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The U.S. Mexican War (Latino Studies)

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Nov 15th, 2019
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  1. Introduction
  2. The US-Mexican War of 1846–1848 was key to the drawing of the modern borders of the United States and Mexico, and it contributed to the coming of the Civil War in the United States. At the end of the war, after the signing of The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848), the United States acquired the present day states of California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico, as well as parts of Wyoming, Kansas, and Colorado. (The US had annexed the Republic of Texas before the war, in 1845.) For this reason, the war paved the way for the emergence of a multicultural western and southwestern United States populated by Native peoples and Mexicans who had lived there for generations. The acquisition of so much new territory also intensified tensions in the United States over where to draw the line between slave states and free states. In 1820, thanks to the Missouri Compromise, which stipulated that slavery would not be allowed above the southern border of Missouri, Whigs and Democrats achieved an equilibrium of twelve slave states and twelve free states. The acquisition of Texas, which was south of Missouri’s border, tipped the scale in favor of the slave-owning states. However, the Missouri Compromise was not equipped to explain what to do with the newly acquired lands to the west, leading to the Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, both which negotiated the future expansion of slavery. In Mexico, the humiliation of defeat stirred liberal nationalism and helped to discredit Mexican president Antonio López de Santa Anna, who was overthrown in 1855. The war thus marked the birth of modern Mexican liberalism, which remained a potent force until the Mexican Revolution of 1910. These various repercussions underline why the US-Mexican War is more than a bounded, historical event. It would be more accurate to describe it as a lens through which to examine political debates about slavery in the United States, the emergence of a “Mexican American” population within US borders, the realization of the Anglo-American ideology of Manifest Destiny, and the emergence of modern Mexican nationalism and liberalism.
  3.  
  4. General Overviews
  5. Historical accounts of the US-Mexican War underline five linked narratives. In the first, the Anglo-American settlers of the Mexican territory of Texas gain independence and embark upon a short-lived republican experiment. In the second, the United States annexes Texas over the vehement protests of Mexico. In the third, war breaks out between the United States and Mexico because of a border dispute. The fourth narrative is the story of the war itself, in which the United States invades Mexico, forces its adversary to capitulate, and signs the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo on 2 February 1848. Finally, most overviews end on a discussion of how the war reverberated in US politics or in the subsequent development of the western and southwestern United States. The following secondary sources outline these interlocking narratives in an accessible way. What also distinguishes Chávez 2007, Henderson 2007, Valerio-Jiménez 2016, and Vázquez 2000 is their brevity and their drive to highlight the Mexican dimensions of the conflict. Martin 1998—a PBS documentary and accompanying website—is highly recommended as an introductory resource.
  6.  
  7. Chávez, Ernesto, ed. The U.S. War with Mexico: A Brief History with Documents. New York: Bedford St. Martin’s, 2007.
  8.  
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  10.  
  11. The excellent introduction to this well-known textbook is a strong starting point for further study, as are the various primary documents.
  12.  
  13. Find this resource:
  14.  
  15. Guardino, Peter. The Dead March: A History of the Mexican-American War. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017.
  16.  
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  18.  
  19. Guardino’s well-regarded book challenges the much repeated argument that Mexico lost the war because it was disunited in comparison to the United States. His study also strikes a balance between Mexican and US history unmatched by most general histories of the war.
  20.  
  21. Find this resource:
  22.  
  23. Henderson, Timothy. A Glorious Defeat: Mexico and Its War with the United States. New York: Hill and Wang, 2007.
  24.  
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  26.  
  27. A strong overview of the war that sets itself apart by paying close attention to the Mexican side of the conflict.
  28.  
  29. Find this resource:
  30.  
  31. Martin, Ginny, dir. U.S.-Mexican War (1846–1848). PBS Home Video, 1998.
  32.  
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  34.  
  35. This four-hour long documentary has strong production values and features the expertise of many of the prominent experts listed in this bibliography. The useful companion website contains interviews, timelines, short essays, maps, and primary sources.
  36.  
  37. Find this resource:
  38.  
  39. Valerio-Jiménez, Omar. “The U.S.-Mexico War.” In The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History. Edited by Jon Butler. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.
  40.  
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  42.  
  43. Valerio-Jiménez’s synthesis is an excellent starting point because it’s clear, up-to-date, and commands all the major works listed in this bibliography. Of special interest is the section titled “Expansionists and the Outbreak of War,” which does an admirable job of synthesizing debates about the annexation and Texas and how they inspired Henry David Thoreau to write “Civil Disobedience.” The section titled “Discussion of Literature” is also useful as a roadmap. Available online by subscription.
