Bobs: "Maybe Mr. and Mrs. Rigs-f-Sanity would like to talk about what really happened other than trying to aviod the reality that by the 1840's Spain didn't control these terrirories..."

Your right!..They were trying to colonize the Southwest, through Cortes, and the Catholic Church, but never fully succeeded! That being said, so, how was it ever 'Mexico'?

The Europeans, stumbled upon this land..quite by accident, and figured it was theirs to divvy up, while disregarding the Native peoples. England, with its separation from the Catholic Church, and Spain and France with its ties to the Catholic Church all claimed territories. France sold theirs, the Louisiana Purchase, and Spain was doing its thing, as per aforementioned. Spain just did not have the resources to fund, nor populate their 'claim' to the land, other than the spread of the Catholic Church. So basically what we had was two factions of church dominated Europe, fighting each other, for the power and lands. The founding fathers wanted this 'new' land free from the church domination that was choking the freedom in Europe.

Incidentally,(and I've been wanting to post this earlier), the history of the Catholic Church, becoming a 'state' governing body, started back in the Roman Empire. When Rome(and the Caesars, from where we get the name Czar, for the eastern side of Europe), was being unsuccessful at eradicating an new threat to their sovereignty, called Christianity, they merged with it, by co-opting certain beliefs, while holding onto their 'pagan' beliefs and practices. This was don't in 333 A.D. under Constantine. The 'newly remodeled' Roman Empire then evolved into the 'Holy Roman Empire', and the Caesars were replaced, and renamed by a (or the) Pope(Papa), which means 'Father'. The Pope had unquestioned authority in Europe till Henry the VIII, broke with the Church of Rome, over their divorce laws. This was the beginning of the Catholic Church's absolute power in Europe..along with Gutenberg, printing the Bible, so that the common man could read it, instead of it being 'interpreted' solely by the state church of Rome. As this grew, once again, Rome was losing it's grip on absolute power, and Europe was breaking up, from their control. It wasn't till the 20th century, that there was a new drive to reconstitute Europe, northern Africa, and the mid-east back to the Roman Empire. This was called, 'The Third Reich'..Reich means 'Roman Empire'

(Reich (rk, r)
n.
The territory or government of a German state, as the Holy Roman Empire, or First Reich, from 962 to 1806; the German Empire, or Second Reich, from 1871 to 1919; the Weimar Republic, from 1919 to 1933; or the Third Reich, from 1933 to 1945.)

The European struggle just continued, and spilled over to the new lands(America)....with the new inhabitants just wanting to be free, to live and worship the way they wanted, without the yoke of oppression from state controlled churches.

.....unless you just happen to be a Native American Indian...but that's another story......

GfS