A U.S. Cavalryman Describes the Porvenir Massacre

Background: Robert Keil was born in Pennsylvania in 1898 and lied about his age in order to join the U.S. Cavalry when he was fifteen. He served in the Texas border area for six years and was struck by the violence he witnessed there. In 1963, he began to research official documents relating to the massacre of fifteen Mexicans by Texas Rangers in Porvenir, Texas, and upon not finding the specifics he recalled, he decided to write his own account of events, which was published after his death.

After we had eaten that night, the captain called all the officers and non-commissioned officers together and said, “The men you see over there are Texas Rangers from Captain Fox's company at Marfa. They are looking for bandits. They brought a letter from their captain, and also a note from Colonel Langhorne. I have talked to him by phone, and this is what we are to do: assist them in any way they desire, and the first and, I believe, the only way they will need us, so they tell me, is to surround and search the village of Porvenir. They tell me they want to make certain that all weapons are seized and that no one escapes.” 

It was a bitterly cold night, and although it was quite dark when we set out, there would later be a moon. It was the seventh year of the revolution, and Porvenir had a clean record, although it was at the southwestern tip of Presidio County. How could they be harboring the Big Bend's most famous bandit? Not once had any of them caused us any trouble whatever. They were all good Mexicans. ...

Routing an entire village out of their warm beds at midnight in freezing weather wasn't a pleasant task. Most of the able-bodied men were away that night, which was not unusual because they worked all over Marfa, Alpine, Valentine, and Van Horn, and in both counties on ranches whenever they could. But the river was home to them, and they had been there for years. Every family had a garden, some had milk cows, and a few raised goats and chickens. We bought all of their surplus produce, which pleased them. ...

We tried to be civil and decent as we went through the village in the dark, arousing the people out of their humble homes…. We had heard of such illegal searches before, when Rangers had asked troops to assist them further down the river, and no real harm had been done then. 

The only weapons we found were an old single-barreled 10-gauge shotgun with no shells, and a few butcher knives, which we turned over to the first sergeant, who told the captain that we had the weapons and that no one had tried to escape. He, in turn, went over and told the Rangers we had done what they had requested. “Thank you, Captain," said the leader. “Now we want to question these people. Will you withdraw your men so we can talk to them alone? We will be through here in a few minutes.” 

No one suspected what was about to happen, and although we did have what you might call a premonition, and smelled some kind of treachery, even the poor, shivering people of Porvenir had no thoughts of murder....

For perhaps ten seconds we couldn't hear anything, and then it seemed that every woman down there screamed at the same time. It was an awful thing to hear in the dead of night. We could also hear what sounded like praying, and, of course, the small children were screaming with fright. Then we heard shots, rapid shots, echoing and blending in the dark. 

At the first shot, the captain yelled, “Come on, boys!" and we raced toward the compound. As we neared it, we could make out by the reflection of the fire the wild confusion as the Rangers fought to catch their horses…. 

We were caught in an unexpected and terrifying situation. Hysterical women were all around us, screaming and praying at the same time and pointing toward the bluff. We had a few flashlights, so we threw the beams toward the place where they were pointing. At the foot of the bluff we could see a mass of bodies, but not a single movement. The bodies lay in every conceivable position, including one that seemed to be sitting against the rock wall... A hospital corpsman who was with us went over the bodies, but not a breath of life was left in a single one. The professionals had done their work well.

Source: Bosque Bonito: Violent Times Along the Borderland During the Mexican Revolution, Robert Keil (Alpine, TX: Sul Ross State University Center for Big Bend Studies, 2002), pp. 27–31.