TEXAS, THE MEXICAN-AMERICAN WAR, AND THE SLAVERY DEBATE

Willie Hiatt via ZOOM

With independence from Spain in 1821, Mexico inherited jurisdiction over an unpopulated wilderness known as Texas. The decision to allow U.S. settlers, many of whom were slaveholders, to conditionally enter the territory began a decades-long conflict that resulted first in Texas independence and then its incorporation into the United States following the 1846-48 Mexican-American War. This lecture explores how the Texas question and the huge territorial acquisition known as the Mexican Cession influenced debates over slavery and “Manifest Destiny” in the decades before the Civil War.

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