The 1846 Capture of New Mexico and the 1945 Battle for Okinawa: What They Have and Don’t Have in Common*

 

         In 1846 Stephen Watts Kearney along with 1700 soldiers marched from Ft. Leavenworth to and through New Mexico on their way to California. Kearney and his troops strolled through Las Vegas and Santa Fe capturing the Territory without firing a shot. Upon his arrival, General Kearney addressed those present, as quoted in Ralph Emerson Twitchell’s, The History of the Military Occupation of the Territory of New Mexico from 1846 to 1852:

          “New Mexicans:—We have come amongst you to take possession of  New Mexico, which we do in the name of the government of the United States. We have come with peaceful intentions and kind feelings toward you all.  We come as friends, to better your conditions and make you a part of the Republic of the United States….You are no longer Mexican subjects; you      are now become American citizens, subject only to the laws of the United States….We mean not to rob you of your property.” [Emphasis added].

         Ninety-nine years later, during late spring and early summer of 1945 the United States attacked and captured the Island of Okinawa. The battle lasted less than three months and when it was over between two hundred and two hundred fifty thousand had died: Of those killed, our military reported that approximately 150,000 were civilians and 100,000 were Japanese military. Our loss of military personnel was reported at 12,000 killed.

         Within thirty years of the Battle of Okinawa the United States began to return (and continues to return) virtually complete control of Okinawa and the hundreds of islands that make up the Ryukyu Island chain to Japan. 

         During the one hundred sixty-six years since Kearney’s capture of New Mexico our federal government established the Court of Private Land Claims, a court that would ultimately divest New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado of over 30,000,000 acres of Spanish and Mexican grant lands, proclaimed it federal public domain and has refused in those hundred sixty-six years to return control of a single acre to any of the Grants.

         Our government’s lack of response to land grant claims since World War II raises a serious question of moral equivalency.

         What is it about the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, its capture of the Philippines and its capture, imprisonment, and slaughter of more than half of the New Mexico soldiers who made up the 200th Coast Artillery Regiment that entitled the return to Japan of virtually total control of Okinawa and the other Ryukyu Islands, while at the same time refusing to the return the control of even an acre of the land grants to their rightful owners.

         To put Okinawa and the Land Grants in clearer perspective, the geographical size of only one of the New Mexico land grants is necessary. Okinawa, with its 300,000 acres, was much smaller than the San Joaquín del Río de Chama Land Grant’s original 472,736 acres yet much larger than it was after the Court of Private Land Claims reduced it to a mere 1,423 acres.

         Shouldn’t the thousands of New Mexican soldiers who volunteered to fight for the Union during the Civil War; who during World War II were imprisoned and slaughtered by the Japanese at Bataan and in Japan—the thousands who fought in Korea, Viet Nam, Iraq and Afghanistan—shouldn’t their sacrifice for our country, their country count for anything? Have they fight and died in vain?  

                                       Mike Scarborough 

* The research regarding the 200^th Coast Artillery Regiment was completed after Trespasser on Our Own Land was published. The references to the San Joaquín del Río de Chama are contained within the book. Trespassers is presently available at Amazon for $17.31+shipping for the paperback, and $5.99 for the e-book. Trespassersonourownland.blogspot.com