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when Brazil first started movement Portugal helped them escape to setup in Brazil, But the king of Portugal stayed in Brazil stopping their independence. It wasn't until 1822 where they demanded the kind to leave so they could gain their independence. Then created their own constitution that they made the king and other royalty follow.

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Brazilian Independence | 3 Minute History

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Brazil was ruled By Portugal until Portugal royalty fled Brazil because of Napoleonic troops leading to Brazil becoming independent. Brazil was one of the only American colony to become an Independent Monarchy which happened in 1822. This didn't fully signify their independence because they still needed help to relocate French troops.

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When Brazil declared its independence on September 7, 1822, it had traversed a truly unusual path. Once a conventional colony, it had evolved into the seat of the Portuguese empire by 1808, only to be declared a kingdom, equal in status with Portugal, in 1815. The Portuguese royal family, fleeing before the Napoleonic troops that had entered Portugal in late 1807, were the only European monarchs to ever see their American colony, and they were the only ones to rule their empire from the colonies. Last but not least, for much of the nineteenth century Brazil was the only American colony to have become an independent monarchy. Yet independence, declared in 1822, did not fully signify Brazilian sovereignty. The Portuguese crown had needed help in order to relocate before the advancing French troops and later to recover their throne in Portugal, help that Great Britain had agreed to provide-in return for generous commercial advantages in Brazil. Nor did independence mean freedom for slaves, the mainstay of the Brazilian labor force.

As Napoleon's troops closed in on Lisbon in late 1807, João VI, the Portuguese king, after much hesitation decided against joining France's continental blockade of Great Britain, and instead availed himself of the British offer to protect the Portuguese monarchy. Hurriedly, the entire court, including part of the army and navy, along with the royal treasury and several libraries, relocated to the most important Portuguese colony at the time, Brazil. All in all, an estimated ten to twenty thousand people moved to Brazil. Once the royal family arrived in Rio de Janeiro, it set up its court in the colonial capital, and began expanding the existing institutions to develop a functioning state in the place of a formerly dependent colony.

The royal family and particularly the prince regent (soon to become king João VI) quickly came to consider Rio de Janeiro as more than a temporary place of exile. In 1815 João VI raised Brazil to the status of a kingdom on equal footing with its former mother country, which was governed at the time by the Council of Regency and protected by the British army. The new kingdom carefully kept its distance from the turbulence of European warfare. For Brazilians, the presence of the Portuguese court in Rio meant a growing identification of royal policies with Brazilian interests. At the same time, however, it meant that Portuguese took up some of the political offices previously open to Brazilians while relying almost entirely on the Brazilian economy for government revenues. Thus the relocation of the Portuguese court produced mixed responses among the Brazilian elites. It did, however, provide the country with a recognizable and generally accepted center of power that fostered stability and thus helped Brazil maintain its territorial integrity while other Latin American nations fragmented.

Brazil's political independence was hastened by the political events in Portugal after 1820. Liberal-nationalist revolts in the cities of Oporto and Lisbon led to the establishment of a junta provisória (provisional assembly) in Portugal, replacing the Council of Regency that had been presided over by Field Marshal Beresford, an Englishman. The Junta demanded the king's return to Portugal, and began to put together a cortes (constituent congress) with the purpose of writing a constitution. When João VI and the royal court returned to Portugal in 1821 due to increasing pressure by the Cortes, João left his son, Pedro I, as prince regent in Rio de Janeiro.

Initially, Brazilians seized on the opportunity of sending delegates to the Cortes, which they assumed would recognize Brazil's status as equal to that of Portugal, and which they hoped would incorporate Brazilian interests into Portuguese policy to a hereto-fore-unprecedented degree. Instead, the Cortes's policy toward Brazil revealed itself as an attempt to return the country to its former status as a colony. It limited the jurisdiction of Pedro I to southern Brazil, and dispatched governors to other provinces. Furthermore, in 1821, the Cortes demanded the return of prince Pedro I to Lisbon, where he was to finish his education.

