8 US Sates are on land that used to
belong to Mexico.
Welcome to History Lists. Let's talk about
how things used to be south of Texas.
The Mayans, these guys thrived in the
Yucatan Peninsula for over 1000 years
The Mayans are known for their advanced
knowledge in astronomy and mathematics
They understood the concept of zero
centuries before Europeans did
and developed the only writing system
in the pre-Columbian Americas.
Their cities were complex. Housing schools
libraries, hospitals, and sport arenas.
What makes this all even more impressive
is that the Mayans didn't have lakes,
springs or freshwater people needed
They had to develop an intricate series of
channels and chill dunes in order to
redirect and store enough rain to keep
things going.
Weirdly enough though by the time the
Spanish showed up in "new" world they were
puzzled to find out that many of these
great cities had already been abandoned
even today we are still not sure what
happened but it seems likely that
disease coupled with drought and the abuse
of their environment led to their
civilizations collapse.
Number 2 let's talk about some Aztecs.
These people call themselves the Mexica
which is where the country of Mexico
would eventually get it's name.
They built their society on top of
chinampas which are manmade islands held
together by roots, stakes, lake sediments,
and probably feces like the Mayans they
enjoyed developing chocolate,
sacrificing humans to their gods and
playing yulama which was a sport that
often ended in injury or death and was
possibly even used to resolve between
states rather than going to war.
They ruled over five million people in
their empire that stretched from
coast to coast and they demanded a lot
of tribute. They were not super beloved
by all their subjects and when Cortez
rolled in he was able to turn much of
their empire against them.
The Aztecs were hit with a civilization
triple-whammy.
Famine, smallpox, and being betrayed from
the inside.
I'm just saying that like sacrificing
people a lot might have backfired on them.
and this paved the way for Spanish
colonization.
Tenochtitlan was raised to the ground
and built over it was Nueva España as
new Captial. Mexico City.
Since the Tenochtitlan were instrumental
in defeating the Aztecs. They Spanish
allowed them to keep their indigenous
names and some of their traditional
forms of government.
Other tribes did not fare so well.
Eventually a catholic priest named
Migual Hidalgo y Costilla called the
people of Nueva España to arms for their
country's independence and he was
captured and killed but hey even that
didn't stop Mexico from becoming it's own
constitutional monarchy in 1821.
Time for some revolution.
The country began to do pretty well
economically a stable yet super corrupt
dictatorship by Porfirio Diaz yet the
Native Americans who have been assimilated
into Mexican society became increasingly
poor and angry.
As they were forced to grow cash crops
that they couldn't actually eat.
The rising middle class were also kind of
pissed that their government had become
pay-to-play and both groups joined
together to take the regime down.
They established a liberal democracy after
overthrowing their dictator and a wealthy
idealist named Francisco Madero was
elected president and I'm not going to
sugarcoat it he was assassinated
pretty quickly before he could do anything
[singing tone] Mexican-American War
In the 1840's US president Polk had his
eye set on some Mexican territory.
When they turned his offer down to buy
them he moved troops into the disputed
zone between the Rio Grande and Nueces
River. Mexico thought that was less than
chill, given our recent annexation of
Texas.
They responded by sending in a calvary
and killing about 12 US soldiers.
That obviously meant war and the
United States proceeded to defeat Mexico
along pretty much the same route that
Cortez had taken when fighting the Aztecs
and Mexico lost.
They were forced to sell all of their
land north of the Rio Grande 15 million
dollars.