Early History:
The first evidence of humans in the Southwest United States is from the Clovis culture around 9000 BC. They were replaced by various cultures, but the three largest were the ancestral Puebloans (who appeared around 1500 BC), the Mogollon (~300 BC), and the Hohokam (~1 AD). Shortly after the peak of Hohokam culture (which included creating an elaborate system of irrigation canals around current-day Phoenix), the cultures began disappearing and were gone by the end of the 15th century, although modern tribes trace their ancestry back to the early pre-Columbian peoples. Around 1100 AD, the Navajo, Hopi, Ute, Paiute, and O’odham cultures began developing in the area, with the Apache moving in from the North shortly after. The first appearance of Europeans in the area came in 1539 when the Jesuit Franciscan Marcos de Niza went through eastern Arizona. More came and established control over the area, mostly for Spain. Settlers began arriving in 1732 and, despite an attempted revolt by the O’odham, the presidio (the first European settlement of Arizona) was built in Tubac. Another presidio, San Augustin del Tucson, founded the city of Tucson in 1776 and military power moved inwards. Mexico won its freedom from Spain in 1821, and the political conflict in the area was then between the budding United States and Mexico. It took until the 1820s for non-Spanish Europeans to visit the area, but more people came through in the decades leading to the Mexican-American War from 1846 to 1848. |
Two images of the Casa Grande in Coolidge, end of the 19th c.
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Map showing Mexico's territory before the cession as well as the disputed territory. Note the Rio Grande, Santa Fe, and size of Texas.
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The Mexican-American War:
Texas, now free, became a republic relatively quickly but was unstable and not prepared for an international conflict. While dealing with more internal issues, the northern territories weren’t as well taken care of and it was an area of conflict amongst the settlers and indigenous parties (during the Apache-Mexico Wars) and the United States (specifically, the Democrats as opposed to the Whigs, who did not support the war) saw an opportunity for “manifest destiny”. This was aggravated by the Texas Revolution, which was a response to lack of protection and declared its independence, which Mexico ignored, thus the United States chose to offer annexation, which the so-called Texans accepted. President Polk sent troops into a disputed territory that belonged to Mexico and Mexican troops killed 12 soldiers and captured 52, which led to his request for war. The U.S. captured the capital of Santa Fe and then captured Mexico City itself. In 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo forced the Mexican cession of the northern territories (1/3rd of its mass) if the US paid $15 million for the damage of the war and assumed $3 million debt from Mexico. Mexicans who lived in the now-American territories were cut-off from their government, and the indigenous people who lived in the borderlands now had to deal with a new governmental power. Following Texas’ statehood, California was ratified as a state, and the Utah (which contained most of Nevada) and New Mexico Territory (which contained most of Arizona) were established. |
Other territories appeared as they split the already existing ones, and Nevada, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, then Arizona were established as states. As the railroad expanded and precious metals were discovered, there was a population and tourism boom in the Southwest which has had a major effect on visitation today. Furthermore, as colonizers moved West, the area obtained a flair of exoticism that strongly represented Eastern Orientalism, with lurid accounts of Native abductions, sexualization of Mexican women, and over-the-top descriptions of the trials and tribulations of the desert as had been echoed in Far-East tales; hence the romanticization of the Southwest (and “vanishing cultures”) that has been prominent, which is especially notable in the history and resurgence of Western films as well as art of the Southwest by European artists.
Mexican Migration:
Following the end of the 19th century, there was a large influx of Mexican migrants in the 1910s as people tried to get away from the Mexican Revolution, and, while many returned after the end of the war, many stayed. They often served as agricultural laborers. In 1929, the League of United Latin American Citizens was formed with the idea that the only way Latinos could improve their American standing was through assimilation; Latino leaders in border-towns also hoped to limit the immigration of Mexicans as they worried it would take jobs away from residents. This fear continued through the Great Depression, when the INS forcibly sent between 500,000 to 2,000,000 Mexican-Americans back, with estimated placing at least 60% as American-born. Also in 1935, a judge determined Mexican immigrants could not become citizens because they were not white, which Roosevelt decided to circumvent in the face of Mexican displeasure and the government agreed to treat Hispanics as white. Many Latinos fought in WWII and were very involved with the war effort, but felt that, despite minor positive benefits, they weren’t pleased with their status in the eyes of the federal government or the influx in racism, as manifested in the Zoot Suit Riots. The Riots occurred in the summer of 1943 when white American servicemen attacked Mexican-American youth and other minorities (especially African-Americans) in an explosion of racial tensions that derived from job fears, media propaganda (associated the clothes with hoodlums and gangs), and the racialized fear aroung the Sleepy Lagoon murder in which nine teenage members were convicted (and later overturned) of murdering José Díaz. Young men wore zoot suits – which were oversized suits with a hat, watch chain, and shoes that were considered, at the time, unpatriotic due to the high amount of fabric required for their design, and the sailors from the nearby naval base felt it was offensive. Multiple conflicts occurred all over California, but Los Angeles was a powder keg that ended with thousands of people attacking any young Latino men they saw. Despite the initiation of violence coming from white civilians and servicemen, the police didn’t arrest any but instead arrested hundreds of Latinos. The violence spread around the country. Also in the 1940s, the Bracero Program was launched as an agreement between Mexico and the United States and allowed Mexican farm-workers to make up for farm shortages if the United States would prevent illegal labor; by its end in 1964, more than 4 million farmworkers had moved into the US. In 1954, the United States implemented "Operation Wetback" in order to crack down on illegal laborers as the Mexican government was concerned with its population loss. Thus, this Operation hoped to deport the Mexican workers deeper into central Mexico to prevent their re-entry into the United States. Due to the legalized expectation of this, farmworkers continued to work in this manner and thus there were 12 million or so undocumented workers in the United States by 2007. With the displacement of the Bracero Program, the United Farm Workers was founded and looked at striking and boycott for better standards of work for the migrant community; this early activism was an important starting point for the Chicano movement, which also thrived in the 1960s. |
1932 image of Mexican families preparing to board trains back.
1943 image of men going to the courthouse on trial for rioting.
Potential braceros examined for health at the Monterrey Processing Center, Mexico, 1956
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