Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant passages that can help answer the question.
Query: What years was the Mexican-American War?
The Mexican–American War,[lower-alpha 1] also known in the United States as the Mexican War and in Mexico as the American intervention in Mexico,[lower-alpha 2] was an armed conflict between the United States of America and the United Mexican States (Mexico) from 1846 to 1848. It followed in the wake of the 1845 American annexation of the independent Republic of Texas. The unstable Mexican caudillo leadership of President/General Antonio López de Santa Anna still considered Texas to be its northeastern province and never recognized the Republic of Texas, which had seceded a decade earlier. In 1845, newly elected U.S. President James K. Polk sent troops to the disputed area and a diplomatic mission to Mexico. After Mexican forces attacked American forces, Polk cited this in his request that Congress declare war.
The 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, forced onto the remnant Mexican government, ended the war and enforced the Mexican Cession of the northern territories of Alta California and Santa Fe de Nuevo México to the United States. The U.S. agreed to pay $15 million compensation for the physical damage of the war and assumed $3.25 million of debt already owed earlier by the Mexican government to U.S. citizens. Mexico acknowledged the loss of what became the State of Texas and accepted the Rio Grande as its northern border with the U.S.
During the war Mexican-American community organizations were very active in patriotic efforts to support American troops abroad, and made efforts to support the war effort materially and to provide moral support for the young American men fighting the war, especially the young Mexican-American men from local communities. Some of the community projects were cooperative ventures in which members of both the Mexican-American and Anglo communities participated. Most efforts made in the Mexican-American community, however, represented localized American home front activities that were separate from the activities of the Anglo community. Mexican-American women organized to assist their servicemen and the war effort. An underlying goal of the Spanish-American Mothers and Wives Association was the reinforcement of the woman's role in Spanish-Mexican culture. The organization raised thousands of dollars, wrote letters, and joined in numerous celebrations of their culture and their support for Mexican-American servicemen. Membership reached over 300 during the war and eventually ended its existence in 1976.
During Spanish colonization of Mexico, several Spanish Viceroys were of Irish descent such as Juan O'Donojú who was the last Spanish Viceroy. Since Mexican independence, many Irish have immigrated to Mexico and have contributed to its culture and development. During the Mexican–American War (1846–1848), many Irish immigrants in the United States abandoned their posts and joined Mexican forces because of what they felt was discrimination and persecution of their Catholic faith by non-Catholic Americans. One of the most popular Irish battalions during the war was that of the St. Patrick's Battalion which fought on the Mexican side during the Battle of Buena Vista and Battle of Churubusco in 1847, among others.
During World War II, more than 300,000 Mexican Americans served in the US armed forces.[26] Mexican Americans were generally integrated into regular military units; however, many Mexican–American War veterans were discriminated against and even denied medical services by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs when they arrived home.[44] In 1948, war veteran Hector P. Garcia founded the American GI Forum to address the concerns of Mexican American veterans who were being discriminated against. The AGIF's first campaign was on the behalf of Felix Longoria, a Mexican American private who was killed in the Philippines while in the line of duty. Upon the return of his body to his hometown of Three Rivers, Texas, he was denied funeral services because of his nationality.
Lincoln's argument was supported by a majority of the U.S. House who voted to censure President Polk for starting what they claimed was an illegal and unconstitutional war. This represented a further propaganda tool in the arsenal of the Whigs and anti-war advocates.
The Mexican–American War was the first American war that was covered by mass media, primarily the penny press and was the first foreign war covered primarily by American correspondents.[69] Press coverage in the United States was characterized by support for the war and widespread public interest and demand for coverage of the conflict. Mexican coverage of the war (both written by Mexicans and Americans based in Mexico) was affected by press censorship, first by the Mexican government and later by the American military.