By now, Brazilian nationalists had transferred their allegiance from João VI to Pedro I, and exercised pressure on the prince to remain in Brazil. On January 9, 1822, the prince officially declared his intentions of staying in Brazil. From May 1822 onwards, no decision from the Cortes was implemented in Brazil without the explicit approval of the prince regent. Following the receipt of correspondence from the Cortes reaffirming its demands, Pedro I, on the advice of Brazilian nationalists, such as José Bonifácio de Andrada e Silva, and his wife Leopoldina, declared Brazil's independence on September 7, 1822. At the banks of the river Ipiranga, he exclaimed the famous words, "Independence or Death," which, together with British navy and commercial backing, sealed Brazil's separation from Portugal. On December 1 of the same year, Pedro I was crowned "Constitutional Emperor and Perpetual Defender of Brazil." Not all provinces recognized Brazil's independence, and in northeastern and southern Brazil Pedro I had to use military force to quell several regional revolts against his rule following the declaration of independence.

Political independence for Brazil was not tantamount to economic independence. Prior to 1822, the Portuguese court in Brazil had continued the country's economic dependence on the export of primary goods to generate revenue (and thus in fact finance the royal government). This pattern continued after 1822. Moreover, in return for Britain's speedy assistance in relocating the court and protecting Portugal, King João VI, upon his arrival in Brazil, declared all Brazilian ports open to trade with friendly nations-which in reality meant Great Britain-effective January 28, 1808. While the declaration ended Portugal's colonial monopoly on trade with Brazil, it transferred, rather than ended, the former colony's commercial dependence. Great Britain quickly became the main recipient of Brazil's primary exports, at the same time that Brazil's importation of manufactured goods from England increased. In many ways, the declaration simply eliminated Portugal's role as the commercial entrepôt between Brazilian planters and British manufacturers.

In 1810 a treaty between Brazil and Great Britain cemented this shift in economic dependence. British merchants received special trading privileges, including a maximum tariff of 15 percent on their merchandise, in comparison to the 24 percent tariff levied on imports from all other nations. Moreover, the treaty granted England jurisdiction over British merchants living in Brazil. As a consequence of the favorable economic treaty and Great Britain's exclusion from the European market due to the Continental Blockade, Brazil by the 1820s had become Great Britain's third-largest export recipient. In fact, the growth of commerce between the two nations became so important that Great Britain applied diplomatic pressure on Portugal in 1825 to recognize Brazil's political independence, despite the fact that this might jeopardize British trading interests in Portugal itself. It was only in 1844, when the 1810 treaty expired and the Alves Branco Tariff more than doubled the duties on British goods, that Brazil regained a greater degree of economic independence from Great Britain.

Nor did political independence produce any fundamental changes in the structure of the Brazilian economy and society. Although manufacturing, previously forbidden in the colony, was encouraged once the royal court arrived in Brazil, the mainstay of the Brazilian economy remained the export of primary goods. Indeed, the Brazilian elite that had come to support independence by no means endorsed a more profound restructuring of the social and economic foundations of the newly independent nation. Thus slavery remained in place, and large estates focused on growing export crops such as sugar and increasingly coffee continued to dominate the economy. This left Brazil at the mercy of often unstable world market prices for its exports and dependent on the import of manufactured goods from Europe and, increasingly, from the United States.

see also Minas Gerais, Conspiracy of.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bethell, Leslie. "The Independence of Brazil." In Brazil: Empire and Republic, 1822-1930, edited by Leslie Bethell. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1989.

Boxer, C. R. The Portuguese Seaborne Empire, 1415-1825. New York: Knopf, 1969.

Burns, E. Bradford. A History of Brazil, 3rd ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993.

Cavaliero, Roderick. The Independence of Brazil. London: Tauris, 1993.

Graham, Richard. Independence in Latin America: A Comparative Approach. New York: Knopf, 1972.

Russell-Wood, A. J. R., ed. From Colony to Nation: Essays on the Independence of Brazil. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975.

Viotti da Costa, Emília. The Brazilian Empire: Myths and Histories. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.

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brazilian independencewhen brazil declared its independence on september 7

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it had traversed a truly unusual path. once a conventional colony

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it had evolved into the seat of the portuguese empire by 1808

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fleeing before the napoleonic troops that had entered portugal in late 1807

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were the only european monarchs to ever see their american colony

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and they were the only ones to rule their empire from the colonies.

