American_Samurai said:
I have a question for you all to ponder. What woud have needed to happen for Mexico to give more land to the U.S. so that OTL northern Mexican states are in US hands? Is this idea even possible? Would the area first becoming an independent republic like Texas be more probable. Any help would be really appreciated.
The current U.S.-Mexican border, as established after the Mexican-American War, is one of those instances where OTL would be viewed as very low-probability if viewed from most others. Pretty much any negotiator but Trist would have secured a border further south. Somewhere between the 26th and 25th parallel is likely, and the Gulf Coast down to Tampico was discussed as well, although that's somewhat less likely to have been accepted. (The main reason was that the USA really didn't want territory with too many former Mexicans in it).
There are various ways to achieve a border further south, from removal of Trist, to altering the political discussions in Washington. President Polk was under pressure in Congress from a variety of legislators who demanded that he submit the treaty he had in hand or lose some votes on other matters (I forget which ones offhand). Alter those circumstances, and a border further south is more likely.
Hey here is another thought I had what if the Yucatan Revolution was stronger possibly supported by a stronger Brazilian Empire than in OTL (but that is a different question entrely).
The important question of why a foreign power would support a Yucatan Revolution (and thus annoy Mexico) is... "what's in it for us?" Short of gaining Yucatan as a de facto or even de jure territory, it's hard to see what they would gain from it.
Out-and-out annexation of the Yucan is a possibility. But the problem with the Yucatan is that in OTL, during the height of the Caste Wars, they practically begged for annexation by anyone who would take them. The Governor of Yucatan wrote to the USA, Britain and Spain offering sovereignty over the Yucatan to whoever would first help them supress the Maya revolt. He got no takers, probably because no-one was interested in spending a lot of blood and treasure suppressing the Maya and then ruling a rather fractitious elite who may well decide to throw off the "foreign yoke" just like they tried to throw off the Mexicans.
You might be able to swing it with a particularly expansionistic Brazil, although it would an unusually vigorous action for a nation which didn't have any force projection to speak of during the 1850s (the time of the Caste Wars) and which would be more likely to look closer to home (especially Uruguay) first. Worse, the later you leave it, the likelier the USA, and quite probably Britain, would be to stomp quite hard on the idea.
The short version is that you would need *significant* changes in the internal politics of one of the likely candidates (the USA, Britain, Brazil and Spain, in more or less that order) for any form of intervention or annexation to go ahead. More expansionistic USA would be possible, maybe, and getting Cass into the White House in 1848 would be a good start, although he might end up provoking war with Britain instead.
Cheers,
Kaiser Wilhelm III
"The secret to flying is to aim at the ground and miss." - Douglas Adams