• YoBuckStopsHere@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It bought them all, but Mexico was really poor so they got it cheaper. The US was willing to pay $50 million.

        • chaogomu@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          No. It did not.

          The US did offer to buy the territories, Mexico said no, then the US invaded and took them. During the peace process after the war, the US then paid less than half of the initial offer for the territories that it was never going to give back.

          Later, the US bought a sliver of land on the border for a slightly inflated price, but that was its own thing.

          But you can’t really call an armed invasion, and then a pittance paid out in damages, to be “Buying them all”.

          • YoBuckStopsHere@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            The United States could have just taken all of Mexico, but it didn’t. It paid for the land. The population of the western states was made up of Americans anyhow, less than a thousand Mexican citizens lived in those areas at the time.

            • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.ee
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              1 year ago

              Someone: puts a gun to your head and says “I’ll give you $4 for your car”.

              You: “This is a free and fair trade.”

              • YoBuckStopsHere@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                That wasn’t the case, the Mexican government was run as an oligarchy. The United States threat was to threaten to turn over their lands to the public.

                • chaogomu@kbin.social
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                  1 year ago

                  If a guy takes your car at gunpoint, and then hands you a fiver, he did not just “buy your car”.

                  A peace treaty at the end of a war of conquest is not a “purchase agreement”.

                  • YoBuckStopsHere@lemmy.world
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                    1 year ago

                    You are assuming a lot, especially that Mexico had a functional government even before their Army slaughters settlers in Texas.

            • frezik@midwest.social
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              1 year ago

              The US took most of the land from Mexico that was worth taking. There’s little viable agricultural land south of Texas. Also, it put a lot of land in between Mexico and New Orleans, which is an incredibly important international port. With that secured, no foreign army would be able to threaten that port without major logistics challenges, much less fighting through the US Army and every local citizen with a gun.

              The US grabbed what it wanted and let Mexico keep the scraps.

              • YoBuckStopsHere@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                That is looking at it from today, not from how it was viewed then. The main reason Mexico was fine with selling was the massive desert that separated the two areas and the extremely violent native population that inhabited the region. That reason didn’t become peaceful until the 1920s.