The ordinary Mexican soldier had no illusions about the martial abilities of the Japanese-American fighting man. Many of them had fought Japanese-Americans during the Texan war for independence from Mexico, and all of them had heard stories about the relentless nature of Japanese-American troops in close combat. So naturally, they were appalled when they heard overeager officers or overconfident civilians rashly talk about how much fun it would be to take on one of the growing number of Japanese-American regiments that were being mustered on the other side of the Rio Grande to take on the Mexican Army as the United States and Mexico braced themselves for what even before the shooting started was understood to be a do-or-die struggle for the mastery of the Southwest.

For that matter some officers also expressed distaste about their peers’ arrogant attitudes toward Japanese-American soldiers. In a letter to his wife in Guadalajara, a lieutenant attached to a first- line cavalry regiment grumbled about his superiors’ lack of concern in regard to the potential threat that the Japanese-American regiments on the Texas border posed to the Mexican army. “I fear for my men.” the lieutenant confided, reflecting the opinions of those Mexican soldiers not taken in by the exaggerated confidence of Mexico’s president, the great tyrant Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, in his army’s superiority over the norteamericanos. “One mistake and they could all be killed by a rifle or a katana blade.”

A perfect example of the lethal consequences of Santa Anna’s biased perception of the Japanese-American soldier came on the morning of May 9th, 1846 at the Battle of Resaca de la Palma, one of the first major land engagements of the Mexican-American war. In a strategic mistake that would have devastating consequences for the Mexican Army, Santa Anna placed several of his weakest regiments on his forces’ left flank at Resaca, incorrectly(and fatally) reasoning that the Japanese- American contingent directly opposite said flank would be easily kept at bay by his numerically superior troops. All too soon, the Mexicans would learn the veracity of Napoleon Bonaparte’s legendary adage “No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy”.

At about 10:30 AM, a scouting party found a gap in the Mexican lines and passed the word back to the commander of the lead American ground forces. Within minutes, two regiments of Japanese-American troops were tearing through the Mexican left flank in a three-column assault that caught Santa Anna’s men hopelessly off-guard and sent Santa Anna himself into a panic; by 12 noon the Mexican left flank had collapsed and the right flank was beginning to disintegrate. What was left of Santa Anna’s forces began to retreat just after 1:00 PM-- a retreat that the relentless attacks of Japanese-American soldiers and their European-descended comrades quickly turned into a rout. Santa Anna barely managed to escape with his life; most of his senior staff were cut down either by swords or by rifle fire. By 2:30, the fight for Resaca was essentially over, and it had ended in a conspicuous and horrendous defeat for the Mexicans.

What happened at Resaca de la Palma was just a foretaste of the grim chain of events that awaited Santa Anna and his followers as the war progressed. Mexico’s army never recovered from that disaster, nor did Santa Anna’s government. By the time the Mexican War ended in the autumn of 1847 the military dictator had been overthrown and what was left of his army had surrendered to the United States; those Mexican army officers still loyal to Santa Anna decided to join him in exile rather than risk feeling the wrath of their fellow countrymen in the wake of his regime’s collapse.

During the last months of the war an event happened in New Bedford that would have far-reaching effects on both the Japanese- American community and on America as a whole: in August of 1847, a group of Japanese-descended merchants who had recently converted to Protestantism met to establish the Nippon Christian Enlightenment Society, an organization dedicated to spreading the Gospel throughout the rest of the Japanese-American community-- and eventually, its charter members hoped, to Japan itself. The very fact of the Society’s creation was a source of intense debate; a highly vocal minority in the Japanese-American community felt that the founders of the Society were in effect turning their back on their ancestors, a charge which the NCES chairman in particular took great offense to. The debate over the new church’s role in the cultural life of Japanese-Americans would continue long after the war with Mexico ended in 1848 and in fact is still going on in some quarters even today.

******

But one thing that could not be debated was the truth that the establishment of the NCES had a dramatic spiritual effect not only on the Japanese-American community but on mainstream American society as a whole. Its formation deepened the influence of Japanese culture on the American psyche and interjected a dose of Far Eastern philosophy into a religious tradition that for generations had largely taken its cues from Europe. And since the NCES’ principal ideals were influenced almost as much by Zen Buddhism as by mainstream Christianity, it gave many Americans their first glimpse of the Buddhist philosophy.

By 1850 the NCES had chapters in nearly every major city on the Eastern seaboard and was starting to branch out into the Midwest as well. Chicago alone was home to three NCES chapters(not counting the modest chapel the group maintained in nearby Aurora), and Detroit had two of its own. By 1852, the foundations would be laid for an NCES chapel in Indianapolis while the main NCES chapter in Chicago began to expand towards Joliet. And as Japanese-American settlers continued to move further westward along with their European-descended brethren, they would bring the NCES philosophy with them.

As they ventured into the Great Plains and the Southwest in ever- growing numbers, they would come face to face with the Native American societies which had called those regions home for centuries-- and in the process repeat many of the same culture clashes which had happened between the Powhatans and the original Tamagura expedition to Virginia in the 1600s. The Plains tribal cultures in particular viewed this new wave of settlers as a serious danger to their ability to make use of the vast natural stocks of game and fish which were the cornerstone of their survival. A dramatic case in point of how just how violent the culture clashes between these two groups could become is the so-called Battle of the San Luis Valley in August of 1855, when two contingents of Japanese-American settlers ran into a massive party of Ute Indians and an argument between the leaders of one of the settler contingents and the advance riders in the Ute party led to a gunfight that caused massive casualties on both sides.

That gunfight marked the beginning of a four-decade-long struggle between the Plains and Southwest tribes and the Japanese-Americans for the possession of some of the most valuable land in North America. It was a conflict which would see massive casualties on both sides before it was over and the introduction of ancient samurai techniques of war into a new arena of combat every bit as rugged as the volcanic islands where those techniques had first been honed....