Mexican-American War

Historical Context Note

Litencyc Editors (Independent Scholar - Europe)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 4.1.3: Hispanic Writing and Culture of Central America and the Caribbean.
Vol. editors: Ben Bollig (University of Oxford), Ceire Broderick (University College Cork), Nuala Finnegan (University College Cork), Anna Forné (Gothenburg University), Cara Levey (University College Cork), Lori Oxford (Western Carolina University), Ailsa Peate (University of Westminster)

Domains

Dates

Date of occurrence 1846-05-13-1848-02-02

Places

Mexico (Location)
United States (Location)

Resources

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The formal cause of the Mexican-American war was a dispute about the Western boundary of the Republic of Texas which the United States had annexed in March 1845, causing a formal rupture in diplomatic relations. The deeper cause was the frustration which Mexico had been expressing for 20 years about the encroachment of United States settlers into its territory, and in particular their colonisation of Texas, and the manifestly expansionist policies of President James K. Polk.

Polk's offer to purchase New Mexico and California in the winter of 1845 was rebuffed by the Mexican president, José Joaquín Herrera, so Polk orderd General Zachary Taylor to advance across the river Nueces, which the Mexicans considered the Texan frontier, to the Rio Grande in January 1846. On April 25 the

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254 words

Citation: Editors, Litencyc. "Mexican-American War". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 22 December 2007 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=4894, accessed 06 May 2024.]

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