Texas Finally Acknowledges Rangers Killed Hundreds of Latinos
by Cindy Casares Feb 3, 2016
A new exhibit in Austin, Texas examines a little-known chapter in the state's history, a time when Texas Rangers and white, civilian vigilantes massacred hundreds—if not thousands—of Mexican Americans or Tejanos between 1915 and 1919 in what historians have called some of the worst state-sanctioned racial violence in the U.S.
The exhibit, called “Life and Death on the Border 1910-1920,” opened January 21 at the Bullock Texas State History Museum thanks to a group of college professors and community members working together through a project called "Refusing To Forget." It will run through April 3, 2016.
The exhibit marks the first time a state entity has publicly acknowledged the role Texas played in sanctioned violence so pervasive that scholars behind "Refusing To Forget" say it prompted a struggle for justice and civil rights that continues to shape relationships in Texas today. “A public dialogue on this period of violence is timely and necessary to appropriately reflect on the lasting consequences of this period,” its website says.
It continues: “The dead included women and men, the aged and the young, long-time residents and recent arrivals. They were killed by strangers, sometimes by neighbors, some by vigilantes and other times at the hands of local law enforcement officers or Texas Rangers. Some were summarily executed after being taken captive, or shot under the flimsy pretext of trying to escape. Some were left in the open to rot, others desecrated by being burnt, being decapitated, or revealing evidence of other forms of torture and violation such as having beer bottles rammed into their mouths. Extralegal executions became so common that a San Antonio reporter observed that “finding of dead bodies of Mexicans, suspected for various reasons of being connected with the troubles, has reached a point where it creates little or no interest. It is only when a raid is reported or an American is killed that the ire of the people is aroused.”
What happened to incite such racially motivated killing? In the first decade of the 20th century, large numbers of white American farmers from the Midwest began making their way to South Texas, a remote region that had managed to remain an enclave of Mexican-American inhabitants. These were Mexican families that became American citizens in the late 1800s with the end of the Mexican-American War and the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Now, the reality of their American citizenship came rushing in with the arrival of these white transplants thanks to the advent of newly built infrastructure in the form of roads and rail. Land prices went up exponentially, and many Tejano ranchers found themselves unable to afford the rising property taxes. No sooner did white farmers arrive than they began to invoke the Jim Crow-style of treatment toward people of color that they were used to in the rest of the country. They began stripping Tejanos of their land by simply laying claim to it. Title challenges and outright theft led to a loss of more than 187,000 acres of land for Tejanos in the lower Rio Grande Valley from 1900 to 1910, according to historian Benjamin Heber Johnson in his book.
At the same time, next-door neighbor Mexico was in the midst of a Revolutionary War, as working-class peasants sought to overturn the corrupt old order that had robbed them of their land. Insurgents were being pushed out of Mexico by the Porfirio Diaz regime, and many made their way north to South Texas, where they called for Tejanos, African Americans, Native Americans and Japanese Americans to join them in a cultural uprising to overthrow the white elites who had displaced them. When, on January 24, 1915, the U.S. government got wind of this through an infamous document called the Plan de San Diego, (named for the South Texas town, historians still don’t know who wrote it), calls to secure the border led both the U.S. and Texas governments to send more boots on the ground in the form of the U.S. Cavalry and the Texas Rangers. The State expanded the Ranger force, increasing the number of Rangers from seventy-three to more than one hundred thirty. The 35th Texas Legislature created three “Loyalty Rangers” in each county in order to monitor anti-war activity, say the scholars of the Refusing to Forget project. Texas created so many new Ranger positions so quickly, many factions were not well trained, says the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum. The stage was set for a white American retaliation so violent and far-reaching that the scholars behind the Bullock exhibit say it ultimately led to the early Mexican-American civil rights movement in Texas with the formation of the League of Latin American Citizens (LULAC). But that was later.
In 1915, the uprising the Plan de San Diego called for never happened, but a few Mexican insurgent raids did happen resulting in some 21 American deaths, including some Tejanos murdered by Mexican revolutionaries. Since Anglo transplants couldn’t tell the difference between a Mexican American and a Mexican national, the distinction was of little consequence to them—think of the way that ISIS makes white Americans suspicious of all brown people. That’s the situation you had at the time.
