The war between the U.S. and Mexico represents one of the most painful episodes in Mexico’s history, and it has also posed a vexing question for Mexican historians who have struggled to explain the loss of half the national territory, the subjugation and occupation of the capital and the sources of Mexico’s vulnerability to U.S. expansionism. The talk will delve into the differing views among Mexican historians on how to represent the war.

Alex Saragoza, Associate Professor of History, Department of Ethnic Studies, UC Berkeley

Professor Loomis will examine the war against Mexico in the context of American political developments, particularly the growing opposition to slavery’s expansion which began to emerge among a number of groups in the North.

Barbara Loomis, Professor of History, San Francisco State University

Indians and the U.S.–Mexico War

For more than 150 years, historians have crafted narratives of the U.S.–Mexican War with virtually no conceptual space for the stateless peoples who actually controlled the territory that the two countries came to blows over. This talk will explore the manifold ways in which Indian peoples and their politics shaped the coming, course and outcome of 19th-century North America’s defining international conflict.

Brian DeLay, Associate Professor of History, UC Berkeley

Primary Resources Documenting the Mexican–American War

This site visit to the Bancroft Library will include a look at a selection of primary resources related to the Mexican–American War, all of which have rich documentary potential. The session will include materials produced by both Americans and Mexicans who participated in the war. The visit will also include a brief discussion of how to use The Bancroft Library as well as a quick introduction to the Mexican and Western Americana collections, which date from the Spanish colonial period to the present

Theresa Salazar, Curator, The Bancroft Collection, Western Americana, UC Berkeley