  44.  
  45. Find this resource:
  46.  
  47. Vázquez, Josefina Zoraida. “War and Peace with the United States.” In The Oxford History of Mexico. Edited by Michael C. Meyer and William H. Beezley, 361–363. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
  48.  
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  50.  
  51. Josefine Zoraida Vázquez is one of Mexico’s most respected historians. Her synthesis clearly outlines the war’s unfolding in Mexico and its deep impact.
  52.  
  53. Find this resource:
  54.  
  55. Reference Works
  56. Tucker, et al. 2013 generally surpasses Crawford, et al. 1999 because of its length and additional entries, but the latter nonetheless contains strong entries, and researchers would do well to use both in tandem. Thompson and Frentzos 2014 features brief, thematic essays rather than encyclopedia entries.
  57.  
  58. Crawford, Mark, David S. Heidler, and Jeanne T. Heidler, eds. Encyclopedia of the Mexican-American War. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 1999.
  59.  
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  61.  
  62. Although out of date in comparison to the much larger Tucker, et al. 2013, this volume contains strong entries.
  63.  
  64. Find this resource:
  65.  
  66. Thompson, Antonio S., and Christos G. Frentzos. The Routledge Handbook of American Military and Diplomatic History: The Colonial Period to 1877. London and New York: Routledge, 2014.
  67.  
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  69.  
  70. This collection features brief essays that crystallize key aspects of the conflict (military, religious, diplomatic).
  71.  
  72. Find this resource:
  73.  
  74. Tucker, Spencer, James Arnold, Roberta Wiener, Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr., Thomas W. Cutrer, and Pedro Santoni, eds. The Encyclopedia of the Mexican-American War: A Political, Social, and Military History. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2013.
  75.  
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  77.  
  78. Highly recommended as the best and most current starting point for students of the conflict.
  79.  
  80. Find this resource:
  81.  
  82. Texas Independence and Annexation
  83. This section relates to Texas history and the events that lead up to the US-Mexican War. One way of making sense of the vast tangle of modern studies about Texas, much of which is bound up in myth and ideology, is provided by Buenger 2011, which provides a general typology for classifying approaches to the subject: traditionalism (Texas nationalism, exceptionalism, and a top-down approach); revisionism (New Social History approach, multiculturalism); and cultural constructionism (interdisciplinarity, cultural theory, memory studies, and post-structuralism). Buenger writes that traditionalists commemorated, revered, celebrated, and wrote for Texas readers reared on myths of Texas greatness. Their approach was also insular in comparison to revisionism and cultural constructionism, which were more critical and attuned to broader conversations in US historiography. This explains why revisionists and cultural constructionists often published their monographs outside of Texas. This helps to explain why traditionalism, while abundant and popular in Texas, is more limited than that of the other two approaches, which account for the contributions of women and nonwhites to Texas history. An example of the traditionalist approach is Fehrenbach 1968, the most widely read popular history of Texas, and revisionist approaches include Haynes and Wintz 2002, Jackson 2012, and Calvert, et al. 2014. The cultural constructionist approach can be seen at work in Flores 2002, Weber 1982, and DeLay 2008. A different way of organizing our understanding of Texas historiography is to consider the concept of borderlands historiography, as summarized in Hämäläinen and Truett 2001. Borderlands studies is a current trend in US historiography and cultural studies that underlines the various unstable ways that ethnicities, nationalities, and cultures are reshaped on borders and boundaries. Roughly equivalent to the cultural constructionist model, borderlands approaches include Weber 1982 and DeLay 2008, among others in different sections of this bibliography. Silbey 2005 is listed in this section as a strong book-length synthesis about the annexation of Texas in relation to slavery.
  84.  
  85. Buenger, Walter L. “Three Truths in Texas.” In Beyond Texas through Time: Breaking Away from Past Interpretations. Edited by Walter Buenger and Arnoldo De León, 1–49. College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 2011.
  86.  
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  88.  
  89. Buenger’s chapter provides us with a road map for exploring the different ideological, theoretical, and methodological premises that explain different books and articles in the field of Texas history.
  90.  
  91. Find this resource:
  92.  
  93. Calvert, Robert A. Arnoldo De León, and Gregg Cantrell. The History of Texas. 5th ed. Malden, MA: John Wiley, 2014.
  94.  
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  96.  
  97. Originally published in 1990 and updated through various new printings, the book is a well-researched narrative that takes into account the various ethnic groups that have contributed to the development of the state from the colonial era to the present. This is the best general history for readers who want to read past myth and nationalism.
  98.  
  99. Find this resource:
  100.  