Fourteen years after the Mexican–American War, both John S. Roane and Albert Pike would again find themselves leading troops in battle, this time as General Officers. The American Civil War was to produce a different type of record for Arkansas' militia and Volunteer Companies. With the end of hostilities, militia activity in Arkansas decreased. With the Mexican threat eliminated and the near-absence of a serious Indian threat, Arkansans saw little reason to maintain a state militia until the buildup of sectional tensions preceding the Civil War.
In 1772, a group of Spaniards led by Pedro Fages, made the first European sightings of Joshua trees while pursuing native converts to Christianity who had run away from a mission in San Diego. By 1823, the year Mexico achieved independence from Spain, a Mexican expedition from Los Angeles, in what was then Alta California, is thought to have explored as far east as the Eagle Mountains in what later became the park. Three years later, Jedediah Smith led a group of American fur trappers and explorers along the nearby Mojave Trail, and others soon followed. Two decades after that, the United States defeated Mexico in the Mexican–American War (1846–48) and took over about half of Mexico's original territory, including California and the future parkland.
In Arizona community organizations were very active in patriotic efforts to support American troops abroad, and made efforts to support the war effort materially and to provide moral support for the young American men fighting the war, especially the young Mexican-American men from local communities. Some of the community projects were cooperative ventures in which members of both the Mexican-American and Anglo communities participated. Most efforts made in the Mexican-American community, however, represented localized American home front activities that were separate from the activities of the Anglo community. Mexican-American women organized to assist their servicemen and the war effort. An underlying goal of the Spanish-American Mothers and Wives Association was the reinforcement of the woman's role in Spanish-Mexican culture. The organization raised thousands of dollars, wrote letters, and joined in numerous celebrations of their culture and their support for Mexican-American servicemen. Membership reached over 300 during the war and eventually ended its existence in 1976.
Until after World War II, the Mission District was largely inhabited by European Americans, which from the 1950s to the 1970s were replaced by an influx of Latino immigrants. Partly as a symbol of this transformation, on 16 September 1966 a replica of the “Mexican Liberty Bell”, presented by Mexican president Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, was installed in the park near a statue of Miguel Hidalgo, the father of Mexican independence, which had been erected four years earlier. The "Mexican Liberty Bell" (today located in the National Palace in Mexico City) is a church bell that Hidalgo rang in 1810 in the Mexican city of Dolores Hidalgo, in what became known as the "Cry of Dolores" (El Grito de Dolores) that launched the Mexican War of Independence. In 2014, the replica was relocated by around 25 feet during the renovations of Mission Dolores Park.
María Ruiz de Burton was a native of the Mexican state of Baja California. During the Mexican–American War, Ruiz de Burton witnessed the American invasion of La Paz that began in 1846. In 1847, she met an American military officer, Colonel Henry S. Burton, in Baja. He had been ordered to invade La Paz to suppress a Mexican uprising where the Mexicans there gave little resistance. When the war ended two years later, California was split into two; Baja California remained Mexican territory while Alta California became American territory. During the American Civil War, Burton served the Union Army. The two were married in 1849, a year after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed. They lived in the newly claimed American territory and later moved to the East Coast, where Ruiz de Burton observed the economic, social and political turmoil wrought by the war and its aftermath. Despite 10 years of living in Eastern cities, as a Latin-American Catholic, Ruiz de Burton was considered an outsider in Union territory. She transformed her experiences living along the predominantly Protestant Eastern Coast, where Irish Catholics were poorly paid and discriminated against, into the novel "Who Would Have Thought It?". The book was published anonymously in 1872; Ruiz de Burton feared that if it became known that a non-native English speaker had written the work that it would undergo greater scrutiny for grammatical errors.
On April 25, 1846, a 2,000-strong Mexican cavalry detachment attacked a 70-man U.S. patrol that had been sent into the contested territory north of the Rio Grande and south of the Nueces River. The Mexican cavalry routed the patrol, killing 16 U.S. soldiers in what later became known as the Thornton Affair. Both nations declared war. In the ensuing Mexican–American War, there were no more battles fought in Texas, but it became a major staging point for the American invasion of northern Mexico.
