Take the Land, Not the People · Episode 8 of 8 · 49 min
The Long Shadow: Race, Empire, and Two Hundred Years
The war and the filibusters set a template, take the land and exclude the people, that outlived them by two centuries. The finale traces it from the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo's broken promises and the dispossession of Mexican-American landowners through the 'greaser' laws and the Insular Cases to border and citizenship fights live in 2026. It then weighs where race explains the era best and where slavery-politics, commerce and contingency did the work.
Who's who
- Laura E. GomezScholar whose book argues the war manufactured a Mexican American racial identity
- Reginald Horsman+1 more episodeHistorian of racial Anglo-Saxonism and expansion
- Amy S. GreenbergHistorian who stresses ambition, party politics and contingency
Where it happens
- California+30 more episodesMexican land grants had to be proved; many families were ruined
- Puerto Rico, Guam and the PhilippinesTerritories acquired in 1898
Timeline
- February 2, 1848Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo promises property and a path to citizenship.
- March 3, 1851California Land Act requires grants to be proved before a land commission.
- December 30, 1853Gadsden Purchase adds a further strip of Mexican land.
- 1855California's 'Greaser Act' writes racial subordination into statute.
- 1901-1922Insular Cases create the 'unincorporated territory.'
- 1904Roosevelt Corollary claims an international police power over the hemisphere.
Still debated
Historians genuinely disagree about whether race, slavery-politics, commerce or contingency ranks first among causes, and about how much the war itself created a Mexican American racial identity. Present-day politics is treated as an attributed parallel, non-partisanly.