“More destructive and disruptive was the near race war that ensued in the wake of the plan as relations between the whites and the Mexicans and Mexican Americans deteriorated in 1915–16,” The Handbook of Texas Online says (and this is a site that is not known to be overly generous at reporting Tejano history). “Federal reports indicated that more than 300 Mexicans or Mexican Americans were summarily executed in South Texas in the atmosphere generated by the plan. Economic losses ran into the millions of dollars, and virtually all residents of the lower Rio Grande valley suffered some disruption in their lives from the raids. Moreover, the plan's legacy of racial antagonism endured long after the plan itself had been forgotten.”
The number of Tejanos killed during Texas’ retaliation for the Plan de San Diego is likely underestimated. While most historians agree that at least 300 peoplewere reported murdered, they always follow up by saying that up to 5,000 could have actually been killed. When you consider the lack of technology at the time and the obvious motivation for the Texas government not to record such atrocities—historians say Texas Rangers were largely responsible for the violence—you have to figure that for every one death reported several more were not.
U.S. Military officers, also deployed to the Rio Grande Valley, became increasingly alarmed at the conduct of the Rangers and other law enforcement officers, says the Refusing to Forget website.
It continues: "As mass executions began, the Secretary of State telegraphed Texas governor James Ferguson to enlist his support in ‘quieting border conditions in the district of Brownsville’ by ‘restraining indiscreet conduct.’ This oblique reference to lynchings was soon replaced by more pointed and adamant condemnations of state officials, such as General Frederick Funston’s threat to put South Texas under martial law so as to restrain vigilantes, Rangers, and local law enforcement personnel."
Some white Texans tried to help. In 1916, attorney Thomas Hook of Kingsville, Texas helped a group of Tejanos there send a telegram to President Woodrow Wilson pleading for a federal investigation and protection of their rights.
One or more of us may have incurred the displeasure of some one, and it seems only necessary for that some one to whisper our names to an officer, to have us imprisoned and killed without an opportunity to prove in a fair trial, the falsity of the charges against us,” it said. “[S]ome of us who sign this petition may be killed without even knowing the name of him who accuses. Our privileged denunciators may continue their infamous proceedings—answerable to no one."
Hook was pistol-whipped by Texas Ranger Captain J. J. Saunders for his efforts. Ultimately, it took a Tejano to stop the Texas Rangers.
That State Representative José Tomás Canales (D-Brownsville) was the only Tejano in the Texas State Legislature in 1919 is an indication of the relative privilege that Mexican Americans in Brownsville enjoyed before the era of road and rail brought volence and oppression to the Rio Grande Valley. That year, Canales filed nineteen charges against the Texas Rangers (as a part of his ongoing concern over their conduct) and demanded a legislative investigation and the reorganization of the force. Shockingly, the legislature complied with the investigation, as a result of witness testimony, the size of the Ranger force was slashed with the Loyalty Rangers being disbanded.
“Through weeks of testimony, witnesses to Ranger atrocities told their stories,” the El Paso Times says, “The tales were deemed so explosive that the Legislature refused to publish transcripts until the 1970s, but now they’ve been digitized and two volumes are available online.”
Canales went on to play a key role in the formation of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) in 1929. LULAC would become the largest Latino civil rights organization in the United States and continues to fight for equal treatment and the voting and civil rights of Latinos today.
The scholars of the Refusing to Forget movement say this later turn of events is crucial to consider within the context of this story because their purpose isn’t to paint the Mexican Americans of South Texas as victims. Just as important as considering the positive outcomes for Latinos, I’d say, is to learn from mistakes of the past.
“State officials have struggled to produce statistics to show that the border isn’t safe, but that hasn’t stopped the Legislature from appropriating $800 million to send state troopers and the National Guard to the border in the face of questionable results from earlier efforts,” says Mary Schalden of the El Paso Times.
