Grade 4 Spring — US National Geography and Westward Expansion (1803–1890): Whose Land, Whose Story, Whose Future?

Analyze the Mexican-American War (1846–1848), Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848), and the post-treaty borderlands Mexican American community

Analyze the Mexican-American War 1846–1848 with attention to multiple perspectives (Mexican government, Mexican civilian communities of present-day CA/NM/AZ/TX, US government, US soldiers — including enslaved African Americans drafted to fight, US opponents of the war including Henry David Thoreau and Abraham Lincoln who as a congressman voted against the war). Analyze the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo 1848 with explicit reading of Article IX promising Mexican Americans 'incorporated into the Union' citizenship and property rights. Document the systematic violation of Article IX in subsequent decades (land-grant courts denying Mexican-American property claims; Greaser Act of 1855; segregated schools; Bracero Program 1942–1964). Center Mexican American community continuity: Santa Fe NM (founded 1610 — older than Plymouth Colony), Taos NM, Tucson AZ, San Antonio TX, Los Angeles CA — communities that pre-date US incorporation and continue today. Vocabulary: incorporated by treaty, borderlands, Article IX, land grant, community continuity.

Exercise pool (4)