Praxis II Citizenship

Answer: D - The United States acquired California at the end of the Mexican-American War in 1848. California was ceded to the United States in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in a land deal that also included present-day Nevada, Utah, Texas, and portions of Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. (Texas had already been admitted as a state in 1845, which was partly what precipitated the Mexican-American War to begin with.) The United States paid Mexico $15 million and assumed U.S. debt claims against Mexico in compensation for the aforementioned land. Only weeks before the treaty was signed, gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill, which ultimately instigated the Gold Rush. So the acquisition was quite a boon for the Americans. California formally became a state in 1850.