The United States fought against Mexico in what is known as the Mexican–American War. The war ended officially when the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed and forced onto the remnant Mexican government. It specified its major consequence, the Mexican Cession of the northern territories of Alta California and Santa Fe de Nuevo México to the United States.
The Mexican Frontier, 1821–1846: The American Southwest Under Mexico by historian David J. Weber is a history of the part of Mexico's north and northwest that became part of the United States after the Mexican–American War. The book examines territories on the northern frontier of Mexico, including what is now Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas, in the twenty-five years after Mexico gained its independence from Spain. Weber emphasizes the role of Mexicans in the region through this period of transition, particularly before and during the Texas war of independence, as well as exploring the region as a whole while acknowledging its distinct communities.
Since the 20th century, there have been an interchange of food influences between Mexico and the United States. Mexican cooking was of course still practiced in what is now the Southwest United States after the Mexican–American War, but Diana Kennedy, in her book "The Cuisines of Mexico" (published in 1972), drew a sharp distinction between Mexican food and Tex-Mex.
The United States is home to the second-largest Mexican community in the world, second only to Mexico itself, and comprising more than 24% of the entire Mexican-origin population of the world.[3] Mexican American families of indigenous heritage have been in the country for at least 15,000 years, and mestizo Mexican American history spans more than 400 years, since the 1598 founding of Spanish New Mexico. Spanish subjects of New Spain in the Southwest included New Mexican Hispanos and Pueblo Indians and Genizaros, Tejanos, Californios and Mission Indians have existed since the area was part of New Spain. The majority of these historically primarily Hispanophone populations eventually adopted English as their first language as part of their overall Americanization. Approximately ten percent of the current Mexican-American population are descended from the early colonial settlers who became U.S. citizens in 1848 via the Treaty of Guadelupe Hidalgo which ended the Mexican–American War.[4]
During the war Mexican-American community organizations were very active in patriotic efforts to support American troops abroad, and made efforts to support the war effort materially and to provide moral support for the young American men fighting the war, especially the young Mexican-American men from local communities. Some of the community projects were cooperative ventures in which members of both the Mexican-American and Anglo communities participated. Most efforts made in the Mexican-American community, however, represented localized American home front activities that were separate from the activities of the Anglo community. Mexican-American women organized to assist their servicemen and the war effort. An underlying goal of the Spanish-American Mothers and Wives Association was the reinforcement of the woman's role in Spanish-Mexican culture. The organization raised thousands of dollars, wrote letters, and joined in numerous celebrations of their culture and their support for Mexican-American servicemen. Membership reached over 300 during the war and eventually ended its existence in 1976.
De Voto, Bernard, Year of Decision 1846 (1942), well written popular history Greenberg, Amy S. A Wicked War: Polk, Clay, Lincoln, and the 1846 U.S. Invasion of Mexico (2012). ISBN9780307592699 and at the Pritzker Military Library on December 7, 2012 Guardino, Peter. The Dead March: A History of the Mexican-American War. Cambridge: Harvard University Press (2017). ISBN978-0-674-97234-6 Henderson, Timothy J. A Glorious Defeat: Mexico and Its War with the United States (2008) Meed, Douglas. The Mexican War, 1846–1848 (2003). A short survey. Merry Robert W. A Country of Vast Designs: James K. Polk, the Mexican War and the Conquest of the American Continent (2009) Smith, Justin Harvey. The War with Mexico, Vol 1. (2 vol 1919), . Smith, Justin Harvey. The War with Mexico, Vol 2. (1919). .