  101. DeLay, Brian. War of a Thousand Deserts: Indian Raids and the U.S.-Mexican War. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008.
  102.  
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  104.  
  105. This is a study of how Indian raids affected Mexico’s northern frontier and altered US-Mexican relations leading up to the war. Besides the intrinsic interest of the topic, the complex picture painted by DeLay corresponds to a contemporary borderlands approach to Texas history and the history of the US-Mexican War.
  106.  
  107. Find this resource:
  108.  
  109. Fehrenbach, T. R. Lone Star: A History of Texas and Texans. New York: Macmillan, 1968.
  110.  
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  112.  
  113. A paradigmatic example of old-fashioned, popular Texas history, in which valiant Anglo men vanquish enemies of color or simply supersede them in achievement and historical transcendence.
  114.  
  115. Find this resource:
  116.  
  117. Flores, Richard. Remembering the Alamo: Memory, Modernity, and the Master Symbol. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002.
  118.  
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  120.  
  121. An excellent, wide-ranging, and insightful exploration of the myth of the Alamo and how it has contributed to the construction of Texas identity.
  122.  
  123. Find this resource:
  124.  
  125. Hämäläinen, Pekka, and Samuel Truett. “On Borderlands.” Journal of American History 98.2 (September 2001): 338–361.
  126.  
  127. DOI: 10.1093/jahist/jar259Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  128.  
  129. An excellent bird’s-eye introduction to the borderlands approach to history that informs much of the current scholarship on the history of the US Southwest and West. Understanding borderlands studies will assist readers in navigating the extensive secondary bibliography about race and identity formation in the region.
  130.  
  131. Find this resource:
  132.  
  133. Haynes, Sam, and Cary D. Wintz. Major Problems in Texas History: Documents and Essays. Boston: Cengage Learning, 2002.
  134.  
  135. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  136.  
  137. This textbook of primary and secondary documents contains an excellent discussion about the evolution of Texas historiography as well as a wealth of materials for sketching a multicultural history of Texas, including its Mexican and independent periods.
  138.  
  139. Find this resource:
  140.  
  141. Jackson, Jack. Los Tejanos and Lost Cause. Seattle, WA: Fantagraphic Books, 2012.
  142.  
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  144.  
  145. Jack Jackson (b. 1941–d. 2006), also known as “Jaxon,” was a Texan and a seminal figure in the underground “comix” movement in San Francisco. He was also a talented historical researcher. His graphic biography of Juan Seguín, titled Los Tejanos, is a comic book history of Texas independence that seeks to honor the contribution of Seguín and other Tejanos to Texas history.
  146.  
  147. Find this resource:
  148.  
  149. Silbey, Joel H. Storm over Texas: The Annexation Controversy and the Road to Civil War. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
  150.  
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  152.  
  153. Silbey’s book is a detailed and accessible political history about the different arguments in favor of and against the annexation of Texas.
  154.  
  155. Find this resource:
  156.  
  157. Weber, David. The Mexican Frontier, 1821–1846: The American Southwest under Mexico. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1982.
  158.  
  159. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  160.  
  161. This award-winning study maps the effects of Mexican politics on the Mexican frontier, and the effects of the collapse of the Mission system on frontier culture. Weber’s ample body of work has arguably had more impact on southwestern historiography than any other scholar in the 21st century.
  162.  
  163. Find this resource:
  164.  
  165. The Theater of War
  166. Most military histories of the US-Mexican War have tended toward description rather than interpretive rigor or originality. Up until recently, US accounts of the war have also expressed a simplistic or superficial understanding of the Mexican military and its experience of the war because of a lack of easily accessible scholarship on the subject. The US sources listed in this section, such as Belohlavek 2017 and Conway 2010, as well as Mexican sources like Figueroa 1996 and López Rivas 1976, correct this US-centric focus and provide a deeper understanding of the military experience through social history. One of the more conventional (though undoubtedly important) themes in military history about the war involves the careers of soldiers who went on to fight in the US Civil War, as illustrated by Dugard 2008 (a popular history), Lewis 2010, and Grant 1999. Janin and Carlson 2015 are included here to ensure some familiarity with the California theater of the war.
  167.  
  168. Belohlavek, John M. Patriots, Prostitutes, and Spies: Women and the Mexican-American War. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2017.
  169.  
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  171.  
  172. This groundbreaking study examines the role of both US and Mexican women in the war, with an emphasis on the topics of gender roles and culture.
  173.  
  174. Find this resource:
  175.  
  176. Conway, Christopher, comp. “Scenes of War, 1846–1847.” In The U.S.-Mexican War: A Binational Reader. Translated by Gustavo Pellón. Edited by Christopher Conway, 62–105. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2010.
