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Old 09-06-2009, 02:10 AM
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Mohoender Mohoender is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sglancy12 View Post
How dumb do you think I am
Cool down guys. I don't think any offense was intended from both side.

By the way Raellus what you say about industries is right but when you report it to history, it is equally false.

You forgot one thing. In 1848, industries were rare all over the union anyway as the economy was still focusing on raw materials and agriculture. When California (along with "1/2 Mexico") was taken over by the future USA it brought along things that were as valuable as industries and technologies today:
- Very fertile areas, rich forests, mineral ressources including gold and many other things (These lands were potentially rich).
- Several spots that would soon become major ports on the Pacific and the first step toward US development in Asia.
- Similarly, a valuable connection to the entire American West Coast (the Panama Canal was not even dreamed of and the Cape Horn was a tricky route). That will prove more than important in 1876 with rail development.
...

However, I don't think it was stolen (of course, I understand that some Mexicans might feel that way).

Texas might indeed have been stolen (Ouch! I should be careful, there are plenty of Texas boys around, probably ready to bite at a small bouncing froggy ) as I have the feeling that anglo-saxon settlers did something similar to what the Albanian just did with Kosovo (with a main difference, nonetheless: Kosovo has been part of Serbia for centuries, not true for Texas with Mexico). Whatever, it was 200 years ago and it worked (What is a shame for Kosovo can be seen as brilliant for Texas IMO and depending on your point of view): nowadays, no doubt that Texas is to the Texans (with close ties to Mexico or we would not be eating Tex-Mex). In fact, these lands were never stolen from Mexicans, they were stolen from several American Indian People (by Mexicans and Anglo-saxons alike).

California (+Arizona, New Mexico...) is an entirely different matter and I retain the feeling that internal tensions within Mexico greatly favored its loss. Of course, Anglo-saxon settlers were again more than deeply involved into it but corrupt Mexican officials greatly helped them (also I'm not a specialist of that period). By the way, funny, I just found out that the Russians established a military outpost in northern California at that time. It didn't bring them far but it could have been interesting if things had turned differently.

Whatever, I have no doubt that without the taking over of the entire northern part of Mexico with no consideration for the Adams-Onis treaty signed in 1819 (but Spain was no more the actor two years later) allowed US to become what it is today. I'm convinced that without this political move, US would never have become a great power.

Best wishes from the Froggy

Last edited by Mohoender; 09-06-2009 at 02:21 AM.
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