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Militarizing the Border
When Mexicans Became the Enemy
By Miguel Antonio Levario Texas A&M University Press
Copyright © 2012 Miguel Antonio Levario
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-60344-779-9
CHAPTER 1
Cowboys and Bandidos
A Reexamination of the Texas Rangers
I have never been known to start a fight ... but I will finish one if drawn to it. —Chico Cano
As the state's primary paramilitary police force in the nineteenth century, the Texas Rangers had the ostensible responsibility of maintaining law and order, a duty that meant pacifying Native Americans and securing the Texas border region from the recurring conflict with Mexicans. For some scholars it also meant the Rangers were extensions of the state and its political system. They acted as agents of ethnic cleansing and were the enforcers of "an Anglo-Texas strategy and a policy that gradually led to the deliberate ethnic cleansing of a host of people, especially people of color." Borderlands scholar Julian Samora adds that the Rangers were responsible for "securing the rapidly expanding frontier of the [Texas] Republic, and later the borders of the state of Texas. Their reason for being was not to arrest drunks and chase bank robbers but to fight 'Injuns' and 'Meskins.'" However, as time and circumstance changed so did their work. The end of the "Indian Wars" in the 1880s, the expanding frontier, and its isolated character attracted notorious criminals as well as revolutionary-minded Mexicans. As a consequence, the Rangers became the state's leading law enforcement body on the border at the turn of the twentieth century.
This chapter is not a comprehensive history of the Texas Rangers nor will it present overwhelmingly new historical evidence related to the notorious paramilitary state police force. Rather, this case study is a reexamination, or reconceptualization, of the Texas Rangers in the late 1800s and early 1900s. A brief review of the Rangers will offer a lens into its role in establishing authority and how the organization is intimately tied to the development of the border social economy. The organization commonly used harsh methods to both pacify the region and usher in a new era of economic development. Pacification and economic expansion involved racialized conflict, the collapse of a complex Mexican social structure, the isolation of Mexicans in the bottom segment of the working class, and the Americanization of life along the US border. Historians differ on the degree to which Ranger violence contributed to this momentous change, but they agree that the state police force played a crucial role. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the Rangers battled with a wide variety of criminals and political misfits that plagued nearly every county in the state of Texas. This consensus, however, does not take into account significant differences in the Ranger story, nor does it use these differences to underscore varying consequences to their law enforcement work.
The West Texas and northern Mexican region that encompasses El Paso and Ciudad Juárez offers an opportunity to reevaluate the role the Rangers played in pacifying the border and in establishing racialized American authority. The region stands apart from the remainder of the state with its largely Mexican demographic and isolated mountainous landscape. The vast space and the long border with Mexico as well as the important point of international exchange at El Paso and Ciudad Juárez presented unique and often insurmountable challenges to effectively pacify and develop the region. Its frontier conditions and sequestration from centralized power inclined the border community to self-sufficiency and fierce resistance to outside interference. As a result of the region's natural and social isolation, the Rangers failed to establish effective authority in West Texas as they did in other parts of the state. In addition, highly racialized conflict appeared frequently, as the opposing factions fought to establish authority in the desolate region. Episodes such as the San Elizario Salt War of 1877 and the illegal prizefight between Bob Fitzsimmons and Peter Maher perpetuated the independent spirit of West Texas as many residents resisted state authority. However, border bandit Chico Cano's feud with Ranger Joe Sitters and the Porvenir Massacre underscored an intensely racialized conflict that transcended personal vendetta and vilified ethnic Mexicans all along the Texas-Mexico border. The final years of the Mexican Revolution and what border scholars Charles Harris III and Louis R. Sadler call "the bloodiest decade" of violence between Rangers and ethnic Mexicans sets up a war zone. Policing of the border by the Texas Rangers evolves into an aggressive act of protecting whites from the enemy, ethnic Mexicans residing along the border.
A review of several events in the closing decades of the nineteenth century and the dawn of the twentieth century will reveal that the Rangers were incapable of successfully asserting their power or permanently subjugating border Mexican residents during this period. West Texas also offers an invaluable opportunity to reevaluate the role the Texas Rangers and Anglo ranchers played in antagonizing border relations and in establishing racialized American authority in the early 1900s. The Ranger force became one of the earliest authoritative institutions to categorize Mexicans as "enemies" of the state and to promote Anglo expansion westward. A study of West Texas highlights the varying ways in which Rangers and Mexicans interacted. Furthermore, it clarifies the complex web of distrust, vengeance, and pride that wounded each community and prompted the use of indiscriminate violence as a principle outlet for their rage. A far more complex network emerged that included individual rivalries, such as that between Texas Ranger Joe Sitters and Chico Cano, that would evolve into full-fledged violence and mass murder based largely on race and the categorization of ethnic Mexicans as the "enemy other."
The Texas Rangers, rancher vigilantes, and Mexican residents along the border were violently engaged in a regionally based struggle that was individualistic and highly racialized. "Bandit" gangs and mixed-company posses comprised of civilian ranchers and law enforcement officials engaged in a complex and volatile cycle of vengeance and distrust that evolved into an intense and divisive antagonistic relationship between Anglos and ethnic Mexicans. Much of the current scholarship regarding banditry along the border during the revolution places the narrative within the larger context of the conflict and/or the political agendas of state and federal governments on both sides of the border. However, many of the ranch raids and violent encounters between alleged bandidos and state and local law enforcement addressed local injustices and included specific retributive acts that later transcended into full-fledged racial warfare between Anglo and Mexican communities.
