Newly elected U.S. President James K. Polk…
June 1846 CE
When that offer was rejected, President Polk moves U.S. troops commanded by Major General Zachary Taylor further south into the disputed Nueces Strip.
The border of Texas as an independent state was originally never settled.
The Republic of Texas claims land up to the Rio Grande based on the Treaties of Velasco, but Mexico refuses to accept these as valid, claiming that the Rio Grande in the treaty is the Nueces River, and refers to the Rio Grande as the Rio Bravo.
The ill-fated Texan Santa Fe Expedition of 1841 had attempted to realize the claim to New Mexican territory east of the Rio Grande, but its members had been captured and imprisoned.
Reference to the Rio Grande boundary of Texas had been omitted from the U.S. Congress's annexation resolution to help secure passage after the annexation treaty failed in the Senate.
President Polk claims the Rio Grande boundary, and when Mexico sends forces over the Rio Grande, this provokes a dispute.
In July 1845, Polk had sent General Zachary Taylor to Texas, and by October thirty-five hundred Americans are on the Nueces River, ready to take by force the disputed land.
Polk wants to protect the border and also covets for the U.S. the continent clear to the Pacific Ocean.
At the same time Polk writes to Thomas O. Larkin, the American consul in the Mexican territory of Alta California, disclaiming American ambitions in California, but offering to support independence from Mexico or voluntary accession to the United States, and warning that the United States would oppose a British or French takeover.
To end another war scare with the United Kingdom over the Oregon Country, Polk had signed the Oregon Treaty dividing the territory, angering northern Democrats who feel he is prioritizing Southern expansion over Northern expansion.
Locations
Groups
United States of America (US, USA) (Washington DC)
View →
Britain (United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland)
View →
Alta California
View →
France, constitutional monarchy of
View →
Oregon Country (claimed by (U.S.A. and Britain)
View →
Mexico, Centralist Republic of
View →
Texas, State of (U.S.A.)
View →
Topics
Commodities
Regions
Northern North America
View →Subregions
