TLDR: USA mogged the whole top half of Mexico for just $15 million becuase they could. Manifest destiny set the stage for westward expansion AKA "the Wild West" frontier. But obviously people were already living in these areas when new settlers arrived, and once settlers got the the south west area, that was technically Mexican territory. But Mexico was a young state with unstable leadership and once Texas broke away to join the USA (as a slave state) it kickstarted this whole conflict. It's likely the USA picked a fight to secure not only Texas but all the other states as well. This is why many of those states have Spanish sounding cities and street names because they used to be a part of "New Spain" and then Mexico before the Mexican American War. Mexico got $15M (half of the original offer) and the border current border was established (basically the top half of Mexico joined the USA, but they could have lost their whole nation)! However, the conflict underscored years of discrimination and displacement for native and Mexican people. Then, would all the new states allow slavery? Because the USA had been going on a 50/50 ratio to appease enslavers in in the south and the founders had kicked the issue so far down the can but all these new territories accelerated the abolitionist movement. Notable figures like writer Henry David Thoreau and future Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S Grant all said the war was unjust at the time, but history had been set in motion and there continues to be issues related to this conflict event today. If you learned something or think more people should learn this history, please share!

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