  177.  
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  179.  
  180. This compilation of eyewitness accounts includes hard-to-find battlefield accounts by Generals Mariano Arista and Manuel Armijo, President Santa Anna, Mexican Chief Medical Officer Pedro Vander Linden, and other rare Mexican descriptions of battles and resistance to the US army.
  181.  
  182. Find this resource:
  183.  
  184. Dugard, Martin. The Training Ground: Grant, Lee, Sherman, and Davis in the Mexican War, 1846–1848. New York: Little, Brown, 2008.
  185.  
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  187.  
  188. Dugard paints a portrait of the military men who became seasoned fighters in Mexico before having to face each in the Civil War.
  189.  
  190. Find this resource:
  191.  
  192. Figueroa, Raúl. La guerra de corso de México durante la invasión norteamericana, 1845–1848. Mexico City: Instituto Tecnológico Autonomo de México, 1996.
  193.  
  194. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  195.  
  196. An interesting study of how Mexico tried to fund privateers to undermine the US war effort. The volume also contains various period documents relating to the topic.
  197.  
  198. Find this resource:
  199.  
  200. Foos, Paul. A Short, Offhand, Killing Affair: Soldiers and Social Conflict in the Mexican War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002.
  201.  
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  203.  
  204. In this fascinating short study, Foos focuses on the US foot soldiers who fought in the war, highlighting their background, ideology, and atrocities.
  205.  
  206. Find this resource:
  207.  
  208. Grant, Ulysses S. Personal Memoirs. New York and London: Penguin Books, 1999.
  209.  
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  211.  
  212. Widely acknowledged as one of the finest memoirs by a US president, Grant’s treatment of his experiences in the US-Mexican War are compelling.
  213.  
  214. Find this resource:
  215.  
  216. Janin, Hunt, and Ursula Carlson. The California Campaigns of the U.S.-Mexican War, 1846–1848. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2015.
  217.  
  218. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  219.  
  220. A useful synthesis of major battles in California, which sometimes gets short shrift in comparison to the Mexican campaigns of Winfield Scott and Zachary Taylor.
  221.  
  222. Find this resource:
  223.  
  224. Lewis, Felice Flanery. Trailing Clouds of Glory: Zachary Taylor’s Mexican War Campaign and His Emerging Civil War Leaders. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2010.
  225.  
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  227.  
  228. Lewis highlights the careers of the military men who fought together in the US-Mexican War only to turn around thirteen years later to fight each other on opposing sides of the US Civil War. She also presents a more positive interpretation of Zachary Taylor’s role in the Mexican theater, which many other historians have presented in a less flattering light.
  229.  
  230. Find this resource:
  231.  
  232. López Rivas, Gilberto. La guerra del 47 y la resistencia popular a la ocupación. Mexico City: Editorial Nuestro Tiempo, 1976.
  233.  
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  235.  
  236. Although somewhat dated because of its Marxist approach, this book about popular resistance to the US invasion is an important Mexican source that continues to be relevant to scholars and lay readers.
  237.  
  238. Find this resource:
  239.  
  240. Winders, Richard Bruce. Mr. Polk’s Army: The American Military Experience in the Mexican War. College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 1997.
  241.  
  242. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  243.  
  244. This is a fine overview of the everyday life of the US men who fought in the war, as well as the things they carried with them, such as their uniforms and weapons.
  245.  
  246. Find this resource:
  247.  
  248. The US Politics of the US-Mexican War
  249. The US politics of the US-Mexican War span the annexation of Texas in 1845, through to the resolution of the conflict in 1848, to the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The biggest theme in scholarship on this period is the slavery question in relation to the annexation of Texas. Kornblith 2003 provides a speculative and provocative metahistorical discussion of the linking of the US-Mexican War to the Civil War, while Torget 2015 underlines how agriculture and commerce linked the US annexation of Texas to the coming of that war. Both Haynes 2010 and Greenberg 2013 dwell at length on the centrality of slavery to US thinking about Texas and the US-Mexican War, in addition to providing a broad framework for understanding the politics of the age. Foner 1969, Hartnett 1997, and Morrison 1992 provide detailed snapshots of how the question of slavery loomed over party politics before and during the war.
  250.  
  251. Foner, Eric. “The Wilmot Proviso Revisited.” Journal of American History 56.2 (September 1969): 262–279.
  252.  
