How Hawaii was annexed by the USA

[royal744]

Well, if businesses want something from the government in Washington, they make campaign contributions and hire lobbying firms. The Congressional committees and regulatory agencies are generally strongly influenced by the businesses they legislate on or regulate. My understanding is that in Mexico City thing are more blatantly corrupt.

I can't see how the Spanish and Mexican governments were granting land for free to businessmen, who would then resell it, without those businessmen handing out money in some way.

Texas was empty. Even today, driving through much of Texas it feels quite empty, especially the further west one travels. What the Mexican government had in Texas was land - lots of it, and very few Mexican settlers.

When Texas became a republic, it gave away lots of acreage for nothing as an inducement to settlers. Free land - what a deal. Castroville south of San Antonio was settled by Alsatians. New Braunfels, Fredericksburg, Weimar, Sisterdale, etc. were settled by Germans. Victoria and other cities on a belt to Houston was settled mostly by Czechs. There were also a few Polish settlements and even a couple of French ones that did not last.

Giving away land for free was actually a rather common practice in the US to the north. That’s where the term “homesteader” came from. The various “land rushes” in new American territories were organized ways to make land claims.

When Texas wanted to build a state Capitol, it had no money, but it paid for the construction of this massive building with - you guessed it - land. One big difference between Texas and other states is that a condition of the union between Texas and the United States is that Texas retained ownership and control over its public lands. Many a great fortune in Texas was founded on this. Of course, they didn’t know then that they were sitting on a giant oil lake.

Don’t know where you’re from Betgo, but if you’ve never been here, it is rather big. OTOH, you can take Alaska, cut it in two, and each half would be bigger than Texas.

 

[royal744]

Well, if businesses want something from the government in Washington, they make campaign contributions and hire lobbying firms. The Congressional committees and regulatory agencies are generally strongly influenced by the businesses they legislate on or regulate. My understanding is that in Mexico City thing are more blatantly corrupt.

I can't see how the Spanish and Mexican governments were granting land for free to businessmen, who would then resell it, without those businessmen handing out money in some way.

A more cynical view would be” “Let the Gringos bear the brunt of Comanche and Apache attacks instead of our Mexican population”. Whether or not Moses Austin - who, as I mentioned earlier, was a citizen of Spain and not the US - paid anything for the 4000 acres is somewhat irrelevant to the discussion. Who cares? The Mexicans were land rich but they had little control over it except in Bexar, the province’s largest settlement (and not very large even then). Spanish colonial missions were located in Bexar and along the East Texas border, primarily to keep the French out until the Louisiana Purchase. These East Texas missions were extremely difficult to sustain and eventually most of them were pulled back to Bexar.

The Mexicans, it is true, were leery of the unauthorized Anglo incursions, but receptive to legal and authorized settlements. It was the Spanish/Mexicans who brought the cattle industry to Texas - the famous “longhorns” which are still around today. The term “cowboy” came from the Spanish term ”vaquero”. There were a goodly number of Mexican ranches strung out along the Rio Grande.

The “borders” of the province of Texas were actually quite vague and undefined, which made it attractive to Anglos coming from the north because, quite frankly, the Mexicans had little means to patrol this border. The American population was growing at a steady pace; yet at the same time, the Mexicans had great difficulty in getting their own people to settle the province. Who could blame them: constant Indian attacks (the Comanche and Apache were raiding deep into Mexico proper south of the Rio Grande (Bravo), bouts of severe drought; no lakes and a paucity of fresh water from underground artesian springs.

The Anglos from the original 13 colonies, on the other hand, had been actively fighting Indians for a good bit more than a century and accepted the necessity of that as a condition of settlement in any case. American settlement was moving west of the Alleghenies in an fairly unstoppable movement, with or without the permission of the government. The price was that a fairly substantial number of Anglo settler famlies lost their lives in th process. They weren’t any more brave or courageous than their Mexican counterparts, but this didn’t make Texas very attractive for the Mexicans.

 

[Maribat]

There was no tactical justification for the annexation of Hawaii nor any political reason. It was clearly done for the economics of the sugar that Hawaii provided.

The USA government took very close to heart the possible looses of the sugar planters living in another country and sent there a ship? IMHO it’s highly unlikely. I think the economic interests of sugar planters coincided with geopolitical and military interests of the US government in 1993 when a coup d’état happened. And a costly military base there was not established in order of helping a bunch of sugar dealers only.

 

[royal744]

You wouldn't get a grant of land from Spain, Mexico, or most other countries without money or connections. These are two of the most corrupt countries around. It is common sense they didn't get those grants without paying people off. You really think they were just giving away big chunks of land to foreigners?

Yes, especially since Texas was so empty.

 

[royal744]

There was no tactical justification for the annexation of Hawaii nor any political reason. It was clearly done for the economics of the sugar that Hawaii provided.

In other words, exactly the same reason that the British colonized India, the Dutch colonized the East Indies and the French colonized Indochina: money.

 

[Maoistic]

There was no tactical justification for the annexation of Hawaii nor any political reason. It was clearly done for the economics of the sugar that Hawaii provided.

To be fair, there was the tactical justification that it provided the United States with access to the rest of the Pacific Ocean and Asia for an easier colonisation.

 

[royal744]

It's fairly common to see Asians and Pacific Islanders grouped together into a single demographic category, at least in the US.

Maybe in the popular imagination, but on Federal forms the category is called “Pacific Islander” which is important when competing for Federal projects.

 

[royal744]

You wouldn't get a grant of land from Spain, Mexico, or most other countries without money or connections. These are two of the most corrupt countries around. It is common sense they didn't get those grants without paying people off. You really think they were just giving away big chunks of land to foreigners?

You might be right, but we have only your suspicion to go on. Provide some written documentation and then we can talk. Until then, I think the word “invited” is probably correct.

 

[Code Blue]

To be blunt, for the most part, the US, depending on one's point of view, acquired, stole, bought, or just plain took much of it's land mass. Just like every other power in history. That's just the nature of man.

But the arguments about which land-grabbing politicians are "good" and which land-grabbing politicians are "bad" is a lot of the fun.

 

[royal744]

Far from my area of knowledge, but I have the idea that the Algonquian were the ones that suffered more. Are there any Algonquian reserves or speakers today, in the USA? I think that in Canada there are still some speakers.

Algonquins are a Canadian tribe. There may have been a few in northern Michigan but Canada is where they were and are based.