Mexican Cession

The Mexican Cession of 1848 is a historical name in the United States for the region of the modern day southwestern United States that Mexico ceded to the U.S. in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, but had not been part of the areas east of the Rio Grande which had been claimed by the Republic, though the Texas annexation resolution two years earlier had not specified Texas's southern and western boundary. The Mexican Cession (529,000 sq. miles) was the third largest acquisition of territory in US history. The largest was the Louisiana Purchase, with some 820,000 sq. miles, followed by the acquisition of Alaska (about 586,000 sq. miles).

Extent

Most of the area had been the Mexican territory of Alta California, while a southeastern strip on the Rio Grande had been part of Santa Fe de Nuevo Mexico, most of whose area and population were east of the Rio Grande on land that had been claimed by the Republic of Texas since 1835, but never controlled or even approached aside from the Texan Santa Fe Expedition. Mexico controlled the territory later known as the Mexican Cession, with considerable local autonomy punctuated by several revolts and few troops sent from central Mexico, in the period from 1821–22 after independence from Spain up through 1846 when U.S. military forces seized control of California and New Mexico on the outbreak of the Mexican–American War. The northern boundary of the 42nd parallel north was set by the Adams–Onís Treaty signed by the U.S. and Spain in 1821 and ratified by Mexico in 1831. The eastern boundary of the Mexican Cession was the Texas claim at the Rio Grande and extending north from the headwaters of the Rio Grande, not corresponding to Mexican territorial boundaries. The southern boundary was set by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which followed the Mexican boundaries between Alta California (to the north) and Baja California and Sonora (to the south)

United States

Coordinates: 40°N 100°W / 40°N 100°W / 40; -100

The United States of America (USA), commonly referred to as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a federal republic composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major territories and various possessions. The 48 contiguous states and Washington, D.C., are in central North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwestern part of North America and the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. At 3.8 million square miles (9.842 million km²) and with over 320 million people, the country is the world's third or fourth-largest by total area and the third most populous. It is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many countries. The geography and climate of the United States are also extremely diverse, and the country is home to a wide variety of wildlife.

The Mexican

The Mexican is a 2001 American comedy film directed by Gore Verbinski and starring Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts, with a plot that is a mixture of romantic comedy, adventure and road movie.

The script was originally intended to be filmed as an independent production without major motion picture stars, but Roberts and Pitt, who had for some time been looking for a project they could do together, learned about it and decided to make it. The movie was then advertised as a typical romantic comedy star vehicle, somewhat misleadingly, as the script does not focus solely on the Pitt/Roberts relationship and the two share relatively little screen time together. Ultimately, the film earned $66.8 million at the U.S. box office.

Plot

The story follows Jerry Welbach (Brad Pitt) as he travels through Mexico to find a valuable antique gun, The Mexican, and smuggle it into the United States. Five years earlier, Welbach had caused a traffic accident in which he hit the car of local mobster Arnold Margolese (Gene Hackman), who was jailed for five years after the police searched his car following the crash, finding someone tied up in his trunk. In compensation for the jail time, Welbach has been sent on various errands by Margolese's second-in-command, Bernie Nayman (Bob Balaban). Retrieving the gun will be his final errand. Welbach has a girlfriend, Samantha (Julia Roberts), whom he argues with constantly and who leaves Jerry prior to the trip over his lack of commitment to their relationship.

Mexican

Mexican may refer to:

See also

Manifest destiny

In the 19th century, Manifest Destiny was a widely held belief in the United States that American settlers were destined to expand throughout the continent. Historians have for the most part agreed that there are three basic themes to Manifest Destiny:

Historian Frederick Merk says this concept was born out of "a sense of mission to redeem the Old World by high example ... generated by the potentialities of a new earth for building a new heaven".

Historians have emphasized that "Manifest Destiny" was a contested concept—Democrats endorsed the idea but many prominent Americans (such as Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, and most Whigs) rejected it. Historian Daniel Walker Howe writes, "American imperialism did not represent an American consensus; it provoked bitter dissent within the national polity.... Whigs saw America's moral mission as one of democratic example rather than one of conquest."