  253. DOI: 10.2307/1908123Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  254.  
  255. David Wilmot, a congressman from Pennsylvania, famously appended a proviso to a war appropriations bill that prohibited the expenditure of US monies toward supporting slavery in any form in any territory acquired from Mexico. The so-called Wilmot Proviso failed. Foner’s article outlines the different political positions vis-à-vis the failed proviso and traces its origins and spirit to a group of Democrats affiliated with former president Martin Van Buren.
  256.  
  257. Find this resource:
  258.  
  259. Greenberg, Amy S. A Wicked War: Polk, Clay, Lincoln and the 1846 U.S. Invasion of Mexico. New York: Vintage Books, 2013.
  260.  
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  262.  
  263. This excellent synthesis is woven around the lives, actions, and views of three key US political figures: President James Polk, Henry Clay, and Abraham Lincoln. It also highlights political controversy, the horrors of war, and the vitality of the antiwar movement.
  264.  
  265. Find this resource:
  266.  
  267. Hartnett, Stephen. “Senator Robert Walker’s 1844 Letter on Texas Annexation: The Rhetorical ‘Logic’ of Imperialism.” American Studies 38.1 (Spring 1997): 27–55.
  268.  
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  270.  
  271. Hartnett examines a widely distributed and discussed letter by Mississippi senator Robert Walker in favor of the annexation of Texas. Walker’s letter argued that Texas could help resolve the slavery problem by acting as a “safety valve” that would draw slaves southward, away from other states.
  272.  
  273. Find this resource:
  274.  
  275. Haynes, Sam W. James K. Polk and the Expansionist Impulse. New York: Pearson Longman, 2006.
  276.  
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  278.  
  279. The best political biography of President Polk, containing an excellent synthesis of the crosscurrents of political debate about the annexation of Texas and the politics of the war with Mexico.
  280.  
  281. Find this resource:
  282.  
  283. Haynes, Sam W. Unfinished Revolution: The Early American Republic in a British World. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2010.
  284.  
  285. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  286.  
  287. This brilliant study illuminates US-British relations in the first half of the 19th century. Specifically, the chapter on “The Texas Question” clarifies the global thinking behind US interest in annexing Texas, showing how the slavery question was not only a national question, but also an international one that was bound up with US-British relations.
  288.  
  289. Find this resource:
  290.  
  291. Kornblith, Gary J. “Rethinking the Coming of the Civil War: A Counterfactual Exercise.” Journal of American History 90.1 (2003): 76–105.
  292.  
  293. DOI: 10.2307/3659792Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  294.  
  295. Kornblith’s article is a thought experiment about different ways of thinking about what events or conditions triggered the Civil War in the United States. His article provides a useful outline of different schools of thought about the causes of the Civil War, and then explores scenarios that might have avoided the war, most notably the continued independence of Texas and the election of Henry Clay as president.
  296.  
  297. Find this resource:
  298.  
  299. Kurtz, William B. “Let Us Hear No More ‘Nativism’: The Catholic Press in the Mexican and Civil Wars.” Civil War History 60.1 (March 2014): 6–31.
  300.  
  301. DOI: 10.1353/cwh.2014.0020Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  302.  
  303. The anti-Catholic sentiment behind many of the arguments in favor of the US-Mexican War alienated some in the US Catholic community, who took a nativist and noninterventionist posture, while others sought to remedy their marginal standing in mainstream society by supporting the war.
  304.  
  305. Find this resource:
  306.  
  307. Morrison, Michael A. “‘New Territory versus No Territory’: The Whig Party and the Politics of Western Expansion, 1846–1848.” Western Historical Quarterly 23.1 (1992): 25–51.
  308.  
  309. DOI: 10.2307/970250Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  310.  
  311. A useful account of the US-Mexican War in relation to the differing responses to expansionism and slavery.
  312.  
  313. Find this resource:
  314.  
  315. Torget, Andrew J. Seeds of Empire: Cotton, Slavery, and the Transformation of the Texas Borderlands, 1800–1850. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015.
  316.  
  317. DOI: 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469624242.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  318.  
  319. The winner of eight awards for research excellence, Torget’s study focuses on the role that cotton and slavery played in shaping Texas, and how the agricultural economy of Texas foreshadowed the coming Civil War.
  320.  
  321. Find this resource:
  322.  
  323. The Mexican Politics of the US-Mexican War
  324. Anna 1998 indicates that for most of the 20th century, Mexican scholarship on early Republican Mexico was schematic and impressionistic because of its dependence on the writings of 19th-century political figures and a nationalist distrust of 19th-century federalism. Be that as it may, even experts on early-19th-century Mexico agree that the period poses tremendous challenges to our understanding because of the large number of coups that took place between Mexican independence and the US-Mexican War. However, from the 1970s onward, major studies by Mexican and other scholars have enriched our understanding of this period in Mexico’s history and made it decipherable. The studies Costeloe 2002, Fowler 2007, and Santoni 1996 illuminate the complex swirl of factionalism that characterizes the period by delineating major players and motivations. Brack 1975 and Herrera Serna 1997 offer snapshots into Mexican political opinion, while Reséndez 2005 examines identity formation in the Mexican frontier that later became the US Southwest.
