Greater Mexican Cession to the United States

[katchen]

Everyone underestimates the Mayans.

Yes, now that I think of it, Yucatan could make a very interesting graveyard for American slavery. The US acquires a great deal of new slave territory from Mexico, and Yucatan comes in as California's slave state counterpart, avoiding a crisis in 1850. But the Caste War goes on and on.
Mayans are captured and sold as slaves in the Deep South, which spreads the rebellion virus amongst southern African-Americans. In the meantime, the Yucatan rainforest absorbs more and more American troops, the more because Mayan guerillas can escape to sanctuary in Guatemala and worse, to sanctuary in British owned British Honduras (Belize). Eventually, a slave revolt crisis is reached.....

 

[eliphas8]

Yes, now that I think of it, Yucatan could make a very interesting graveyard for American slavery. The US acquires a great deal of new slave territory from Mexico, and Yucatan comes in as California's slave state counterpart, avoiding a crisis in 1850. But the Caste War goes on and on.
Mayans are captured and sold as slaves in the Deep South, which spreads the rebellion virus amongst southern African-Americans. In the meantime, the Yucatan rainforest absorbs more and more American troops, the more because Mayan guerillas can escape to sanctuary in Guatemala and worse, to sanctuary in British owned British Honduras (Belize). Eventually, a slave revolt crisis is reached.....

Although it should be mentioned one fatal flaw of the Mayan rebels was that they where still farmers. A big part of why their initial campaign against the white Yucatan government wasn't totally successful was because most of the army had to go take in the harvest. Which is a severe weakness if the US is gonna be an Atilla to the Yucatan.

 

[MerryPrankster]

A bunch of Alabama civil war vets were hired once to fight the Maya. They all died terribly from diseases, arrogance, and constant ambushes.

Buuuurrrnn....

Do you have a link or more detail? I'd like to hear more.

 

[othyrsyde]

Buuuurrrnn....

Do you have a link or more detail? I'd like to hear more.

Thought I read it on Wikipedia, but I couldn't find anything there. Thinking about it, I'm pretty sure I read a passing passage about it in some book on the Yucatan, and that was years ago when I first started college.

 

[Fairdowner]

So why did Cuba remain a Spanish procession while the rest of Latin America became independent?

 

[Plumber]

So why did Cuba remain a Spanish procession while the rest of Latin America became independent?

Because they knew that Spain was keeping them from becoming American. Also, revolts are harder on islands. It took three tries for Cuba to become independent, and that was with American intervention in the last one.

 

[Ariosto]

Everyone underestimates the Mayans.

More because the British kept supplying them with weapons until relations with Mexico took an uptick (can for the life of me remember why they were doing it in the first place; something about Belize I think). Once the supply was cut off the Mayans fell after a couple of years. I can't see the British supplying weapons to the Mayans under the condition of the Yucatan being an American protectorate given whatever benefit was there would be outweighed by the economic and political costs of angering the United States. It might still take a decade to clear them out entirely due to disease (though the important parts should be secured relatively quickly, the interior is what would prove difficult), but I don't see a partisan war of extreme volatility.
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[othyrsyde]

More because the British kept supplying them with weapons until relations with Mexico took an uptick (can for the life of me remember why they were doing it in the first place; something about Belize I think). Once the supply was cut off the Mayans fell after a couple of years. I can't see the British supplying weapons to the Mayans under the condition of the Yucatan being an American protectorate given whatever benefit was there would be outweighed by the economic and political costs of angering the United States. It might still take a decade to clear them out entirely due to disease (though the important parts should be secured relatively quickly, the interior is what would prove difficult), but I don't see a partisan war of extreme volatility.
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Nope. The Maya rebellion wasn't crushed until decades after the fact, and when Mexico acquired more modern arms. The British guns helped, but they weren't the sole factor. The farming factor was what kept them from an initial victory back when it first started, and doomed the rebellion to die a slow death afterward.

 

[Cuāuhtemōc]

Because they knew that Spain was keeping them from becoming American. Also, revolts are harder on islands. It took three tries for Cuba to become independent, and that was with American intervention in the last one.

I thought it was because the Cuban plantation owners were frightened of the possibility of a Haitian Revolution-esque event happening in Cuba and not being able to call on Spanish troops to put down the uppity "morenos"

 

[Alamo]

How densily populated were these territories?

According to Populstat, the parts of Northern Mexico and the Yucatan shown on the map have around 2.1 million people.

 

[Tallest Skil]

- The US having annexed Cuba before the Mexican American-war

Early Ostend Manifesto, US buys Cuba from Spain peacefully.

- The US annexed a greater chunk of land at the end of the Mexican-American war

OTL with Trist sick (or shot) the day he’s supposed to go to Mexico.

How densily populated were these territories? The USA could certainly not absorb these territories the same way they did with the territories they did annex IOTL…

Down to about the Tropic was sparse enough that it wouldn’t have been too much of a problem.

 

[Arkhangelsk]

Down to about the Tropic was sparse enough that it wouldn’t have been too much of a problem.

Sparse? The Mexican Cession was one thing, but going down to the Tropic of Cancer, how exactly do you expect the US to assimilate roughly 1.8 million Mexicans? If the United States tries to take that big a bite, expect it to disintegrate within a generation.

 

[Elfwine]

Sparse? The Mexican Cession was one thing, but going down to the Tropic of Cancer, how exactly do you expect the US to assimilate roughly 1.8 million Mexicans? If the United States tries to take that big a bite, expect it to disintegrate within a generation.

