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William Xavier Andrews Published 4:00 p.m. CT Jan. 24, 2017 | Updated 4:37 p.m. CT Jan. 25, 2017

William X. Andrews is a retired college history professor who lives in Columbia.(Photo: Submitted)

Donald Trump put Mexico in his crosshairs when he declared undocumentedMexican immigrants rapists and accused Mexico of stealing American jobs.

Demagoguery requires scapegoats, and Mexico is an easy target because of proximity. If the new presidenttruly wishes to heal the wounds in a country he helped divide, he will find that such insults are not easily forgiven or forgotten.

The great irony of the illegal Mexican immigration issue is something that is almost always overlooked by those who disparage Mexico. We acquired half of Mexico by 1848 primarily because of the illegal immigration of citizens of the United States into the Mexican state of Texas in the 1820s and early 1830s.

When Mexico gained its independence from Spain in 1821, Texas was only thinly settled by Spanish-speaking Tejanos. When American impresarios petitioned Mexico to allow some American families to settle in Texas, they were granted permission on the condition that they become Mexican citizens, embrace the Catholic faith, and obey Mexican laws.

However, as these legal Americans arrived to take advantage of free land, thousands of illegal Americans also crossed the border. It wasnt long before the illegals outnumbered the original Tejano population.

Moreover, as Mexican law prohibited slavery, the newcomers came up with creative language to describe their human property as other than property. Officials in Mexico were aware of the problem but there was never a sufficient Mexican military presence in Texas to stem the flow of illegals or to enforce the law against slavery. Exacerbating the challenge was the fact that the Mexican Constitution of 1824 assigned to the national government insufficient powers of purse and sword.

In response to a law in 1830 prohibiting further American immigration to Texas and President Santa Annas campaign to replace the federal system with a more centralized authority, Texans rebelled in 1836 and declared the Lone Star Republic. The rebels created a constitution that legalized slavery and elected a provisional president who opposed the right of Tejanos to vote.

Some 78 percent of the volunteers flooding into Texas to fight Mexico in 1836 arrived illegally (after 1830). Heroes of the Alamo like Davy Crockett and William Traviswere illegal aliens, as was Sam Houston, whose army defeated Santa Anna at San Jacinto.

A decade later it was our annexation of Texas, a disputed border, and Mexican refusal to sell us California that prompted the Mexican War by which we acquired the northern half of Mexico.

The story of conflicting loyalties and cultural divide is at the heart of how actress Eva Longoria describes her family history. She explains that her ancestors arrived in Texas in 1603, some 173 years before the United States existed and 243 years before the Mexican War.

We didnt cross the border, Longoria reminds us. The border crossed us.

William Xavier Andrews is a retired college history professor who lives in Columbia.

An earlier version of this op-ed hadWilliam Travis' name incorrectly spelled.

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When Americans were the illegal immigrants - The Tennessean