  325.  
  326. Anna, Timothy. Forging Mexico, 1821–1835. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998.
  327.  
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  329.  
  330. Anna’s book provides a spirited defense of Mexican federalism in the early republican period, underlining its historical roots and democratizing potential in the years leading up to Texas independence.
  331.  
  332. Find this resource:
  333.  
  334. Brack, Gene. Mexico Views Manifest Destiny, 1821–1846: An Essay on the Origins of the Mexican War. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1975.
  335.  
  336. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  337.  
  338. This is an indispensable study of how Mexicans viewed Texas and the United States before the US-Mexican War. Brack uses period journalism to shed light on Mexican attitudes about slavery and their concerns over US colonialism.
  339.  
  340. Find this resource:
  341.  
  342. Conway, Christopher, comp. “The Politics of War.” In The U.S.-Mexican War: A Binational Reader. Translated by Gustavo Pellón. Edited by Christopher Conway, 106–125. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2010.
  343.  
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  345.  
  346. This chapter of Conway’s book features writings by Luis Cuevas, President Herrera’s minister of foreign affairs; Yucatan’s governor, Miguel Barbachano, who sought secession from Mexico in 1845; and Mariano Paredes y Arrillaga, who overthrew President Herrera in 1846.
  347.  
  348. Find this resource:
  349.  
  350. Costeloe, Michael. The Central Republic in Mexico, 1835–1846: “Hombres de Bien” in the Age of Santa Anna. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
  351.  
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  353.  
  354. Costeloe’s book is a clearly written and useful synthesis about Mexican politics, political culture, and political parties at midcentury. Of special value is his explanation of the concept of the hombre de bien, a kind of gentleman who embodied political and social virtues in this period. This book is recommended as the best, comprehensive overview of the years leading up to the war.
  355.  
  356. Find this resource:
  357.  
  358. Fowler, Will. Santa Anna of Mexico. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2007.
  359.  
  360. DOI: 10.2307/j.ctt1djmbx9Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  361.  
  362. This essential biography sheds new light on the federalist-centralist divide through the complex career of the most important political figure in Mexico in the first half of the 19th century.
  363.  
  364. Find this resource:
  365.  
  366. Herrera Serna, Laura, ed. México en Guerra, 1846–1848: Perspectivas regionales. Mexico City: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, Museo Nacional de la Intervenciones, 1997.
  367.  
  368. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  369.  
  370. This valuable anthology of thirty-two chapters takes a regionalist approach to examining how Mexicans from different parts of the country perceived and reacted to the war. Herrera Serna’s collection underlines contrasting views and attitudes, rather than homogeneity.
  371.  
  372. Find this resource:
  373.  
  374. Reséndez, Andrés. Changing National Identities at the Frontier: Texas and New Mexico, 1800–1850. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
  375.  
  376. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  377.  
  378. Reséndez explores the different ways in which the people of Texas and New Mexico defined themselves in the decades leading up to the US-Mexican War.
  379.  
  380. Find this resource:
  381.  
  382. Santoni, Pedro. Mexicans at Arms: Puro Federalists and the Politics of War, 1845–1848. Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1996.
  383.  
  384. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  385.  
  386. Santoni does the apparently impossible: disentangle the different agendas of Mexican moderados and puros during the US-Mexican War. Of special interest is his explanation of politically charged debates about militias and militarism.
  387.  
  388. Find this resource:
  389.  
  390. Vázquez, Josefina Zoraida, and Lorenzo Meyer. The United States and Mexico. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.
  391.  
  392. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  393.  
  394. Two of Mexico’s most respected historians explore the history of US-Mexican relations in the 19th century and beyond.
  395.  
  396. Find this resource:
  397.  
  398. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Race, and Identity
  399. On 2 February 1848, five months after the fall of Mexico City to US forces, the United States and Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The most notable articles of the treaty were a commitment to keeping the peace between both countries, the withdrawal of US forces from Mexico, the US acquisition of Mexican lands, and issues of citizenship and land rights for Mexicans who found themselves suddenly living in the United States. Most of the scholarship listed here relates to the repercussions of the treaty on these new Americans. The borderlands approach to history, already outlined in the section about Texas history, has been key for exploring the questions of identity formation, multiculturalism, and oppression that are central to the story of these people. Griswold del Castillo 1992 is a natural starting point because it provides the canonical, standard overview of the treaty. Molina 2010 provides a deeper dive into the legal questions surrounding the citizenship status of Mexicans left behind by the treaty. Hass 1995, Mora 2011, and Ramos 2008 explore questions of identity formation in the West and Southwest, while Ruiz de Burton 1997 provides a snapshot of how a 19th-century California woman viewed the imposition of US control on California after the war.
