So many of the arguments we hear in the immigration debate are as substantial as wet cardboard. And one of the flimsiest is the claim that illegal immigration from Mexico is justified because “the Southwest used to belong to Mexico; that they were there first!”
It’s a confident assertion thrown down like a trump card meant to end discussion—which it often does in uninformed circles. But examined though the lens of history the argument dissolves because it’s not supported by the record.
Neither the United States nor Mexico was “there first.” Not even close. Long before anyone spoke Spanish or English in the Southwest, the region was home to a complex mosaic of Native civilizations.
As early as 500 BC, the ancestors of the Puebloans (often historically referred to as the “Anasazi”) were building small villages. Over the centuries they developed sophisticated masonry pueblos such as Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde—urban centers long before Europeans even entertained the notion of crossing the Atlantic.
In central and southern Arizona, the Hohokam flourished beginning in 200 AD and constructed of the most extensive pre-modern irrigation canal systems in North America. Later, the Aztecs consolidated power in the region in the 14th century. Major Indigenous nations of the Southwest included the Navajo, Apache, Hopi, Zuni, Comanche, Pima, Tohono O’odham, Ute, Paiute, Yaqui, and many others in habited the region. They lived, migrated, traded, farmed, raided, and fought across the region for millennia. So, if historical priority confers moral ownership, then the Southwest would belong to these ancient peoples—not to any modern state.
Spain was the first European empire to lay claim to the region in the early 1500s. Explorers such as Cabeza de Vaca (1530s) and Coronado (1540s) pushed far into what are now Texas, Nex Mexico, Arizona, and beyond. The Spanish Crown established missions, presidios, and settlements long before Mexico existed as a country. Santa Fe was founded in 1610, El Paso 1659, San Antonio in 1718 and the Tucson Presidio in 1775.
Spain controlled the region for roughly 300 years before Mexico inherited Spain’s northern frontier when it gained its independence in 1821. But its tenure lasted only 27 years and the Mexican “government” never created any significant settlements or exercised much control in these territories.
A Few Key Facts
Alta California, (the 800-hundred-mile strip from San Diego to modern Oregon) had only about 3,000 Mexican citizens in the 1820s. Texas had fewer than 7,000 before large numbers of Anglo settlers arrived under Mexican invitation. Much of Arizona and New Mexico remained effectively under the influence—or direct power—of the Apache, Navajo, Comanche, and Ute, not the distant government in Mexico City. In short, it is historically inaccurate to claim that Mexicans “they were there first.”
The Shift to U.S. Control
Modern borders formed through a series of events: In 1836 Texas won independence from Mexico; nine (9) years later the people of Texas voted in favor of joining the Union. But because Texas was a ‘foreign country’ at the time they could not “join” the Union, Texas had to be “annexed.” The Mexican – American War began on April 25, 1846, and ended on February 2, 1848, with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and was one of the great diplomatic turning points in North American history.
Mexico ceded approximately 525,000 square miles of territory—land that would become all or part of California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming. The treaty established the Rio Grande as the Texas–Mexico border and in exchange, the United States paid the Mexican government $15 million and assumed several million dollars of claims by American citizens. The treaty also guaranteed protections to Mexican citizens, including property rights, freedom of religion, and the option to become U.S. citizens; and to this day the treaty shapes legal disputes involving land and water rights.
The Bottom Line
The Southwest was not taken from an ancient Mexican homeland as some would have us believe – the historical sequence is clear:
- Indigenous civilizations from the Anasazi to the Aztecs to the Paiute: 200 BC – 1500s (1,800 years)
- Spanish rule: early 1500s – 1821 (about 300 years)
- Mexican rule: 1821 – 1848 (27 years)
- U.S. sovereignty: 1848 – present (177 years)
To argue that modern immigration policy should hinge on Mexico’s brief, loosely governed, lightly settled 27-year tenure is historically unserious. If we want to debate immigration, let’s debate immigration. But I think it’s time we retire the myth that “Mexico had the land first,” don’t you?