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Encyclopedia of Western Colonialism since 1450

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Brazilian IndependenceWhen Brazil declared its independence on September 7, 1822, it had traversed a truly unusual path. Once a conventional colony, it had evolved into the seat of the Portuguese empire by 1808, only to be declared a kingdom, equal in status with Portugal, in 1815. The Portuguese ro…

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In the mid 1800s a rivalry to gain unification came over The holy roman empires which are the 2 largest and strongest countries. Then in 1806 the roman empire was dissolved and the biggest question was what to do with central Europe. The first effort at making a economic unification between the members of the German Confederation came with the 1834 establishment of the Zollverein customs union.

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Summary

When the United States announced its independence from Great Britain in 1776, Central Europe was a fragmented area of roughly 300 sovereign, independent states (kingdoms, duchies, principalities, free cities, etc.). The German states were bound together in a loose political entity known as the Holy Roman Empire, which dated to the era of Charlemagne in the 800s. By the late eighteenth century, the Holy Roman Empire was, as Voltaire remarked, "Neither holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire."

During the mid-eighteenth century, a rivalry developed between the Holy Roman Empire's two largest (and strongest) states: the Kingdom of Austria, ruled by the Habsburgs, and the Kingdom of Prussia, ruled by the Hohenzollerns. Traditionally Austria was the dominant German state, and as such the Habsburg king was elected as the Holy Roman Emperor. This influence started to change in the 1740s when Prussia, strengthened by newly acquired lands and an enlarged military, began to challenge Austria's hegemony. The Kingdom of Prussia was the first German state to officially recognize the United States in 1785 when it signed a Treaty of Amity and Commerce; Austria did not recognize the United States until 1797, when it accepted Conrad Frederick Wagner as U.S. Consul at Trieste, a city then under the jurisdiction of the Habsburg Empire.

During the early nineteenth century, Napoleon's armies occupied, moved through, or were allied with the German states. In 1806 the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved, and when the Congress of Vienna met in 1814-15, a major question was what to do with Central Europe. The solution was to consolidate the German states and to create the German Confederation, a conglomeration of 39 states, including Austria and Prussia. The members of the German Confederation pledged to come to the aid of any member who was attacked by a foreign power; however, the confederation fell short of any economic or national unity. The first effort at striking some form of economic unification between the members of the German Confederation came with the 1834 establishment of the Zollverein customs union.

In the meantime, the effects of the First Industrial Revolution (1750-1850) began to take hold in Central Europe and North America. During this time there was increased emigration by Germans to the United States in search of greater economic opportunities as well as political, religious, and personal freedom. The combination of these two events propelled the first official acts of recognition between the United States and various smaller German states as they negotiated and signed treaties, conventions, and agreements to regulate trade, commerce, navigation, naturalization, and inheritance rights. In a few cases, the United States established diplomatic relations, such as with the Hanseatic League (the Free Cities of Lübeck, Bremen, and Hamburg) and the Kingdom of Baden.

The main issue that confronted the idea of German unification by the mid-nineteenth century was the idea of a "greater" Germany versus a "smaller" Germany. The concept of a "smaller" Germany was that a unified German entity should exclude Austria, while the idea of "greater" Germany was that Germany should include the Kingdom of Austria. Proponents of "smaller" Germany argued that Austria's inclusion would only cause difficulties for German policy, as the Kingdom of Austria was part of the greater Austrian Empire, which included large swaths of land in Central and Southeastern Europe that was composed of nearly 15 different minorities. Those who favored "greater" Germany pointed to the traditional role played by Austria, which was mostly composed of Germans, and the Habsburg rulers in German affairs.

The first effort at unifying the German states came in the revolutionary year 1848. Once news of the February 1848 revolution in Paris spread, many felt that the time was finally at hand for German unification. Rural riots broke out in the weeks after February 1848 and spread to the urban areas. Throughout the German states revolutionaries advocated for freedom of the press, a national militia, a national German parliament, and trial by jury. Other ideas that were championed during the heady days of 1848 were the abolition of privilege of the aristocracy, the creation of constitutions in several of the German states, a more fair system of taxation, and freedom of religion.

On May 18, 1848, the German National Assembly met at Frankfurt am Main, representing the first assembly to be freely elected by the German people. Yet, despite the election of an imperial vice regent (Reichsverweser), the government was flawed from the beginning by its lack of a strong executive power. By the autumn of 1849 the revolution disintegrated and hope of fully unifying the German states was extinguished for the time being.