  400.  
  401. Griswold del Castillo, Richard. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo: A Legacy of Conflict. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992.
  402.  
  403. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  404.  
  405. Griswold del Castillo’s overview is the most reliable, standard, book-length study of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
  406.  
  407. Find this resource:
  408.  
  409. Hass, Lisbeth. Conquests and Historical Identities in California, 1769–1936. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.
  410.  
  411. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  412.  
  413. Hass traces how indigenous and Mexican ethnicities in California weathered historical and political change, most notably and significantly after the US-Mexican War.
  414.  
  415. Find this resource:
  416.  
  417. Molina, Natalia. “‘In a Race All Their Own’”: The Quest to Make Mexicans Ineligible for U.S. Citizenship.” Pacific Historical Review 79.2 (May 2010): 167–201.
  418.  
  419. DOI: 10.1525/phr.2010.79.2.167Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  420.  
  421. Molina’s study explores debates surrounding the status of Mexicans in the United States after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
  422.  
  423. Find this resource:
  424.  
  425. Mora, Anthony P. Border Dilemmas: Racial and National Uncertainties in New Mexico, 1848–1912. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011.
  426.  
  427. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  428.  
  429. Mora shows how the Mexicans of New Mexico adapted their sense of self in light of their region’s incorporation into the United States in 1848.
  430.  
  431. Find this resource:
  432.  
  433. Ramos, Raúl. Beyond the Alamo: Forging Mexican Ethnicity in San Antonio, 1821–1861. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008.
  434.  
  435. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  436.  
  437. Ramos explains what it meant to be a Tejano or a Mexican Texan before Texas independence and after the US-Mexican War.
  438.  
  439. Find this resource:
  440.  
  441. Ruiz de Burton, María Amparo. The Squatter and the Don. Houston: Arte Público Press, 1997.
  442.  
  443. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  444.  
  445. Although a work of 19th-century fiction, Ruiz de Burton’s 1885 novel casts light on the cultural clash between Anglos and Californios after the US-Mexican War and shows one Californio woman’s exploration of the legacies of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
  446.  
  447. Find this resource:
  448.  
  449. Period Primary Sources
  450. One of the most valuable ways of exploring the US-Mexican War is through anthologies of primary sources, while websites that feature period materials are also a good source. Such resources, usually designed for classroom use, provide insight into the complexity of the conflict from different points of view. Haynes and Wintz 2002, Chávez 2007, Conway 2010, and the website A Continent Divided try to present both sides of the conflict by contrasting US and Mexican views, while Robinson 1989 is centered on Mexican perspectives.
  451.  
  452. Chávez, Ernesto, ed. The U.S. War with Mexico: A Brief History with Documents. New York: Bedford St. Martin’s, 2007.
  453.  
  454. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  455.  
  456. This is a brief, well-designed, and useful mosaic of US and Mexican voices about the war.
  457.  
  458. Find this resource:
  459.  
  460. Conway, Christopher, ed. The U.S.-Mexican War: A Binational Reader. Translated by Gustavo Pellón. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2010.
  461.  
  462. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  463.  
  464. The anthology is notable for its large number of Mexican sources and for its variety of genres, including songs, cartoons, fiction, first-person accounts, and women’s voices.
  465.  
  466. Find this resource:
  467.  
  468. Haynes, Sam, and Cary D. Wintz. Major Problems in Texas History: Documents and Essays. Boston: Cengage Learning, 2002.
  469.  
  470. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  471.  
  472. This expertly curated collection contains outstanding primary and secondary sources about the multicultural history of Texas, including its Mexican and Republican periods.
  473.  
  474. Find this resource:
  475.  
  476. Robinson, Cecile, ed. The View from Chapultepec: Mexican Writers on the Mexican-American War. Translated by Cecil Robinson. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1989.
  477.  
  478. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  479.  
  480. This reader of Mexican voices privileges politicians and diplomats and offers insight into how the Mexican intelligentsia reacted to the war.
  481.  
  482. Find this resource:
  483.  
  484. University of Texas at Arlington Library and Center for Greater Southwestern Studies. A Continent Divided: The U.S.-Mexico War.
  485.  
