Events that Have Shaped the Border Between Mexico and the United States |
THE SPANISH CONQUEST |
1519 |
Hernán Cortés reaches Mexico and, through a series of battles that leave thousands of Indians dead, defeats the Aztecs in Tenochtitlán by 1521. |
1519 |
Alonso Alvarez de Piñeda sails the Gulf Coast and creates a crude map of the coastline, including rivers and bays of Texas and northeast Mexico. |
1528 |
Alvár Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Moorish slave Estevan, and two companions wander across Texas and northern Mexico roughly parallel to the modern border before trekking south to Mexico City by way of Culiacan on the Pacific coast. The group arrive in Mexico City in 1536 and inspire the conquest of New Mexico's upper Rio Grande pueblos. Read the account of Cabeza de Vaca |
1539 |
Estevan is killed at a Zuni pueblo as he and Fray Marcos explore a route to northern New Mexico. |
1540 |
Francisco Vásquez de Coronado searches for seven cities of gold across northern New Mexico, and ventures out into Kansas and Texas. His army of more than 1,000, three-fourths of which are Indians from Mexico, kills thousands of Native Americans. |
1542 |
Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo claims Alta California, the modern-day State of California, for Spain.
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EXPANDING NEW SPAIN |
1598 |
Juan de Oñate colonizes the pueblos of northern New Mexico. |
1680 |
During the Pueblo Revolt, dozens of Spanish are killed and survivers are forced to flee New Mexico. |
1692 |
The Spanish return to the Rio Grande offering to coexist more peacefully with Pueblo communities from the El Paso area to Taos, New Mexico. |
1718 |
Martín de Alarcón and Fray Antonio de San Buenaventura y Olivares, with a contingent of Canary Islanders establish Mission San Antonio de Valero, which later became known as the Alamo. |
1734 |
Thirteen Jesuit missions are operated in Baja California. |
1746 |
José de Escandon begins to colonize Nuevo Santander, a province bounded by the Rio Panuco and San Antonio River, and the Gulf of Mexico to the east. The colony covers much of the modern northeast Mexico border region, now the states of Tamaulipas and Texas. The towns of Camargo and Reynosa are founded in 1749. |
1751 |
Pima Indians revolt against Jesuit missions in the Santa Cruz Valley, between modern-day Nogales and Tucson, Arizona, causing the Spanish to build the presidio of Tubac, and later Tucson. In place of a Jesuit mission destroyed in the revolt, Spanish Baroque mission San Xavier del Bac was built from 1783 to 1797. |
1768 |
Fray Junipero Serra establishes the first missions in Alta California. Ten missions were established by 1784. |
1803 |
The Louisiana Purchase doubles the size of the United States, moving its boundary west to present-day Louisiana and Oklahoma, and annexing the Great Plains to the Rocky Mountains.
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INDEPENDENT MEXICO |
1821 |
Mexico gains independence from Spain under the Plan of Iguala. 12 percent of the Mexican population is killed during the violent decade leading up to independence. |
1821 |
Moses Austin receives a land grant on the Brazos River in Texas. His son Stephen F. Austin settles Anglo-American families and slaves in the region between Houston and San Antonio. |
1828 |
Mexico outlaws slavery, a major componant of the Anglo colonies in the Texas-Coahuila territory.
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THE TEXAS REBELLION |
1835 |
Claiming they are being forced to convert to Catholicism and speak Spanish, Texas rebels fight for independence at Goliad and the Alamo, but are defeated by the Mexican army under Antonio López de Santa Anna. |
1836 |
Texas gains independence from Mexico when Sam Houston defeats Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto. Texas claims the Rio Grande as the boundary, while Mexico considers it to be the Rio Nueces, leaving a significant portion of South Texas in dispute. |
1840 |
Short-lived establishment of the Republic of the Rio Grande is one of many revolts against the authority of Texas and Mexico in the border region, including the Republic of the Sierra Madre, and the Mier Expedition and imfamous "Black Bean Incident."
