Part I: The War and its Aftermath

The war between the United States and Mexico, which took place from late April/early May 1846 to September 1847, is called the Mexican War by people of the United States and la guerra de la invasión Yanqui—the war of the Yankee invasion—by Mexico. Apart from a couple of skirmishes in what is best termed disputed territory, just north of the Rio Grande, all the fighting occurred on Mexican soil. This includes land now identified as New Mexico and California, as well as Mexico itself.

Like the controversial war in Vietnam, the Mexican War divided the nation and led to distressing consequences. To many it was an unpleasant necessity, if the nation was to fulfill its manifest destiny to expand across the continent.  To others, it was a shameful and greedy land grab directed against a weak, disorganized neighbor. Worst of all, it threatened to spread the evils of slavery through the vast territories of the West. After the international boundary was redrawn, the Mexican war was easy to forget. In subsequent years, when they noted the conflict, historians tended to view it as a dress rehearsal for the drama of the Civil War, which was staged some thirteen years later.

Yet it was the Mexican War that determined the size, shape, wealth, and power of the United States, as well as the course of the nation through the next century. The war brought the United States into its own as a military power. It was the nations first full-scale offensive on foreign soil. For the first time, graduates of the military academy at West Point fought in campaigns against a military force other than American Indians. The great Civil War generals—Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, Stonewall Jackson, James Longstreet, P.T. Beauregard, A.S. Johnston, Joseph Johnston, George B. McClellan, John Hooker, and William Sherman—all gained invaluable training on the battlefields of Mexico.

As a result of the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, which concluded the war, the United States acquired half a million square miles of territory in the Southwest: western Texas, most of New Mexico and Arizona and all of Nevada, Utah, and California. The war opened the overland trails to California, making possible the Gold Rush of 1849 and also the Compromise of 1850, which attempted to regulate the spread of slavery in the newly acquired territories.

News coverage of the war was also noteworthy in and of itself. It was the first American war to be covered by a foreign correspondent, George Wilkins Kendall of the New Orleans Picayune, and it was the last war to be illustrated primarily through painting and drawing, rather than photography.

Scenes from the war were recreated sometimes accurately, other times fancifully, and distributed to the public in the form of newspaper or book illustrations or colored lithographs suitable for framing. Occasionally pictures were drawn by a soldier-artist, but more often they were the work of professional illustrators who depended upon newspaper reports or eyewitness recollections.

Though some illustrations focus on moments of physical suffering or intense grief, most of the art depicts heroism and valor in the Napoleonic battle tradition. We see a panoramic view of troops in battle formation against a backdrop of rugged mountains or the formidable clash of soldiers fighting face to face. In the hands of artists, it becomes almost a beautiful war, contrasting sharply to the picture that was painted in the letters and memoirs of participants, or the tally of injuries and death suffered on both sides.

Organizing an exhibition of historical pictures and artifacts to narrate the United States role in the war is challenging but not extraordinarily difficult, since a wealth of material has survived, and the basic task is to select items that best illustrate the many facets of the conflict. On the other hand, it is exceedingly difficult to recreate the Mexican perspective through illustrations produced during the war or in the years that followed. One reason may be that the Mexican people did not need illustrations: the war was going on in their midst. A second reason is that in the post-war years, the Mexicans had no desire to be reminded of the devastating defeat.

In this exhibition, the Mexican experience is represented by the lithographs of a French artist, J. Michaud, who shortly after the war produced illustrations of six scenes; by occasional works of U.S. illustrators that convey an impression of Mexican fortitude or suffering; and by the works of modern artists commemorating the valor of Los Niños Héroes and other Mexican combatants who faced death fearlessly. The scarcity of illustrations should not be permitted to conceal the fact that there was, and remains, a Mexican perspective distinctly different from that of their neighbors to the north.

It was said earlier that this war determined the size, shape, wealth, and power of the United States—and so it did for Mexico, as well. As a result of the war, Mexico lost more than half its original territory, which included the incredibly rich lodes of gold in California, the immeasurable pools of oil in West Texas, and the abundant natural resources of the Southwest.

The war created the US.–-Mexican border. It also set the tone of international relations not only as expressed at the border but also as embodied in policies emanating from the national capitals. Some early assessments of the war as one of race, religion, language, and national origin have been borne out in the interplay of people at the Border. For close to 150 year, those coming from the North have assumed a natural right to discriminate against those coming from the South.  But change is at hand.

Today, the Border has become a laboratory of the future, a microcosm of the global economy, wherein the one-time possessors of the land are challenging the Yanquis for economic opportunity, for individual rights and liberties, and for tolerance of their cultural differences. They are, in short, asking to share the destiny that was promised by the land