INTRODUCTION: A DOMINANT NATIONALIST DISCOURSE

Continuing on to the national level, we now turn to the colonies that eventually made it to Mexico after the war, examining the many problems repatriates encountered in their quest for funds, permission to repatriate and settle, and to figure out who was in charge.

The end of the war brought the creation of a commission dedicated to the repatriation and resettlement of Mexican-origin populations in the United States. To this end, the northern frontier was divided into three regions, and a commission was assigned to each. Because the New Mexico Territory was the most heavily populated, the commission for this region was considered the most important of the three. Postwar instabilities, strapped financial resources, shifting geo-political boundaries, resistance by U.S. authorities, and internal accusations of financial mismanagement and corruption all contributed to the dissolution of these initial repatriation commissions. Yet colonies nevertheless emerged along the northern frontiers between Chihuahua and the New Mexico Territory, due mainly to the will and survival skills of the repatriates themselves.

The history of Mexican American repatriation during the nineteenth century touches equally on the historiographies of the United States, Mexico, the borderlands, and Mexican American Studies, yet this historically signii cant, but little known episode has been discussed to a limited extent in the academic literature. Nonetheless, repatriation efforts have not received nearly the scholarly attention they merit as transcripts for an alternative reading of national, cultural, and racial formation along the U.S.-Mexico border during this period.