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BORDERING THE UNITED STATES |
1845 |
The United States annexes Texas. |
1846 |
The Battle of Palo Alto near Brownsville, Texas on the Rio Grande ignites the War with Mexico. |
1848 |
The Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo requires Mexico to cede Texas, New Mexico and California to the United States, designating the Gila River as the boundary. |
1854 |
The Gadsden Purchase grants nearly 30,000 square miles to the United States forming the modern boundary of southern Arizona and New Mexico. |
1862 |
Mexico defeats occupying French troops at Puebla on the 5th of May. Learn more about Cinco de Mayo. |
1884 |
The United States-Mexican railroad connects El Paso and Mexico City. Learn more about The Mexican National Railroad.
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THE MODERN BOUNDARY |
1891 |
The United States Immigration Act authorizes inspection stations at ports of entry on the Mexican (and Canadian) border. |
1904 |
Immigration inspectors on horseback patrol the U.S.-Mexico border to prevent undocumented entry of Asian and European immigrants into the United States through Mexico. |
1910 |
Economic inequality under Porfirio Díaz leads to the Mexican Revolution. The Revolution results in the Constitution of 1917, which guarantees social rights for workers and nationalizes Mexico's mineral resources. |
1916 |
Francisco Pancho Villa is suspected of an attack on Columbus, New Mexico after General Coranza is allowed to move his troops on the Southern Pacific Railroad to the border town of Nogales, gaining an advantage in fighting during the Revolution. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson sends General John J. Pershing to pursue Villa into Mexico with 4,000 troops. In nine months Pershing never sets sight on Villa, but returns to resettle Chinese-Mexican supporters to San Antonio. |
1924 |
The Immigration Act of 1924 establishes the United States Border Patrol. |
1929 |
About 500,000 Mexican nationals, as well as Mexican-American citizens, are repatriated to Mexico during five years of the Great Depression. |
1942 |
The Emergency Farm Labor Program, or bracero program, is adopted by the United States and Mexico, allowing Mexican farm laborers to perform contract work in the United States for a fixed period. Over 22 years of the program's existence, more than 4.6 million labor contracts are issued. |
1963 |
The Chamizal Treaty ends the 100-year boundary dispute between the United States and Mexico. Learn more about The Chamizal National Memorial.
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THE NEW GLOBALIZATION |
1965 |
Mexico institutes the Border Industrialization Plan to increase jobs, establishing Mexican factories (maquiladores) which assemble foreign products using cheap labor. |
1981 |
Henry Cisneros is elected Mayor of San Antonio, the first Mexican-American mayor of a U.S. city. Learn more about The Tejano Struggle for Representation. |
1986 |
The Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), or Simpson-Rodino Act, increases funds for the United States Border Patrol, penalizes employers for hiring unauthorized workers, and provides a controversial amnesty plan for long-term undocumented residents. |
1990 |
The Mexican Secretariat of Foreign Affairs creates the Program for Mexican Communities Abroad to aid Mexicans in adapting to life in the United States and foster continued ties to Mexico. Mexico's economy is increasingly based on wages earned in the U.S. being mailed to family members at home in Mexico. |
1994 |
NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, is implimented to phase out tariffs between the United States, Mexico and Canada. The Zapatista rebellion, an uprising in the southern state of Chiapas, protests the trade agreement's threat to the culture and livelihood of Mexico's indigenous peoples. |
1994 |
California voters pass Proposition 187, denying undocumented residents access to nearly all public services in the state. Courts have since determined much of the law to be unconstitutional. |
1995 |
Over 500,000 Mexicans work in maquiladoras, factories that mainly operate on the border to assemble American products for export back to the United States. |
2001 |
September 11 attacks elevate many Americans' fears about security on the U.S.-Mexico border. |
2004 |
In November, Arizona voters will consider Proposition 200, which could require that state civil servants deny services to undocumented residents, to report them, and may be used to prosecute U.S. citizens who violate the law.
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Events most directly impacting the modern U.S.-Mexico border and the Lower Rio Grande Valley are highlighted. |