With a Mexico this neutered, would it even have to be annexed? I think it would be of greater utility as a puppet state/ de facto colony.
How Far the U.S. Would Have Annexed Mexico
- Thread starter TickTock The Witch's Dead
- Start date
With a Mexico this neutered, would it even have to be annexed? I think it would be of greater utility as a puppet state/ de facto colony.
If Mexico were a colony, would it be just as bad as being annexed into the U.S.?
Once Mexico had developed an identity as a seperate nation annexing and absorbing it wholesale into the US becomes extremely unlikely.
Mexicans were quite capable of resisting Mexican oppressors, why wouldn't they be even more ready to resist ones with an alien language and culture?
It is not just a matter of beating the opposing army and occupying some territory.
Occupying Mexico City was easy, holding an entire country forever is another matter entirely.
As an example if you were to look at a map of Western Europe in the 1840's and one today, apart from the unification of Germany and Italy (both areas with a common culture and language), very little has changed despite all the conflicts that have occurred.
Mexicans were quite capable of resisting Mexican oppressors, why wouldn't they be even more ready to resist ones with an alien language and culture?
It is not just a matter of beating the opposing army and occupying some territory.
Occupying Mexico City was easy, holding an entire country forever is another matter entirely.
As an example if you were to look at a map of Western Europe in the 1840's and one today, apart from the unification of Germany and Italy (both areas with a common culture and language), very little has changed despite all the conflicts that have occurred.
Grey Wolf
Donor
The war was going nowhere until Scott landed at Vera Cruz and forged inland to Mexico City. Doing so was over-turning convention in regard to the time limits on state militia and their use in warfare, and an agreement needed to be reached with the Mexicans. Trist may have lost Baja for the North, but if the Mexicans had been faced with a treaty demanding Sonora etc I don't think they would have signed. What would the USA have done then?
Best Regards
Grey Wolf
Best Regards
Grey Wolf
The U.S. might as well start threaten to torch Mexico City.
Probably worse. In this scenario, the US(and US financial interests) would reap the benefits of Mexican labor/resources without having to pay for any of the overlying functions of the Mexican state themselves. So it gets screwed both ways.
More like, what could Mexico do then? The mexican government was in shambles, the capital was under military occupation, the top government officials were basically negotiating at gunpoint; hell, before that, many of the bigger cities surrendered to the americans without a fight, and independentist sentiment was still strong in many states (chiefly the Yucatan peninsula and the Rio Grande states).
Many would be freedom fighters hated first and foremost, the government, then each other, and finally the americans. If it weren't so, they'd have been able to put a front during the war in the first place.
That's funny becuase otherwise Mexico would have been content with U.S. rule. And when you said independent its sentiment, would it necessarily mean they prefer the U.S. because I heard the Yucatan would have been content with the U.S.
Also, did some Mexicans preferred the U.S, ruling over them?
Could the U.S. Forcibly split Mexico into states and control each individual one of them?
I'm sorry, but have you read anything about the Caste War besides Wikipedia? Not trying to act like a smug ass, but let be in me one in saying "The Maya would fuck up the invading Yankees, just like they did with the Mexicans." But hey, let's just handwave reality to ensure the U.S. has its place in the sun lording over the ungrateful brown men.
Would the US Congress support spending millions of dollars on occupying a nation it can extract most of the economic concessions desired by Americans from afar? What I don't get about this obsession of the US eating Mexico is that no Ameriwanker seems to remember one of the two parties at the time, the Whigs, were against the Mexican-American War, with a faction that included Lincoln pressing for no territorial gains. How would Lewis Cass, or whoever, force them to accept a treaty that would only open a pandora's box about the extension of slavery, strain the budget and send young American men back in caskets? Answer: He couldn't. You would have to completely destroy an admittedly at times uncohesive party in such a way that 2/3 of Congress will roll over for the fetish of the Mexican Destiny men
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I remember reading that the State Department tried to convince the Californios too that they would get a better deal with the US. It might even have worked, if that bonehead Fremont didn't invade and spark off a bit of Mexican nationalism.
Thomas Larkin when appointed as the (only) American Consul had instructions to encourage the Californios to break off from Mexico. This was to allow an easier expansion west for the Americans. I wonder why Alvarado and his familial connections didn't buy Larkin's continued gesticulations about the US defending them.
Lateknight
Banned
The Yucan Maya's resisting would have just ended up with them being massacred like all the other indians the U.S dealt with the scale of the conflict would be larger but the end would be same.
Deleted member 67076
I can't really see anything past Durango. Population starts to get too populated and the logistics would be a bitch to hold on.
The effort needed to eliminate the Maya would probably bankrupt the US. The US would lose thousands upon thousands of soldiers to disease, attrition and guerrilla warfare, to say nothing of all the money needed to build the infrastructure, garrisons and settlements needed to hold the place down. There's a good reason the Spanish had a very light hand in the region for centuries.
Lateknight
Banned
Probably not it's not like this would be a new thing for the U.S army. I think we all agree that slaughtering natives is bad the army was pretty good at it though. They would probably try to starve them out that's not even that hard in the Yucatan the most important thing for life water is all pretty contracted all they would need to do is poison most the fresh holes and make sure the natives that weren't hostile got feed enough to be loyal.
Deleted member 67076
I don't think you comprehend just how much Maya there were, and how good they were at fighting.
This isn't the US army is sent out to the Midwest to wipe out isolated units of 500 or so people, including women and children. This is the US army being sent out to a very far place, very distant from reinforcements (with no trains and roads to get the new contingents there quickly) to take down a very densely populated population that numbers in the hundreds of thousands. A population that is both organized, numerous, determined, well trained, and lives in a very rugged, very tropical and very disease ridden terrain that they know like the back of their hands.
And one that was, above all that, very well armed, being eager buyers of the British, who most certainly will be even more terrified of the American behemoth and have an interested in lowering the balance of power, so they'll sell their guns and artillery at discount prices.
Please tell me how the US will just waltz in there and deal with that with no problems whatsoever.
This of course ignores that the press, who will just see the Yucatan campaigns as a quagmire in some God Forsaken hellhole where America's boys are getting slaughtered day and night.
[citation needed that American Genocide attempt would wreck Maya]
Lateknight
Banned
I provide lots examples of times when Americans ethically cleansed for land natives I cant show you some examples of the times when America annexed a territory then gave it up.
CthulhuFhtagn
Banned
Contrary to popular belief*, the US didn't enact its own version of Generalplan Ost on the Native Americans. The Native American population was so low to begin with that doing things like "poison the water or starve them out" never had to be used. Trying to deal with an insurgency in a densely populated jungle environment only accessible by sea would be a nightmare for the US Army, which had trouble suppressing a far smaller insurgency on much more favorable terrain in the Southwest and the Great Plains in OTL.
*Not on this site, but in America in general.
Okinawa and Greenland?
But the Maya aren't white, ergo, they'd be slaughtered by the superior U.S. forces. Even though by that logic the Mexicans would have been far successful against them.
