Comment: “I think it’s a mistake to build the wall where the border currently stands. It’s impossible to defend. We should mirror what the Israelis have done in Palestine and push the Mexicans into the area east of Coatzacoalcos and build a new cheaper, better border at the choke point running south of there. It’s a much gentler solution than using Panama as the choke point.”
* One of the reasons the US/Mexican border is where it is is that the US promised Mexico they would halt the constant Plains Indians (mostly Comanche, Kiowa, and Apache) raids into Mexico. Plains Indian raids into Mexico were not minor vexations, they were major operations. When the US Army invaded northern Mexico in the Mexican-American war, they found the region devastated by Comanche raids. The Comanche raided far south into Mexico, getting pretty close to Mexico city.
If interested, a good place to start is Comanche Wars; the Comanche-Mexico Wars; and Comancheria.
Comanche Wars:
“…Comanche power peaked in the 1840s when they conducted large scale raids hundreds of miles deep into Mexico while also warring against the Anglo-Americans and Hispanics in Texas…
…The Comanche Wars began in 1706 with raids by Comanche on Spanish colonies in New Mexico and continued until the last bands of Comanche surrendered to the United States in 1875…”
Comanche-Mexico Wars:
“…The Comanche–Mexico Wars was the Mexican theater of the Comanche Wars, a series of conflicts from 1821 to 1870s which consisted of large-scale raids into northern Mexico by Comanches and their Kiowa allies which left thousands of people dead…
…By the time the United States army invaded northern Mexico in 1846 during the Mexican–American War the region was devastated.
…In 1835, the state of Chihuahua, ravaged by Apache as well as Comanche raids, offered a bounty of 100 pesos (about U.S.$100) for each scalp of a hostile Indian man and lesser amounts for women and children. American and Indian, primarily Delaware and Shawnee, scalp hunters killed many Apache and peaceful Indians for the bounty over the next few years, but apparently had little success in hunting down and killing Comanches…
…In the 1820s and 1830s most Comanche raids were in the southern parts of Texas…
…In attacking Mexico, the Comanche seemed motivated by opportunity, economics and revenge – their animosity toward non-Comanches sharpened by decades of war and reprisals. Thus, their raids on Mexico became increasingly bloody and destructive…
…In the 1840s, Comanche raids became larger, more deadly, and penetrated deeply into Mexico…
…The bloodiest raiding year was July 1845 – June 1846 when 652 Mexicans and 48 Comanches were recorded as killed. The Comanches had turned northern Mexico into a “semicolonized landscape of extraction from which they could mine resources with little cost.”
…”the whole country from New Mexico to the borders of Durango is almost entirely depopulated. The haciendas and ranchos have been mostly abandoned, and the people chiefly confined to the towns and cities.”…
…When American troops invaded northern Mexico in 1846 they found a devastated landscape and a demoralized people. There was little resistance to the Anglo-Americans.…
…In 1852, in perhaps the most far-ranging of all Comanche raids, they reached the Mexican state of Jalisco in the tropics near the Pacific Ocean, 600 miles (970 km) from their usual crossing point of the Rio Grande, near Presidio, Texas and nearly 1,000 miles (1,600 km) from their Great Plains homeland…
…After the American Civil War the Comanche were soon overwhelmed and the last of them, now reduced to about 1,500 people, surrendered to the U.S. army in 1875…”
