polk desire to capture this very specific part of Mexico, which is called California. Remember that at the time, the
U.S. didn't actually stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The U.S. had colonized
portions of Oregon territory, but it was kind of confusing because there were kind of
competing with the French and the British, and they
didn't actually own it yet. But you'll notice that Oregon
was also on Polk's shortlist, but first California. He first tried to buy
California from Mexico for $25 million. Mexico flat out said no. So Polk decides to pull
an incredibly dirty move. Remember this big old
swath of disputed territory that the U S inherited when they admitted Texas into the union, James Polk was pissed off that
Mexico didn't take his offer to buy California. So he sends a small group of troops into this disputed territory and has the March right up to here, right across from the river that separates what
everyone agrees is Mexico. But according to Mexico,
they've already been in Mexico as soon as they crossed
into this dispute territory, which Mexico believes is theirs. So the Mexican army is sent to respond to what looks like an oncoming attack from the United States. This is exactly what Polk wanted. A group of 1,600 Mexican soldiers attack this small group of 80
Americans killing 11 of them and capturing the rest. They easily one, since
they were outnumbered by like a magnitude of like 20. But this is exactly what Polk needed to get his wishlist going. After this battle, Polk
goes to Congress and reports that the Mexicans have
quote, invaded our territory and shed American blood
upon American soil. Even though this wasn't
necessarily American soil; it was disputed territory that most people thought
was rightfully Mexico. But it didn't matter. The death of Americans was
enough to rally Congress around declaring war with Mexico. The U.S. easily won this war
and they did it pretty quickly. Remember that the taking
over of Texas was originally a bunch of settlers who band
together, made a militia, fought Mexico on their own and declared the Republic of Texas. Not super great, but at least it wasn't like a government leader
sending his soldiers in that he knows, are going to
lose to provoke another country to kill those soldiers so that he can use democratic processes and institutions to make war all so that he can take over
land from that country. I mean, Polk really wanted California. There were critics of this in the time. One of whom was this guy who
said that letting Polk force the country into war
with Mexico was quote, allowing him to make war at pleasure. And Abe hit the nail on the head. This whole war was started and fought at the pleasure of this
president, James K. Polk. So anyway, the U S easily wins the war. They pay Mexico $15 million and Mexico gave up all of this. As a part of this loss.
Mexico also conceded all of this disputed territory making it officially a part
of the U S state of Texas. The U.S. had grown significantly
in just a couple of years. And Polk got his California. The U.S.could have taken more land. Some American lawmakers at the time wanted to take all of Mexico. And militarily they likely
could have done this, but they only took this part
of Mexico because it was the most sparsely populated
mainly by native Americans. One Senator at the time, who
happened to be pro-slavery, argued on the Senate floor
against taking all of Mexico. Saying quote, we have never
dreamt of incorporating into the Union, any,
but the Caucasian race, the free white race. Are we to associate with
ourselves as equal companions and fellow citizens, the Indians
and mixed races of Mexico? In other words, let me put it plainly. The policy was let's search
for land where we exterminate the natives and settle white people instead of let's take land where there's already big populations that are non white people that we would have to
bring into our country. This is a policy that
informed American expansion and imperialism for a very long time. And it's what guided a lot
of what land we took over and what land we didn't take over. Okay, so through this
unprovoked racially tinge war Polk checked off California from his list. And just the next month Oregon was organized into a territory after working out a deal with the British. Polk had exterminated anyone in his way. And now he had a coast to coast country. A few years later they bought this little
piece of land from Mexico and this completed the Southern
border that we know today. One that was forged first from a rebellion of American settlers, then a war at the
pleasure of James K. Polk. And then finally that little
purchase there at the end. The native people and
Mexicans that lived here when the U.S. took it over. And let's be clear on something
that is not a small number. They were predictably oppressed as white settlers fled into this region often looking for gold. Native people were driven from their land and the rights of Mexican
property owners were erased in the name of a state constitution that only let white people vote. - [Narrator] This land after
a little more than a century and a half had become great nation, the United States of America. - So, the U S stole Mexico in the 1800s, partly because they opened
their borders to Americans to let them in to work their land, which is just a very
strange, full circle irony. Especially because today you
go to the U.S.-Mexico border and we do everything to make it clear that this side of that wall is U.S. when just a few years
ago it was all Mexico. I wish like the Hawaii video I had some high note to
end on here, but I don't. So, so yeah. These stories about how the
U.S. expanded teach me so much about how the U.S. got it
shape and how the world works and how countries grow and change. And I've really been learning
a lot by delving into these. Before you go, I want to tell you about a really important
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The U.S was a country founded on slavery and genocide and it still is to this day, just with indoctrinated people who believe it's a free country.
Lol Land of the "Free" and Home of the "brave" alright. More like lands that we Stole and Home of the murderers, ethnic cleansers, the true genocidal morons.
But imperialism is ok when white ppl do it! /s
Mexico also stole that land from the natives.
Mexico was a victim of US imperialism yes, but let's not forget the real victims.
Another example of US imperialism in action, watch his "How the U.S. Stole Hawaii." Pure evil personified. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XK2MBnw6RlY