AHC/WI: Mexican SoCal

[Sharque]

The challenge here is to help Mexico maintain her control over SoCal (but not NorCal) after the Mexican-American War.

What are the ramifications of a Mexican Los Angeles and San Diego, and a Mexican Tucson/Nogales if Mexican SoCal butterflies away the Gadsen Purchase? Where will the film industry locate? How does this impact CA?

 

[jocay]

The American negotiator Nicholas Trist was infamous amongst certain circles of being a bad negotiator. He was told to push for more land than what the Americans ended up getting; Polk wanted Baja California and several of OTL Mexico's northern lands. Have him settle for even less and the Mexicans would likely keep Southern California.

 

[Ivan Lupo]

Southern California would remain as little more than farmland, desert, and beaches, with very little other development. San Diego would remain the most important town/settlement in the area as well as Mexico's most important port at the upper latitudes of her territory, but Los Angeles would be nearly unrecognizable. There would be one major source of water, the Los Angeles River which has it's source just slightly beyond modern city boundaries in the Santa Susana Mountains, but the other major source and the competing settlement in the area, will be in the San Fernando Valley, where the modern day city of San Fernando (which is an enclave completely surrounded on all sides by Los Angeles) still has access to and obtains most of it's water from an ancient underground aquifer.

Furthermore, Mexican California will stop where the Central Valley begins, there is no way the United States wouldn't take the entire Central Valley. The northernmost settlement would probably be around Santa Barbara. In the ATL 1800s, Mexican California would be so far removed from the Mexican government that it would probably be pretty autonomous, though not my intention, and likely be a sanctuary for outlaws and bandits.

 

[Sharque]

Southern California would remain as little more than farmland, desert, and beaches, with very little other development.

Wouldn’t the presence of oil in the region result in a population boom? I was also thinking that the good beaches and environment would help SD or a nearby town become a tourist spot like Cancún and Cabo San Lucas.

 

[Deleted member 109224]

If you don't mind a pre-war PoD, have President Herrera's offer of peaceable border agreement be accepted. The US gets Texas, accepts the Mexican claim to the Nueces River boundary, and purchases California and New Mexico north of the 37th parallel.


Otherwise, Nicholas Trist was instructed to go for more territory than the US historically got. I've seen in other threads on this site that Polk wanted Chihuahua, Sonora, Nuevo Leone, Tamaulipas, and Coahuil, but that might have just been Polk specifically who desired that. The Democrats on the whole were urging for something similar to what the US got, BUT were also very explicit in wanting Baja California.

An issue for Polk would be that by the time of negotiations, his time as President was coming to a close. It'd take a month recall Trist, another month to send somebody else, some time to negotiate a different line, and then another month for the treaty to get to Congress. The House ratified it OTL in March of 1848 and the Senate OTL only ratified the treaty in May of 1848. Maybe Polk could have gotten a better treaty for the US and had it ratified before his time as president was up, but OTL he reluctantly decided to accept Trist's negotiaton.

So, just have Trist go a bit more rogue. Trist extends the boundary north along the Colorado River from Yuma and at the 35th parallel the boundary is a straight line from the Pacific to the Colorado. Very reluctantly, Polk goes along with it. Meanwhile without LA or SD, there's no west coast for a southern railroad to connect to (thus defeating the point of a TTL Gadsden Purchase).

 

[Ivan Lupo]

Wouldn’t the presence of oil in the region result in a population boom? I was also thinking that the good beaches and environment would help SD or a nearby town become a tourist spot like Cancún and Cabo San Lucas.

Maybe eventually, but if ATL Mexico still develops at the snail's pace it did in OTL, then it may be a while still before anyone discovers oil or figures out how to exploit tourism.