The next attempt at German unification, a successful one, was undertaken by Otto von Bismarck, the Prime Minister of Prussia. Bismarck was a proponent of "smaller" Germany, not to mention a master at the game of real-politik. German unification was achieved by the force of Prussia, and enforced from the top-down, meaning that it was not an organic movement that was fully supported and spread by the popular classes but instead was a product of Prussian royal policies.

The first war of German unification was the 1862 Danish War, begun over the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. Bismarck allied with Austria to fight the Danes in a war to protect the interests of Holstein, a member of the German Confederation.

The second war of German unification was the 1866 Austro-Prussian War, which settled the question of "smaller" versus "greater" Germany. This brief war (fought over the course of mere weeks) pitted Prussia and her allies against Austria and other German states. Prussia won and directly annexed some of the German states that had sided with Austria (such as Hanover and Nassau). In an act of leniency, Prussia allowed some of the larger Austrian allies to maintain their independence, such as Baden and Bavaria. In 1867 Bismarck created the North German Confederation, a union of the northern German states under the hegemony of Prussia. Several other German states joined, and the North German Confederation served as a model for the future German Empire.

The third and final act of German unification was the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, orchestrated by Bismarck to draw the western German states into alliance with the North German Confederation. With the French defeat, the German Empire was proclaimed in January 1871 in the Palace at Versailles, France. From this point forward, foreign policy of the German Empire was made in Berlin, with the German Kaiser (who was also the King of Prussia) accrediting ambassadors of foreign nations. Relations were severed when the U.S. declared war upon Imperial Germany in 1917.

Major Events

United States' Recognition of the Federal German Republic, .

On July 8, 1848, Secretary of State John M. Middleton informed U.S. Minister to Prussia Andrew J. Donelson, that the United States was prepared to recognize any unified, de facto German Government that "appeared capable of maintaining its power." On August 9, 1848, Donelson was appointed as U.S. Minister to the German Federal Parliament at Frankfurt, and presented his credentials on September 13, 1848. However, the failure of this first experiment of German unification led to the U.S. recalling Donelson from service to the Federal German Republic on November 2, 1849. Donelson resumed his previous appointment as U.S. Minister to Prussia.

United States' Recognition of the North German Union, .

Following the establishment of the North German Confederation on July 1, 1867, on November 20, 1867, the U.S. Minister to Prussia, George Bancroft, informed Secretary of State William H. Seward that he had attended the opening of the North German Parliament. He requested, however, that the Secretary formally notify him of the intentions of the U.S. Government concerning the question of the recognition of the North German Confederation. On December 9, 1867, Secretary Seward approved of Bancroft's decision to attend the opening of the North German Parliament since he was the officially-accredited U.S. Minister to the Prussian King Wilhelm I, who was also the hereditary President of the North German Confederation. Furthermore, Seward informed Bancroft that he would disseminate a description of the Confederation's flag so that its ships would be welcomed in American waters. This exchange between Seward and Bancroft implicitly signified a formal recognition of the North German Confederation by the United States.

United States' Recognition of the German Empire and Establishment of Diplomatic Relations, .

Following the establishment of the German Empire on January 18, 1871, the United States recognized the new German Empire by changing the accreditation of its Minister to Prussia to become Minister to the German Empire. On April 8, 1871, U.S. Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Prussia George Bancroft presented the new German Emperor Wilhelm I (who was concurrently King of Prussia) with a letter from U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant dated March 16, 1871. The letter from the President congratulated the Emperor on his assumption of the German throne and recognized him as the head-of-state of a federal Germany.

Termination of Relations During the First World War, .

Germany's resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare in early 1917 led to the termination of diplomatic relations between Imperial Germany and the United States. On February 3, 1917, U.S. Secretary of State Robert Lansing informed the German Ambassador in Washington, D.C., Count Johann von Bernstorff, that U.S. President Woodrow Wilson had severed diplomatic relations with Germany, that the U.S. Ambassador in Berlin (James W. Gerrard) had been withdrawn, and that the U.S. Government would be returning von Bernstorff's passports.

U.S. Declaration of War Against Imperial Germany, .

