This paper will examine the United States-Mexico War by analyzing the economic and ideological factors, as well as taking into consideration the international events that occurred during that period. These three elements and their implications are key to not only understanding the event, but also its aftermath. After a large period of economic growth the United States was in a position to take advantage of Mexico's struggling economy after years of battle for independence against Spain. The United States was also in a position where it felt it had a right to the land. The applied ideals of manifest destiny, the struggling economy in Mexico after the collapse of the Spanish Empire, and the British colonization of countries around the world all marked the events leading into the U.S.-Mexico War. .
The United States felt it was their divine right and their destiny to expand from ocean to ocean. They justified their conquest through the ideology that those of mixed blood were impure or had no soul. These factors attributed to the belief that the indigenous were savages and "Hispanics" were inferior to those of pure and noble descent. With this notion of Manifest Destiny, the US was able to rationalize a sense of superiority and take it upon themselves to save "the poor, the uneducated, the mixed-bloods" as stated by Arnoldo De Leon (1983). Because they believed that they were the superior race, they felt inclined to help these unfortunates through their own charity. This ideology became popularly known as the "white mans burden," for it was up to them, according to the white man, to extend the benefits of a republic system of government to those less fortunate and inferior to Americans. .
Since the founding of the first Spanish colonies in Central America in the middle of the 16th century, the Spaniards found not only an abundance of precious metals, but an enormous workforce that they would exploit in order to gain possession of these metals.
