The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, negotiated by renegade State Department chief clerk Nicholas Trist in 1847 and signed and ratified by congress of the US in March 1848, had been initiated as United States soldiers occupied Mexico City. The treaty basically gave what is now the southwest, including parts of Colorado and Arizona, and the entireties of Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, and California to this country for the paltry sum of $15,000,000, and set the Rio Grande as the United States’ southern border. It is important to remember that Mexico had been defeated, and this treaty was the end result of the Mexican American War.

Many years have passed since the treaty was signed, and Santa Anna though president of Mexico throughout most of the war, had been removed from power prior to the advent of the treaty, and as a result of his defeat at San Jacinto. It would be expected that he was not pleased to see this huge tract of his nation being annexed by the United States, and now after all the time that has elapsed, how ironic is it that “Santa Ana Winds” are being credited with causing the inferno that was visited upon Los Angeles? Ok, Santa Ana winds might be named after the canyon and not the general and the spelling (Anna) is different, but still maybe it’s more than coincidence.

The Mexican American War was just another travesty with its roots in “Manifest Destiny”, the concept with which the US abrogated treaties to which it had agreed with the American Indians and forcibly took their lands – not much different than what is going on in Gaza and the West Bank today. Seeing the destruction of southern California today as God’s way of punishing the white man for encroaching on others’ lands might give some hope to the people of Palestine for God to visit justice on their occupiers, it’s just that if it takes 300 years, none of those from whom lands were stolen will be around to see it. We can all rest assured however, that somewhere down the road, the Lord will visit justice on all who rob others at gunpoint. He always does.

I guess everyone in this nation – including myself – are saddened to see this kind of destruction, but there are others from other times and other places who might not be heartbroken at all. Santa Anna might just be somewhere looking on – and fanning the flames.

MK