Following a series of attacks against American merchant ships on the high seas by German U-boats, on February, 24, 1917, the U.S. Ambassador in London, Walter Hines Pages, received the infamous "Zimmerman telegram" from British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour. This led to the decision to abandon the plan to adopt "armed neutrality" by placing U.S. naval personnel on civilian ships to guard them against German attacks. On April 2, U.S. President Wilson went before Congress to ask for a declaration of war against Germany in order to make the world "safe for democracy." Following the passage of a Joint Resolution by Congress on April 6, President Wilson issued on the same day a proclamation to the effect that a state of war existed between Germany and the United States.

Overall Impact upon U.S. Foreign Policy

The history of the establishment of recognitions (and relations, where applicable) between the United States and the German states impacted several different areas of policy, including:

Trade and Commerce. Although the Napoleonic period stunted the growth of industrialization in the German states during the early nineteenth century, by the 1820s and 1830s the industrialization process was underway, especially in areas such as Westphalia, the Rhineland, and Upper Silesia. It was also during this time that the first railways were built in the German lands, thus facilitating the transportation of goods to and from the main ports of Hamburg and Bremen. As a result, the German states (and after 1871, the German Empire) and the United States both sought to cultivate trade and commercial ties for mutual benefit.

Emigration, Citizenship, and Naturalization. In the nineteenth century, most German states (and later, the German Empire) had mandatory military service for all male subjects/citizens, whereas the United States did not have any such policy. One point of contention between the U.S. and some of the German states was whether German citizens were emigrating to the U.S. to obtain citizenship and then return to Central Europe and thus eschew military service. In 1868 U.S. Minister to Prussia and the North German Union George Bancroft negotiated a series of naturalization treaties that sought to close this loophole. See Bancroft Treaties for further information.

After the creation of the Second Reich in 1871 there were questions as to whether U.S. officials should abide by treaties concluded with individual states or with Prussia (the German Empire was considered the successor state to Prussia) in dealing with issues of trade, citizenship, or extradition. Two major principles guided U.S. foreign policy towards the German states. First, "where a State has lost its separate existence, as in the case of Hanover and Nassau, no questions can arise." Second, "where no treaty has been negotiated with the Empire, the treaties with the various States which have preserved a separate existence have been resorted to."

Although the Constitution of the German Empire of 1871 stipulated that the Empire was responsible for treaties, alliances, and representing the Empire, the smaller states still retained the right of legation. This included the right to legislate, to grant exequators to foreign consuls in their territories (though not to send German consuls abroad), and to enter into conventions with foreign nations as long as they did not concern matters already within the jurisdiction of the Empire or the Emperor.

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Unification of German States - Countries - Office of the Historian

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 The holy roman Empire was considered was considered not normal  because of the hundreds of Germán speaking people.  Germans were still divided by religion

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The holy roman Empire was considered was considered not normal  because of the hundreds of Germán speaking people.  Germans were still divided by religion but after the defeat of Napoleon the Germán states needed to find a way to balance power. This was know as the concert of Europe which leads even more to Europe coming together with Germany in 1871.

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Ten Minute History - German Unification and Empire (Short Documentary)

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The first Mexican Empire spanned only a short transitional period, which Mexico became an independent republic. Independence from the former country had been the only glue which bound republicans and monarchists together, but, once that goal had been achieved, the relationship between the two came to dominate the

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Although the Spanish crown initially rejected O'Donojú's recognition of Mexican independence, the date now recognized as that of separation from Old Spain is in fact August 24, 1821.

The Mexican Empire, 1821-23

The first Mexican Empire spanned only a short transitional period during which Mexico became an independent republic. Independence from the former mother country had been the only glue which bound republicans and monarchists together, but, once that elusive goal had been achieved, the intrinsic animosity between the two came to dominate the body politic.

Iturbide first became president of a council of regents, which convoked a congress to draw up a new constitution. Deputies to the congress represented the intendancies. When representatives from the Central American intendancies, part of the old viceroyalty of New Spain, declared that they did not wish to remain part of the Mexican Empire, they were allowed to withdraw and to organize their own governments.