According to the National World War II Museum, between 250,000 and 500,000 Hispanic Americans served in the Armed Forces during World War II. Thus, Hispanic Americans comprised 2.3% to 4.7% of the Army. The exact number, however is unknown as at the time Hispanics were classified as whites. Generally Mexican American World War II servicemen were integrated into regular military units. However, many Mexican–American War veterans were discriminated against and even denied medical services by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs when they arrived home. In 1948, war veteran Dr Hector P. Garcia founded the American GI Forum to address the concerns of Mexican American veterans who were being discriminated against. The AGIF's first campaign was on the behalf of Felix Longoria, a Mexican American private who was killed in the Philippines in the line of duty. Upon the return of his body to his hometown of Three Rivers, Texas, he was denied funeral services because he was Mexican American.
Battles of the Mexican–American War Christopher Werner, maker of the "Iron Palmetto" commemorating the loss of South Carolinians in the War Mexican–American Border War Reconquista (Mexico) Republic of Texas–United States relations Texas annexation Territories of Mexico
The United States fought against Mexico in what is known as the Mexican–American War. The war ended officially when the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed and forced onto the remnant Mexican government. It specified its major consequence, the Mexican Cession of the northern territories of Alta California and Santa Fe de Nuevo México to the United States.
During World War II, Crystal City was home to the largest of the World War II internment camps, having housed American civilians of German, Japanese, and Italian ancestry.
With the stream of refugees fleeing the Mexican Revolution of 1910, and later added to by Mexican migrant workers lured by the local spinach industry, the demographics of the small rural city began to shift over the years since its 1910 incorporation, due to its proximity to the U.S./Mexico border. By 1963, Crystal City experienced a tumultuous Mexican American electoral victory, as the swiftly emerging Mexican American majority elected fellow Mexican American to the city council, led by Juan Cornejo, a local representative of the Teamsters Union at the Del Monte cannery in Crystal City. The newly elected all Mexican American city council, and the succeeding administration, had trouble governing the city because of political factions among the new officials. Cornejo was selected mayor from among the five new council members. His quest for control of the city government eventually led to his loss of political support. Although these five elected officials known as "Los Cinco" only held office for two years, many consider this moment the "spark" or starting point of what became known as the Chicano Movement. A new group made up of both Anglos and Mexican Americans, the Citizens Association Serving All Americans, announced its plans to run candidates for countywide offices in 1964, and won.
By the time the war between the United States and Mexico began in 1846, the depression was over and Mexican Army forces occupied the Tucson presidio. The area was prospering and held its largest garrison of around 200 dragoons or infantrymen with two cannons. In 1846 as the United States Army's Mormon Battalion moved through present day Arizona, they nearly fought a battle with the Mexican army as they approached the fort from the southeast. The Americans were on their way to reinforce the United States Navy's campaign against California. Mormon forces captured the presidio just after the Mexican commander Captain Antonio Comaduron decided not to fight; instead he withdrew his garrison to San Xavier and then to Tubac. The Mormons eventually left Tucson and it was reoccupied by the Mexicans. The war ended with a United States victory and the Mexican Cession in which the Mexican Government sold the Americans most of what is now the southwest United States in 1848. Tucson became part of the American New Mexico Territory after the Gadsden Purchase in 1853. Though the land was purchased the Mexican garrison did not leave the Tucson Presidio until March 1856. The majority of Mexican residents remained behind.
Literally hundreds of monuments commemorate the Niños Héroes, the seven boys who defended the castle of Chapultepec alone against the American invasion in 1847. According to legend the last one alive wrapped himself in the Mexican flag and jumped off the parapet rather than surrender.The Niños Héroes Park, Monterrey. There is a statue in the park of the six heroes. 
There may be just two significant monuments to the Mexican–American War in Tennessee:
There are monuments to Mexican–Americans who served in World War II in various places, e.g. in Emporia, Kansas, and in Sacramento, California (which was vandalized). There are also [[List of Texas Revolution monuments and memorials|monuments and memorials relating to the Texas Revolution (1835–36)]], which preceded the Mexican–American War by a decade.[[Category:Lists of war monuments and memorials|Mexican-American War]]
[[Category:Mexican–American War|List of monuments and memorials]]