The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1914-07-15
CRY Of ANNEXATION
ACCOMPANIES CRISIS
IN NORTHERN Mexico
Fabulous Wealth of Lower
California Lures Many
Americans to Mine in the
Southern Republic.
ey SIDNEY ESPEY.

WASHINGTON, July 15.-One OF
the remote possibilities OF the Mex
lean situation is conceded to be the
annexation Of that nation or some part
of it, 1t has been suggested that We
annex Mexico; that we annex tne
northern tier of states. Coahulla' oo
nora and Chihuahua, and that we an
mex the peninsula Of Lower California:
This last consideration calls to minu
the several previous attempts on the
part of the United States to make this
long finger OF land part OF the Union
It's mountains, fabulously rich IN
ores and precious stones and its wat
ers teeming with pearls. Lower Can
fornia has long been coveted by many
nations, but it has been of the Unlteo
States that Mexico has been most
afraid. Mexico has long since adopt
ed a vigilant attitude with view to
keeping the United States out OF
Lower California.
jackson Offers 5000 900.
The first recorded attempt OF the
United States to annex Lower Call
fornia is found in the correspondence
between President Andrew jackson,
Forsythe, his secretary of state. and
Butler, American charge d'affairs at
Mexico City. 1t was understood that
President Jackson offered Mexico
$5,OOO,OOO for Lower California and
was refused.
In 1928 a small f1llibustering party
led by Sylvester Pattie, of Kentucky,
entered Lower California. Some re-
cords declare they were merely hunt
ers and trappers. At any rate nothing
ever came Of this first American in
vasion of Lower California.
The first real American occupation
of the peninsula was during the war
with Mexico in 1847. Troops under
Col. Stevenson occupied the territory
around Todes Santos bay and Colonel
II. s. Burton landed with an American
force to LaPax. President Folk, in
message to congress, spoke of the an
nexation Of Lower California as an
assured fact and it was surprise to
nearly all concerned when the treaty
OF Guadalupe Hidalgo restored Lower
California.
Walkers Invasion.
The most picturesque American mil
itary invasion of the peninsula OF
Lower California, however, was that
led by Col. William Walker, the San
Francisco f1libustering editor. He led
armed forces into the peninsula and
seized it. He set up a government
with himself as president and inciden-
tally destroyed all the records Of the
peninsula at La Paz, by permitting his
soldiers to use the paper on which
they were printed to make cartridges.
There was a deep intrigue back of the
Walker expedition. Senator Jefferson
Davis, afterwards head of the Confed-
eracy and other senators from slave
states gave Walker moral support, it
was said.
1t was at the time when every slave
vote in congress counted for much.
The southern senators hoped Walker
would make good his expedition, set
up an Independent state and then
gracefully come into the union as a
slave state. But Walker also hoped
to take the Mexican state Of Sonora
and there he failed. His followers left
him when he attempted to invade the
deserts of Northern Mexico and he
with small remnant of his force
finally surrendered to Col Heinzelman
and an American company near the
border. Walker was tried and &C
quilted.
The next attempt of Americans to
gain the rugged peninsula was in 1858
when President Buchanan sent Mr.
McClane as an envoy to Mexico to
negotiate for the purchase of Lower
California and about the same time
General John G. Fremont attempted
to get the United States to annex
the peninsula. Mexico was so jealous
of these attentions of the United
States to Mexican province that she
invited the Rothchilds to undertake
a colonization scheme on the PENN
sula. 1t was attempted but did not
succeed in any degree.