A closer look

Anti-Mexican Violence and the Militarization of the Southern Border

by Pennee Bender, American Social History Project, The Graduate Center, CUNY

Policing the Borderlands

With the U.S.-Mexican War (1846 -1848) the U.S. acquired half of Mexico’s territory and created a contested legal boundary and an extensive border region that stretched for almost two thousand miles. For generations Mexicans and Mexican Americans residing along the new border had moved fluidly between the two countries for work, social, and family obligations with no official border crossing requirements. These constant migrations developed a strong binational cultural, social, and economic identity along the border. But the border region began to change in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, when railroads connected the area to larger U.S. markets and large-scale cattle and agricultural business owners took over property previously owned or used by Mexican Americans. The influx of Anglo settlers and businesses created new racial and ethnic hierarchies that marginalized and often vilified Mexicans as enemy aliens, outlaws, or bandits. Increasingly, border states such as Texas, as well as the federal government, sought to control and militarize the border using local militias and vigilante citizens. Violence against Mexicans along the border was hardly new-- beatings, lynchings, and massacres had spanned the decades from the 1850s gold rush in California to the conflicts over southwestern land in the 1880s and 1890s. It reached a peak with the anti-bandit hysteria in the 1910s, fueled in part by the turmoil surrounding the Mexican Revolution. Estimates of the number of Mexicans killed without trial or jury rose into the thousands across the southwest. Historians of anti-Mexican violence have likened its scale and brutality to the lynchings and mob violence carried out against African Americans following Reconstruction as well as violent anti-immigrant attacks on Asians in the late nineteenth century.

Increased Military Presence Along the Border

The Mexican Revolution began in 1910 with efforts to overthrow the dictator Porfirio Díaz and lasted until 1920 with various factions within Mexico -- large landowners, businessmen, and landless peasants -- vying for control of the military and the government. As these factions rose and fell in power, their critics and others whose livelihood as workers or small farmers was disrupted by the war often fled to the United States. During this decade-long civil war, the U.S. sent troops into Mexico twice and significantly increased the military presence along the border. The Texas Rangers, a state-wide paramilitary force that also policed the border, grew from 13 officers in 1913 to 1,350 in 1918. The role of the U.S. military and the Texas Rangers in the wave of violence during these years marked a significant difference from earlier periods of vigilante mob violence against Mexicans and Mexican Americans and drew strong resistance from Mexican Americans such as Texas Representative José Canales as well as the Mexican government. The extent and effects of this reign of terror against Mexicans has been omitted from most U.S. history books.

Texas Rangers Murder and Massacre Mexican Americans

The Rangers, in conjunction with local ranchers, could act with impunity and no fear of judicial consequences, as the 1915 murder of Jesus Bazán and his son-in-law Antonio Longoria in Hidalgo County, Texas, and the massacre at Porvenir, Texas in 1918 reveal. In September 1915, Bazán and Longoria, two wealthy Tejano (Texans of Mexican descent) landowners, had some of their horses stolen by a group of Mexicans. Cooperating with the authorities could have caused repercussions from the thieves in a region where remote landowners received little protection from law enforcement, but not reporting the theft could bring charges of sympathizing with “bandits.” Trapped between these options, Bazán and Longoria decided to report the theft. As they left their meeting with the Texas Rangers, three Rangers followed them, shot them in the back, and then left them by the side of the road. Despite their social prominence and citizenship, and their willingness to cooperate with the Rangers, the two men were murdered and denied even the right to a decent burial. In fact, their social prominence may have been part of the reason for their execution. They had recently offered to testify in court on behalf of other Mexican American landowners against an Anglo company seeking to acquire more property, making them an economic threat and model of resistance to Anglos amassing land.

The raid against Columbus, New Mexico by the Mexican revolutionary leader Pancho Villa in 1916 and the subsequent U.S. invasion of Mexico in pursuit of Villa increased tensions between Anglos and Mexicans along the border. When Mexican rebels crossed the border to raid to livestock and food supplies, vigilantes and Texas Rangers countered with brutal attacks. One of the more severe retaliations took place in Porvenir, Texas in January 1918. Following a raid of the Brite Ranch that resulted in the death of two Anglos along with the theft of horses and supplies, Texas Rangers and Anglo ranchers suspected the residents of a small village along the border of assisting the raiders. A band of Rangers and vigilantes recruited the services of the U.S. Army to stand guard while they massacred 15 men and teenage boys in Porvenir, Texas. According to U.S. Cavalryman Robert Keil, the villagers were stable ranchers and farmers who were on friendly terms with local Anglos, and it was unlikely that they had connections to local bandits. The Rangers’ justification for their attack, as represented in Captain Fox’s report to his supervisor, runs contrary to Keil’s account.

Community Memory and History Persist Despite Lack of Government Accountability

The brazen violence and lack of accountability represented by the massacre finally sparked an investigation and campaign to limit the arbitrary power of the Texas Rangers.Following the Porvenir massacre, José Canales––an elected state representative from Texas’s Rio Grande Valley––called for a state investigation by a Joint Committee of the Senate and the House of the State of Texas into the Texas Ranger Force. Despite extensive testimony, including by the survivors of Porvenir the investigation did not result in significant changes. Captain Fox was forced to resign and Ranger Company B was dissolved, but no one was charged with the deaths and Fox and other Rangers responsible for the massacre were allowed to reenlist with the Rangers or join other police forces.

In recent years, families and communities along the border have been coming to terms with the legacy of lynchings and massacres of ethnic Mexicans that has been maintained through oral traditions. Historians, cultural organizations, and individuals have drawn on oral histories, memoirs, and government documents to uncover the history of violence, memorialize the victims, and acknowledge the resilience and resistance of the communities through public historical markers, news articles, web sites, and public commemorations.

Reflection Questions

What perspectives are presented in the various documents and how do they differ?

How do these perspectives help us understand the violence against Mexican Americans in the early twentieth-century and its legacy?

How do the events described in these documents characterize life along the Southern border in the early twentieth century?

Additional Readings

William Carrigan and Clive Webb, Forgotten Dead: Mob Violence against Mexicans in the United States, 1848-1928 (Oxford University Press, 2013)

Miguel Antonio Levario, Militarizing the Border: When Mexicans Became the Enemy (Texas A&M University Press, 2012)

Monica Muñoz Martinez, The Injustice Never Leaves You: Anti-Mexican Violence in Texas (Harvard University Press, 2018)

Related Chapters

Wars for Democracy, 1914-1920