1960s - Hispanic Immigration to Mascotte
History of Mexican Immigration
In order to fill the increasing agricultural labor shortage following the end of slavery, many farmers began hiring Hispanic immigrants. They were said to work harder and cheaper than Black workers, who were demanding fair pay.
Over the course of the last 170 years, Hispanic immigrants, mostly from Mexico, have largely toiled in agriculture, ranching, railroad construction, and mining.
There were legal, but imaginary borders that prevented Hispanic workers from going past the farm lands of the Mid-West to seek other types of work. These laws began to be lifted between the 1960s to the 1980s. This led to a large migration into Florida.
Since the 1980s, as agricultural work became increasingly mechanized, workers were displaced and moved into cities laboring in construction and service industries.
1500s-1800s: Texans
"Spanish-speaking people have lived in North America since the 1500s, when the Spaniards established colonies in La Florida, as well as in Mexico and the SouthWest. The early Spanish Conquistadors and Portuguese Slave Traders mixed with the indigenous populations. Those who did not sucomb to death by disease were forced to convert to Catholicism or fight in their proxy wars with the British and French.
Spanish soon spread across these surviving groups as the official language.
Spain governed lands in Western and Southern North America, including what is now Mexico.
Although Spaniards held positions of power, a large number of the people of this region were mestizos, who were people of both Spanish and indigenous descent.
Due to low funds and military presence, Spain was forced to give up its control of lands in North America.
Mexico won its independence from Spain in 1821.
The Texas Republic seized their own independence from Mexico in the year 1836.
Texans also claimed portions of Colorado, New Mexico, as well as the western and southern portions of Texas.
The Republic also claimed its southern boarder stretched all the way down to form a natural boarder with the Rio Grande river.
1845-48 - Mexican-Americans
Texas was annexed by the U.S. in 1845. However, there were few Mexican citizens leaving Mexican territory for the resettlement in the United States.
The Mexican government officials disputed the territorial boarder claiming that Texas' actual southern boarder was actually located at the Nueces River.
When Texas became a state in the union, The Mexican government threatened to go to war with the United States over the disputed lands between the Rio Grande River and the Nueces river.
Under President Polk, and U.S. expansionism being the domestic policy, the military was ordered to the disputed lands.
The United States militarily invaded Mexico and occupied the space for almost two years.
On April 25, 1846, war broke out between the U.S. and Mexico over the U.S. annexation of Texas.
A declaration of war by Mexico was issued on the United States of America on May, 1846.
Mexico and the United States were at war until February 2, 1848.
Mexico was defeated and the two nations signed the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo on February 2, 1848 in Mexico City.
The terms of agreement for the Guadalupe-Hidalgo treaty were that Mexico would give up almost 55% of their territory to the United States which equates to about 525,000 mi.² of land.
This treaty gave the victorious nation an enormous amount of land, including what would later become the states of California and Texas, as well as parts of Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Nevada, in exchange for a payment of $15 million and the forgiveness of debt held by Mexican citizens to the United States of up to $3.25 million also took place.
The Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo also gave Mexican citizens residing in the ceded territory up to one year to move back into Mexico If they chose to stay, they would recieve automatic American citizenship, with federal guarantees that their rights, property, and “white” racial status would be honored and held inviolable.
No count exists of how many Mexicans stayed and how many moved back into Mexico, but estimates suggest that roughly 31,000 individuals moved back into Mexico.
Based on the 1850 census, the Hispanic population of the United States numbered about 86,000 who remained. Around 60,000 of these people were in the New Mexico Territory.
1848 - The Origins of Mexican Immigration
Since the 1790s, influenced by American freedoms, Mexican intellectuals believed that in order for their country to prosper, its land tenure system, where large tracts of land were held by the Catholic Church, the military, professional guilds, and indigenous communities, had to be transformed into private property.
Between 1810 and 1876, Mexico faced repeated bloody civil wars in its attempt to gain independence from Spain.
The first major wave of Mexican immigration northward actually started in 1848, when gold was discovered at John Sutter’s mill in northern California on January 24, just nine days before the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo was signed.
Mexican men with extensive mining expertise entered California’s placer fields and mines, quickly swelling the territory’s resident ethnic Mexican population by 6,500 persons.
According to the 1850 census, California’s ethnic Mexican population more than doubled in two years, to roughly 14,000.
In 1854, through a land deal, known as the Gadsden Purchase, the U.S. also bought what is now southern Arizona and New Mexico from the Mexican government for $10 million.
This expanded its size by one-third and brought the U.S. a much-coveted railroad route, and helped open the West to further expansion.
Tens of thousands of Mexican citizens also officially became residents of the United States.
The 1856 Ley Lerdo legislation prohibited corporate groups from holding land in common.
In the years that followed, many indigenous villages saw their communal lands seized, leaving behind a swelling landless peasantry.
Very little is known about these Mexican immigrants between 1848 and the 1870s, other than that they were mostly skilled workers from Mexico’s silver mining and processing industries, along with some peasants who followed the miners.
They were forced out of Mexico by high rates of unemployment, along with an major land loss for the rural peasantry, and they were pulled to the United States by the promise of work and higher wages.
In 1864, the Federal Bureau of Immigration was established to monitor the back and forth flow of peoples between Mexico and the U.S..
Prior to this, the individual states had the authority to admit whom they wished.
In 1876, Porfirio Díaz was elected president of the country and Mexico finally entered a period of relative stability and economic prosperity, refered to as the Pax Porfiriana. The president’s authoritarian rule was used to stem violence and forge Mexico into a modern and prosperous nation.
Starting around 1890, U.S. industries in the southwest began to rapidly grow and expand in the mining and agricultural fields.
These job opportunities were very attractive to Mexican migrant workers.
By 1910, 98 percent of all families in central Mexico were landless. The vast majority of Mexican workers who first immigrated to the United States originated from these places.
These land issues have basically continued on into the present and has encouraged an unending labor migration into the American market.
The immigration histories of other national groups from Asia, Africa, and Europe have been much different, as these usually began with a massive peak in political movements, famine, or economic crisis. They would eventually slow down, taper off, or abruptly end.
This stark contrast helps explain why Mexico has been the single largest source of immigrants in the United States for such an elongated period of time.
The geographic proximity between the U.S. and Mexico has made continuous legal and illegal immigration easier than other non-border countries.
The intentionally porous border, assured U.S. employers unfettered access to cheap labor with minimal government regulation. This allows companies to basically continue the slave system that was supposed to have been abolished.
[Contributors: Jason Brown]