The US in 1848 has a population of 23 million people (in 1850, getting a figure for 1848 might be a bit tricky). 1.8 million Mexicans and so forth may bring forth a lot of problems, but it won't disintegrate the United States.

 

[katchen]

The real problem with a larger Mexican cession is that of all those Mexican territories, Yucatan is the only territory that can be guaranteed to allow slavery. Maybe the crypto-Jews of Rio Grande see the political necessity of permitting slavery on their side of the Rio Grande. Getting legal slavery into Chihuahua, Durango,Zacatecas, San Luis Potosi, Sonora, Sinaloa and Baja California is going to be a big issue, since the people there are used to not having it there.
And the extension of slavery to Yucatan is going to be an emotional issue for the British public simply because Yucatan is formerly free soil to which slavery has been extended, it borders on Belize and there's an insurgency of Indians fighting to avoid being enslaved to which the British can contribute arms. Ordinarily the British might not want to offend the United States, but the extension of slavery to formerly free soil may trump that consideration and put the US in the same pariah category, as far as the British public is concerned as South Africa under apartheid was IOTL. We could now easily see Great Britain, for example, taking over Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica, oestensibly to keep them out of American Slave Power clutches. The ripples of the US avoiding the Crisis of 1850 at Mexico's further expense (if that crisis is avoided considering sentiments about slavery in some of the parts of Mexico the US is annexing) may spread far beyond Mexico.

 

[Arkhangelsk]

The US in 1848 has a population of 23 million people (in 1850, getting a figure for 1848 might be a bit tricky). 1.8 million Mexicans and so forth may bring forth a lot of problems, but it won't disintegrate the United States.

1.8 million by themselves, no. What do expect to happen when the Civil War reals it's ugly head, do you expect all those Mexicans (who've probably had to survive a decade or so of the US's less savory racial policies) to just sit back and relax? This greater Mexican Cession will become another front in a multi-fronted Civil War, and how do you expect the US to hold onto the Mexican territories when the Lower South goes and the Upper South soon follows?

While it's not written in stone, it's a greater likelihood that the US will not survive this Civil War.

 

[Timmy811]

So fighting Spain pre-1840s? I don't think that would work out for the US to well. And if it did, and the US fought Mexico, it wouldn't really help them much, except maybe, with Cuba, the US would feel it necessary to be more maritime than OTL, so have more ships, and blockade Mexico more.

Cuba could be purchased. The US was willing to buy and pay highly for it. Spain was very unwilling to sell, but not to the point it would be ASB for them to sell it. You just need the right desperate circumstances.

 

[Faeelin]

Cuba could be purchased. The US was willing to buy and pay highly for it. Spain was very unwilling to sell, but not to the point it would be ASB for them to sell it. You just need the right desperate circumstances.

Like what?

 

[Ariosto]

Nope. The Maya rebellion wasn't crushed until decades after the fact, and when Mexico acquired more modern arms. The British guns helped, but they weren't the sole factor. The farming factor was what kept them from an initial victory back when it first started, and doomed the rebellion to die a slow death afterward.

It was eight years after the British enacted an effective blockade of the Mayan state that the Mexican sent in an army and occupied its capital, with the Mayans failing to drive them back. Now it took until 1933 apparently for most organized resistance to be extinguished, but my point still stands.

From the beginning, if the United States is the one in control of the Yucatan coast, the Mayans are not going to have access to British arms or munitions, nor are they going to be able to export any goods so as to attain hard currency for purchases from other sources. The Americans by contrast are going to have easy access to more modern armaments, unlike the Mexicans, and won't be distracted by other internal battles (in the literal sense; there is still unrest in regards to slavery, but that doesn't involve large sections of the country in armed rebellion until 1861). I don't see a conflict of that nature extending half a century, with some of the most prominent advantages that existed for the Maya having been eliminated from the start.
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[Timmy811]

Mexico had abolished slavery a generation before and as mentioned before telling millions of Indio peon farmers working essentially as medieval serfs that they'd now be slaves under American law likely revives the same warriors that threw out the Spanish Empire 30 years before after 300 years. Coming to an accommodation with a mostly Indio/Mestizo population with hard won rights seems more likely to collapse Negro slavery in the U.S. (which was modeled on Indio slavery in the Carribbean sugar plantations anyway) or greatly constrain it rather than spread it.

If I'm eying that map correctly there weren't 2 million people total in those northern Mexican territories in 1910, let alone 1850.

There were only a few hundred thousand people in those territories at that time, most of them in the territories directly south of Texas.

Like what?

A government that is losing a civil war may be willing to sell, especially if the expected result of losing is mass execution of the losing government.

 

[Tallest Skil]

Sparse? The Mexican Cession was one thing, but going down to the Tropic of Cancer, how exactly do you expect the US to assimilate roughly 1.8 million Mexicans?

Are you adding the population of the Mexican Cession to that number to come up with it, because it sounds awfully high for just the additional part.

If the United States tries to take that big a bite, expect it to disintegrate within a generation.

Utter nonsense. I suppose we disintegrated with the tens of millions of immigrants in the early 1900s.

The real problem with a larger Mexican cession is that of all those Mexican territories, Yucatan is the only territory that can be guaranteed to allow slavery.

Really? Some in the South wanted 36º30’ extended to the Pacific; what do you think would have stopped that had they done it?

A government that is losing a civil war may be willing to sell, especially if the expected result of losing is mass execution of the losing government.

I’d think a longer, more drawn-out (perhaps even secretly US-funded) attempt at independence could wear Spain down enough to say, “Hey, fine, just take the darn thing.”