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Most history classes hit the same points: Polk's election, the annexation of Texas, manifest destiny. They do not tell the story of the movement against the Mexican American War (1846–48), which Ulysses S. Grant described as one of the most unjust wars ever waged by a stronger nation against a weaker one.
El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, east of the Rio Grande, in New Mexico. Photo: NPS.
Why the trails are involved
The war ended with Mexico ceding much of the modern-day American Southwest. Parts of the Santa Fe, California, Oregon, Pony Express, Mormon Pioneer and Old Spanish trails, and of El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, became American territory, and the United States became a transcontinental nation.
Resaca de la Palma Battlefield at Palo Alto Battlefield NHP. Photo: NPS/Palo Alto Battlefield NHP.
How the war began
After Texas declared independence in 1836, the Nueces River became the generally accepted border with Mexico. As annexation approached in 1845, Polk promised to defend Texan claims to the "Nueces strip", the disputed land between the Nueces and the Rio Grande. In spring 1846 he sent U.S. forces into it. When fighting broke out, he said Mexican troops had shed blood on American soil, which made the aggressor look like the victim.
More than territory was at stake. Antislavery congressmen saw an attempt to expand slavery westward. Supporters often defended the war in racial terms: the Congressional Globe wrote of the destiny of the Anglo-Saxon race to spread from ocean to ocean, and the American Review spoke of exterminating Mexico's "weaker blood". For many vocal supporters, the war was part of a larger vision of white supremacy.
Who opposed it
| Opponent | What they did |
|---|---|
| Some members of Congress | Both houses voted overwhelmingly for war, but there were dissenters. Rep. Abraham Lincoln drafted "spot resolutions" asking Polk to name the exact spot where blood had been shed on American soil. |
| A Unitarian minister from Massachusetts | Urged his state to boycott the war: no enlisting, no loans, no ships, no weapons. |
| Abolitionists | William Lloyd Garrison's The Liberator condemned the war. |
| Frederick Douglass | Called the opposition "puny" and criticised protesters who kept paying taxes and politicians unwilling to risk their popularity. |
| Henry David Thoreau | Was jailed for refusing to pay a poll tax. His essay "Civil Disobedience" later influenced Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. |
| Irish-Catholic soldiers | Some in the American army defected to the Mexican side, shocked by U.S. forces desecrating Catholic churches. |
When the constable assumed Thoreau was simply short of money and offered to pay the tax, Thoreau was dismayed; a relative eventually paid it. Antiwar Americans kept meeting in public despite attacks by pro-war mobs.
The road not taken
The article says there was never any real chance that the protests would prevent the war. They did show that not every American favored it, and it is worth imagining how the national historic trails, and the nation, might have turned out had the protesters prevailed.
Sources
- National Park Service, https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/the-lands-of-the-overland-trails-protests-against-the-mexican-american-war.htm ; rewritten in hubnx's own words. The article cites Eric Foner's Give Me Liberty!, Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States and Mintz and McNeil's "War Fever and Antiwar Protests" (Digital History).
In these publicationsPony Express National Historic Trail
Licence: CC0 1.0 (public domain) · Adapted from www.nps.gov
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