Today, you can’t win a Texas or national election without promising to “secure the border,” and protect the citizens of the United States from some looming, invisible threat. The story of the Tejano massacres of the early 20th century must be told so that Americans realize what that kind of paranoia leads to at its worst.
The exhibit, called “Life and Death on the Border 1910-1920,” opened January 21 at the Bullock Texas State History Museum thanks to a group of college professors and community members working together through a project called "Refusing To Forget." It will run through April 3, 2016.
The exhibit marks the first time a state entity has publicly acknowledged the role Texas played in sanctioned violence so pervasive that scholars behind "Refusing To Forget" say it prompted a struggle for justice and civil rights that continues to shape relationships in Texas today. “A public dialogue on this period of violence is timely and necessary to appropriately reflect on the lasting consequences of this period,” its website says.
It continues: “The dead included women and men, the aged and the young, long-time residents and recent arrivals. They were killed by strangers, sometimes by neighbors, some by vigilantes and other times at the hands of local law enforcement officers or Texas Rangers. Some were summarily executed after being taken captive, or shot under the flimsy pretext of trying to escape. Some were left in the open to rot, others desecrated by being burnt, being decapitated, or revealing evidence of other forms of torture and violation such as having beer bottles rammed into their mouths. Extralegal executions became so common that a San Antonio reporter observed that “finding of dead bodies of Mexicans, suspected for various reasons of being connected with the troubles, has reached a point where it creates little or no interest. It is only when a raid is reported or an American is killed that the ire of the people is aroused.”
What happened to incite such racially motivated killing? In the first decade of the 20th century, large numbers of white American farmers from the Midwest began making their way to South Texas, a remote region that had managed to remain an enclave of Mexican-American inhabitants. These were Mexican families that became American citizens in the late 1800s with the end of the Mexican-American War and the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Now, the reality of their American citizenship came rushing in with the arrival of these white transplants thanks to the advent of newly built infrastructure in the form of roads and rail. Land prices went up exponentially, and many Tejano ranchers found themselves unable to afford the rising property taxes. No sooner did white farmers arrive than they began to invoke the Jim Crow-style of treatment toward people of color that they were used to in the rest of the country. They began stripping Tejanos of their land by simply laying claim to it. Title challenges and outright theft led to a loss of more than 187,000 acres of land for Tejanos in the lower Rio Grande Valley from 1900 to 1910, according to historian Benjamin Heber Johnson in his book.
At the same time, next-door neighbor Mexico was in the midst of a Revolutionary War, as working-class peasants sought to overturn the corrupt old order that had robbed them of their land. Insurgents were being pushed out of Mexico by the Porfirio Diaz regime, and many made their way north to South Texas, where they called for Tejanos, African Americans, Native Americans and Japanese Americans to join them in a cultural uprising to overthrow the white elites who had displaced them. When, on January 24, 1915, the U.S. government got wind of this through an infamous document called the Plan de San Diego, (named for the South Texas town, historians still don’t know who wrote it), calls to secure the border led both the U.S. and Texas governments to send more boots on the ground in the form of the U.S. Cavalry and the Texas Rangers. The State expanded the Ranger force, increasing the number of Rangers from seventy-three to more than one hundred thirty. The 35th Texas Legislature created three “Loyalty Rangers” in each county in order to monitor anti-war activity, say the scholars of the Refusing to Forget project. Texas created so many new Ranger positions so quickly, many factions were not well trained, says the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum. The stage was set for a white American retaliation so violent and far-reaching that the scholars behind the Bullock exhibit say it ultimately led to the early Mexican-American civil rights movement in Texas with the formation of the League of Latin American Citizens (LULAC). But that was later.
In 1915, the uprising the Plan de San Diego called for never happened, but a few Mexican insurgent raids did happen resulting in some 21 American deaths, including some Tejanos murdered by Mexican revolutionaries. Since Anglo transplants couldn’t tell the difference between a Mexican American and a Mexican national, the distinction was of little consequence to them—think of the way that ISIS makes white Americans suspicious of all brown people. That’s the situation you had at the time.