On the evening of May 18, 1822, military groups in Mexico City proclaimed Iturbide Emperor Agustín I, and on the next day a majority in congress ratified the "people's choice" and recommended that the monarchy be hereditary, not elective. Agustín I was crowned in a pompous ceremony on July 21. The empire was recognized by the United States on December 12, 1822, when the Mexican minister was officially received in Washington, D.C. But even then Agustín's power and prestige were ebbing, and conflict soon developed between the military hero-emperor and the primarily civilian congress. On October 31, 1822, the emperor dismissed congress and ruled through an appointed 45-man junta. The act, condemned by many as arbitrary, provided a pretext to revolt. Among the rebel leaders was General Antonio López de Santa Anna, who would dominate Mexico's political life for the next third of a century. In Veracruz, on December 2, 1822, Santa Anna proclaimed that Mexico should become a republic, a position supported by many rebels and liberal leaders. Agustín was forced to reconvene congress and to abdicate. In 1824 he returned from European exile but was arrested and shot. This first epoch of independent Mexican national life foreshadowed many problems of the developing republic.

The early republic

Until they adopted a republican constitution in 1824, the Mexican people had little or no previous experience in self-government. Their economy was precarious; mining, a mainstay in colonial times, had declined during the many years of fighting, and widespread anti-Spanish feelings had caused an exodus of Spaniards, depleting both the country's capital reserves and its pool of trained people. Political instability made borrowing abroad expensive, and nearly all public revenues had to come from customs receipts, which were pledged well in advance. As Mexico's national debt mounted, so did its problems, and it became trapped in a vicious, seemingly unbreakable cycle. Whenever public monies were insufficient to pay the army, its officers revolted, captured the government, and negotiated international loans. The high interest payments on such loans reduced available funds for education and other social and cultural improvements, which many Mexican leaders thought were urgent requirements.

The constitution of 1824 set a number of democratic goals and provided for a federal republic, consisting of 19 states, four territories, and the Mexico City federal district. Indigenous peoples lost their special colonial status, and accompanying protections, as wards of the government. In many ways they were worse off during the 19th century than they had been under the paternalism of the Spanish crown. In addition, restrictive state legislation excluded the great mass of peasantry from the political process. Because chattel slavery had greatly declined in Mexico and was less widespread than elsewhere in the Americas, a decree abolishing it in 1829 was largely symbolic.

Under various labels, two factions contended for control. The Centralists, who were generally conservative, favoured a strong central government in the viceregal tradition, a paid national army, and Roman Catholicism as the exclusive religion. Opposed to them were the Federalists, who favoured limited central government, local militia, and nearly autonomous states; they tended to be anticlerical and opposed the continuance of colonial , which gave special status to ecclesiastics and the military and exempted them from various civil obligations.

The pendulum of power swung back and forth between the two groups. In 1824 Guadalupe Victoria, a Federalist and a leader in the independence movement, was elected Mexico's first president. Centralists replaced Federalists in 1828. A Federalist revolt in 1829 put Vicente Guerrero in the presidential chair, but he was soon overthrown by the Centralists, who held power until 1832. In 1833 another change placed Federalists in power until 1836, when Centralists again regained control and held it for nearly a decade.

After the downfall of Iturbide, Mexican politics revolved for some time about the enigmatic personality of the charismatic Antonio López de Santa Anna, who seemingly had few fixed ideological or political beliefs. Allied with the Federalists, Santa Anna was first chosen president in 1833, but, rather than serve, he placed the liberal vice president, Valentín Gómez Farías, at the head of the government until Farías and his group in 1834 attacked the privileges of the clergy. Then Santa Anna assumed his presidential post and nullified the anticlerical legislation. Before his political career ended he would be in and out of the presidency 10 more times.

Santa Anna was president when difficulties over Texas first began to mount. Under favourable terms, some 30,000 U.S. immigrants had populated that previously desolate area. Fearful that their growing numbers posed a threat, the Mexican government in 1830 closed the border to further immigration and imposed on the Texans oppressive restrictions that contravened the Mexican constitution. When Santa Anna adopted a new constitution in 1836, and in the process eliminated all vestiges of states' rights, Texas declared itself an independent republic. Santa Anna quickly gathered an army to crush the revolt. He met with initial success when he trapped a small Texas garrison at the Alamo and totally eliminated it, but he was defeated and captured by Texas forces in April 1836. Though Mexico made no further efforts to reconquer Texas, it refused to recognize its independence.

