Mexican Cession

Mexican Cession

Information On The Mexican Cession

The Mexican Cession of 1848 is a historical term that refers to the American annexation of the Mexican territories after the two year long Mexican American war.

The Mexican territories that Mexico was forced to give up to the United States in 1848 included the entire present-day states of California, Nevada and Utah and parts of Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Wyoming.

As one U.S. paper concluded We take nothing by conquestThank God.

The American major goal of the war was the cession of 55% of the Mexican territories (including Texas) however that wasnt easy to accomplish because Mexico was unwilling to give up its territories easily.

Even though by the 1847 the American regular army and volunteers (who were famous for their cruelty) conquered the present-day states of California, Nevada and Utah as well as the parts of Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Wyoming, the Mexican government refused to give up the Mexican territories that American government demanded in order to end the war.

Therefore in 1847 the American Senate ordered the American army and volunteers to invade Mexico and occupy the Mexican capitol of Mexico City.

Even though Mexico was invaded and the Mexican government was held at the gunpoint in the Mexico City Americans were unable to make the Mexican government sign off the Mexican territories.

It is than that some American politicians (Eastern Democrats) advocated for the complete annexation of Mexico however that was not in the agenda of the Southern politicians who wanted the additional territories for the white Southerners and their black slaves but not the large Mexican population of the Central Mexico.

Eventually Mexican government did sign the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo which was the peace treaty dictated by the American Government that ended the Mexican American war.