“More destructive and disruptive was the near race war that ensued in the wake of the plan as relations between the whites and the Mexicans and Mexican Americans deteriorated in 1915–16,” The Handbook of Texas Online says (and this is a site that is not known to be overly generous at reporting Tejano history). “Federal reports indicated that more than 300 Mexicans or Mexican Americans were summarily executed in South Texas in the atmosphere generated by the plan. Economic losses ran into the millions of dollars, and virtually all residents of the lower Rio Grande valley suffered some disruption in their lives from the raids. Moreover, the plan's legacy of racial antagonism endured long after the plan itself had been forgotten.”
The number of Tejanos killed during Texas’ retaliation for the Plan de San Diego is likely underestimated. While most historians agree that at least 300 peoplewere reported murdered, they always follow up by saying that up to 5,000 could have actually been killed. When you consider the lack of technology at the time and the obvious motivation for the Texas government not to record such atrocities—historians say Texas Rangers were largely responsible for the violence—you have to figure that for every one death reported several more were not.
U.S. Military officers, also deployed to the Rio Grande Valley, became increasingly alarmed at the conduct of the Rangers and other law enforcement officers, says the Refusing to Forget website.
It continues: "As mass executions began, the Secretary of State telegraphed Texas governor James Ferguson to enlist his support in ‘quieting border conditions in the district of Brownsville’ by ‘restraining indiscreet conduct.’ This oblique reference to lynchings was soon replaced by more pointed and adamant condemnations of state officials, such as General Frederick Funston’s threat to put South Texas under martial law so as to restrain vigilantes, Rangers, and local law enforcement personnel."
Some white Texans tried to help. In 1916, attorney Thomas Hook of Kingsville, Texas helped a group of Tejanos there send a telegram to President Woodrow Wilson pleading for a federal investigation and protection of their rights.
One or more of us may have incurred the displeasure of some one, and it seems only necessary for that some one to whisper our names to an officer, to have us imprisoned and killed without an opportunity to prove in a fair trial, the falsity of the charges against us,” it said. “[S]ome of us who sign this petition may be killed without even knowing the name of him who accuses. Our privileged denunciators may continue their infamous proceedings—answerable to no one."
Hook was pistol-whipped by Texas Ranger Captain J. J. Saunders for his efforts. Ultimately, it took a Tejano to stop the Texas Rangers.
That State Representative José Tomás Canales (D-Brownsville) was the only Tejano in the Texas State Legislature in 1919 is an indication of the relative privilege that Mexican Americans in Brownsville enjoyed before the era of road and rail brought volence and oppression to the Rio Grande Valley. That year, Canales filed nineteen charges against the Texas Rangers (as a part of his ongoing concern over their conduct) and demanded a legislative investigation and the reorganization of the force. Shockingly, the legislature complied with the investigation, as a result of witness testimony, the size of the Ranger force was slashed with the Loyalty Rangers being disbanded.
“Through weeks of testimony, witnesses to Ranger atrocities told their stories,” the El Paso Times says, “The tales were deemed so explosive that the Legislature refused to publish transcripts until the 1970s, but now they’ve been digitized and two volumes are available online.”
Canales went on to play a key role in the formation of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) in 1929. LULAC would become the largest Latino civil rights organization in the United States and continues to fight for equal treatment and the voting and civil rights of Latinos today.
The scholars of the Refusing to Forget movement say this later turn of events is crucial to consider within the context of this story because their purpose isn’t to paint the Mexican Americans of South Texas as victims. Just as important as considering the positive outcomes for Latinos, I’d say, is to learn from mistakes of the past.
“State officials have struggled to produce statistics to show that the border isn’t safe, but that hasn’t stopped the Legislature from appropriating $800 million to send state troopers and the National Guard to the border in the face of questionable results from earlier efforts,” says Mary Schalden of the El Paso Times.
Today, you can’t win a Texas or national election without promising to “secure the border,” and protect the citizens of the United States from some looming, invisible threat. The story of the Tejano massacres of the early 20th century must be told so that Americans realize what that kind of paranoia leads to at its worst.
This article originally appeared on Latina.com.