  486. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  487.  
  488. Based on the nationally recognized archival holdings of the UT Arlington Library Jenkins Garrett collection of archival materials, this website contains a wealth of rare US and Mexican period materials relating to the conflict, with accompanying translations and annotations.
  489.  
  490. Find this resource:
  491.  
  492. The US-Mexican War in Literature and Culture
  493. The far-reaching political and cultural consequences of the US-Mexican War, specifically with regard to Mexican American identity, the ideology of Manifest Destiny, and the history of race relations in the West, have given rise to important studies about the war in US culture and literature. In some cases, as demonstrated by Aleman and Streeby 2007, Streeby 2002, and Greenberg 2005, we see how US popular fiction bound race and gender together. This scholarship shows the development of a genealogy of enduring stereotypes and racist views that have persisted into the 21st century. In literary and cultural studies about 19th-century Mexico, parallel studies, such as Conway 2015, Rodríguez 2010, and Van Wagenen 2012, show the variety of ways that the war fueled nationalism and historical memories of the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire. This section also features historical novels by prominent Mexican novelists, such as Boullosa 2014 and Solares 2009, who wrestle with the implications and meanings of the conflict.
  494.  
  495. Aleman, Jesse, and Shelley Streeby. Empire and the Literature of Sensation: An Anthology of Nineteenth-Century Popular Fiction. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2007.
  496.  
  497. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  498.  
  499. This sourcebook contains period sensationalist fiction about the US-Mexican War and is an excellent companion to Streeby 2002 and Greenberg 2005.
  500.  
  501. Find this resource:
  502.  
  503. Boullosa, Carmen. Texas: The Great Theft. Translated by Samantha Schnee. Dallas: Deep Vellum, 2014.
  504.  
  505. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  506.  
  507. One of Mexico’s most recognizable women writers, Boullosa takes as her subject the Cortina Wars (1859–1861), in which a Mexican veteran of the US-Mexican War who was living in South Texas rose up in revolt against the Anglos. The novel shows the poisonous effects of the reterritorialization of Mexican land under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
  508.  
  509. Find this resource:
  510.  
  511. Conway, Christopher. “Sister at War: Mexican Women’s Poetry and the U.S.-Mexican War.” In Mexico in Verse: A History of Music, Rhyme, and Power. Edited by Stephen Neufeld and Michael Matthews. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2015.
  512.  
  513. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  514.  
  515. This study highlights how Mexican women poets responded to the war, as well as how one notable Mexican folk song treats the topic of occupying US soldiers.
  516.  
  517. Find this resource:
  518.  
  519. Greenberg, Amy S. Manifest Manhood and the Antebellum American Empire. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
  520.  
  521. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  522.  
  523. A major inquiry into the ideology of Manifest Destiny in relation to the cultural construction of US manhood.
  524.  
  525. Find this resource:
  526.  
  527. Johannsen, Robert Walker. To the Halls of the Montezumas: The Mexican War in the American Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.
  528.  
  529. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  530.  
  531. A useful overview of various cultural artifacts such as fiction, song, caricature, and plays that were contemporaneous to the war in the United States.
  532.  
  533. Find this resource:
  534.  
  535. Rodríguez, Javier. The Literatures of the U.S.-Mexican War: Narrative, Time, and Identity. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2010.
  536.  
  537. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  538.  
  539. An insightful study of how the war was perceived and reimagined in 19th-century US and Mexican fiction and poetry.
  540.  
  541. Find this resource:
  542.  
  543. Solares, Ignacio. Yankee Invasion: A Novel of Mexico City. Translated by Timothy G. Compton. Minneapolis: Scarlett Press/Aliform, 2009.
  544.  
  545. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  546.  
  547. Solares is an accomplished Mexican novelist who specializes in historical fiction. This novel focuses on a Mexico City surgeon and his memories of the war, and skewers both US imperialism and the shortcomings of the men leading Mexico during the conflict.
  548.  
  549. Find this resource:
  550.  
  551. Streeby, Shelley. American Sensations: Class, Empire, and the Production of Popular Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002.
  552.  
  553. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  554.  
  555. A foundational study of 19th-century US popular culture in relation to the topics of race and gender vis-à-vis the US-Mexican War and the period preceding it.
  556.  
  557. Find this resource:
  558.  
  559. Van Wagenen, Michael. Remembering the Forgotten War: The Enduring Legacies of the U.S./Mexican War. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2012.
  560.  
  561. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  562.  
  563. This is a highly recommended, far-ranging, transnational, and comparative study of the US-Mexican War in US and Mexican historical memory.
  564.  
  565. Find this resource:
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