At that time a doctrine now known as Manifest Destiny was a driving sociopolitical force in the United States. It envisioned a United States that would extend from sea to shining sea and perhaps would ultimately encompass all of Mexico. The United States annexed the Republic of Texas in 1845, a move that Mexico saw as the first aggressive step and one which prompted a rupture in diplomatic relations. Santa Anna was overthrown for his apparent willingness to negotiate with the United States.

Although the United States claimed that the southern boundary of Texas was the Rio Grande (Río Bravo del Norte), the boundary had always been the Nueces River. Shortly after his election in March 1845, U.S. President James K. Polk tried to secure an agreement on the Rio Grande boundary and to purchase California, but the Mexican government refused to discuss either matter. Polk ordered U.S. troops to occupy the disputed territory between the rivers. When Mexican and U.S. patrols clashed in April 1846, Polk asserted that American blood had been shed on American soil-an outrage that he claimed required action. Less-warlike politicians, such as the Illinois congressman Abraham Lincoln, to no avail submitted resolutions asking Polk to point out the precise location of this outrage. Polk's congressional majority formally declared war on Mexico in April.

Without major difficulty, U.S. troops captured New Mexico and Upper California. General Zachary Taylor led the main U.S. force to quick victories in northeastern Mexico. At that juncture the government of Mexican president Mariano Paredes y Arrillaga was overthrown, and Santa Anna reemerged as president in September 1846. Almost immediately, Santa Anna mobilized Mexican forces and marched northward, boasting that the superior numbers and courage of his men meant that he would sign a peace treaty in Washington. Although Taylor and Santa Anna fought a close battle at Buena Vista, Santa Anna was beaten and forced to retreat on Feb. 23, 1847. Both sides sustained heavy losses.

A change in U.S. strategy left Taylor holding ground in northern Mexico; it was decided that Mexico could be beaten only by capturing Mexico City, via Veracruz. General Winfield Scott was given command of the expedition. On April 18, 1847, he defeated Santa Anna in the critical battle at Cerro Gordo. Though Mexican resistance continued to be formidable, Scott captured Mexico City on September 14, 1847. Santa Anna went into voluntary exile while a new Mexican government negotiated peace.

Dated February 2, 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo formally ended hostility between the two countries. By its terms Mexico gave up its claims to Texas and ceded all of the territory now occupied by the U.S. states of Utah, Nevada, and California; most of New Mexico and Arizona; and parts of Oklahoma, Colorado, and Wyoming. It was a humiliating dismemberment of almost half of Mexico's national territory (albeit a loss of only about 1 percent of the country's population). The United States paid Mexico $15,000,000 and assumed $3,250,000 in claims held by U.S. citizens against Mexico. Mexican citizens who suddenly found themselves residing in an expanded United States were given the option of returning to Mexico or becoming U.S. citizens and were guaranteed that their property rights would be inviolably respected. Many would learn that the promises looked better on paper than in reality, and they often found themselves being treated as second-class citizens.

After the war Santa Anna figured in one more major episode before the political scene changed. In 1853 conservatives seized power and invited him to become dictator. Among other things, on December 16, 1853, Santa Anna decreed that the dictatorship should be prolonged indefinitely and that he should be addressed as "His Most Serene Highness." To raise funds for an expanded army, he sold territory south of the Gila River to the United States for $10,000,000; this Gadsden Purchase, as it is now called, was the last significant boundary change of the Mexican Republic and included the southern portions of what are now the U.S. states of New Mexico and Arizona.

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Mexico - Independence, Revolution, 1810: Although the Spanish crown initially rejected O'Donojú's recognition of Mexican independence, the date now recognized as that of separation from Old Spain is in fact August 24, 1821. The first Mexican Empire spanned only a short transitional period during which Mexico became an independent republic.

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In 1810 a man called people to join him to start rebelling against authorities and government in Mexico. Also the same thing was happening on the other side of Mexico with different people as well. Over 10,000 people joined together to take down the royal Spanish's army in 1811. This led to the leader of Spain and Mexico and the army captain were captured and killed leading to Mexico fully gaining full independence in 1813.

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Mexican War of Independence | 3 Minute History