San Leandro Historical Society Speaker: U.S. War with Mexico

Living historian Ernie Manzo, in full U. S. Dragoon uniform, tells the fascinating story of the U. S. War with Mexico, as it played out in California. The concept of "Manifest Destiny" was driving the U.S. ever westward in the 1840s, while Mexico, newly independent from Spain, was struggling to hold its vast northern territories. One of those territories, California, was blocking U.S. expansion to the Pacific. 

From the Bear Flag Republic in 1846 to the war's end in 1848, the skirmishes and battles between American sailors, soldiers, trappers, adventurers, and settlers against Mexican soldiers would dramatically change the course of California history and radically change the boundaries of Mexico and the United States.