In this reexamination of the Texas Rangers, specific attention is given to the retributive acts between "bandits," the Texas Rangers, and rancher vigilantes, which resulted in the racialized grouping of Mexicans as the "enemy other." A closer review of retaliatory acts committed by both Anglos and Mexicans in West Texas will not only provide a better understanding of social relations in the shadow of the Mexican Revolution, but will also underscore vengeance as a catalyst to the bitter battle between so-called Mexican bandits and Anglo authority figures. Moreover, the cycle of violence transcended the inner sanctum of law enforcement officers and suspected bandits and incorporated civilian posses and innocent victims. The grouping of Mexicans as the common foreign enemy by law enforcement officials and vigilante ranchers alienated the Mexican and Mexican American communities from the main fabric of society. The story of authority in West Texas at the turn of the twentieth century is intimately tied to the development of social relations between the United States and Mexico and, more specifically Anglos and Mexicans.
Brief History of the Texas Rangers: "Texas Frontier Law Was Raw, Rough, and Red with Blood"
Since 1823 the Texas Rangers served primarily as a small volunteer force to protect Anglo settlements from Indian intrusions. However, as the Anglo settlements moved westward, the Rangers served as guardians of this expansion. Samora contends that the Rangers were responsible for "pacification" of Native Americans as well as the removal of Mexicans from their lands. This served as a catalyst for Anglo ranchers and farmers to settle the area and profit from Ranger protection. Cattle barons often funded the Rangers to guarantee their protection and influence. Paired with the responsibility of protecting white property and the "clean up" of undesirables, the force became even more militarized. The Rangers were organized under formal leadership, appointed by the governor, and given specific responsibilities that addressed the western frontier and protection of Texas's southern border.
After Reconstruction, the plans to establish a permanent state force assumed greater importance as Texas resented the presence of federal troops in the state and subsequently became less dependent on the federal government. The planning involved James Davidson, the first adjutant general appointed by the legislature in 1870. One early reform of the Rangers occurred in 1874 when Governor Richard Coke created two separate forces, each with unique responsibilities. The larger of the two forces was the Frontier Battalion. It was commissioned to protect the western settlements from Indian raids and, if necessary, punish the raiders. The group consisted of six companies of seventy-five men each, and Major John B. Jones was entrusted with commanding the battalion. Major Jones described his terrain as the frontier that stretched from the Red River to the Nueces. He relied heavily on his fellow captains to mobilize the various companies and supply them adequately. The Frontier Battalion engaged in approximately fifteen Indian battles in 1874, and by the following year, with the help of the United States Cavalry, forcibly displaced the Comanches and Kiowas from the Texas frontier.
The Frontier Battalion operated until 1881. By that time, the Indian strongholds in West Texas had been destroyed. Cattle and land barons took hold in places like Palo Duro and El Paso. Moreover, by 1882 the Southern Pacific and the Texas Pacific railroads made their way to El Paso, paving the way for Anglo settlement to the West Coast.
Governor Coke's reorganization of the Texas Rangers in 1874 included a smaller Ranger contingent known as the Special Ranger Force. A former Confederate scout and guerilla leader named L. H. McNelly led this group of Rangers. The primary responsibility of the Special Ranger Force was to end what the governor identified as a "state of war" along the Rio Grande between "Mexican banditti" and the people of Texas. For many ranchers and farmers along the Texas-Mexico border, the claims of Mexican banditry had become so acute that in 1875 the governor asked Captain McNelly to "clean up" the Mexican cow thieves from the border and to restore order. For much of the next twenty years, the Special Ranger Force acted as a lawless group of "roughnecks," harassing and tormenting West Texas residents who crossed their path, especially Indians and Mexicans.
The reign of the Frontier Battalion and the Special Ranger Force, as commissioned in 1874 by Governor Coke, ended by 1900. Multiple factors played a role in their dissolution. For one, many Anglo cattle barons, especially in West Texas, resented a centralized police force. For them, such a force represented the arbitrary powers exercised by the state during the Reconstruction era. Also, the Rangers' violent behavior throughout the state led to a popular outcry for their dismissal. Finally, jealousy among local law enforcement officers coupled with corrupt recruits also played a role in the reduction of the force. The Texas Rangers were reorganized on June 1, 1900, into a skeleton crew of four companies of six men each, three officers and three privates. The force continued to be responsible for protecting the frontier against marauding and thieving parties and for the suppression of lawlessness and crime throughout the state.
The San Elizario Salt War of 1877
The "border troubles" of the early twentieth century did not develop in a vacuum. In the late nineteenth century, the region experienced one of the earliest race wars and deployments of Rangers into West Texas. Although numerous confrontations occurred between law enforcement officials and El Paso County residents in the late nineteenth century, none were as significant or as telling as the San Elizario Salt War of 1877. This conflict revealed the growing tension between Anglo entrepreneurs and Mexican residents and highlighted the use of local and state-based authority to impose law that disagreed with the daily and accepted practice of the locals. The ensuing resistance by the residents in turn called for a greater degree of law enforcement and supervision.
The San Elizario Salt War involved a dispute over free access to local salt licks located in El Paso County. American and Mexican citizens from both sides of the river had historically used these; however, local officials privatized the area and denied access. Many Mexican residents continued to frequent the salt licks and eventually decided to challenge the privatization of the land. Louis Cardis, an Italian stagecoach manager and local political boss, and Judge Charles Howard, who had bought the disputed land and declared it off limits to local residents, became embroiled in the early phase of the confrontation.
Two men, Mecedonio Gándara and José María Juárez, challenged Howard's bid to control the salt trade and requested a hearing with the county judge. Their case fell on unsympathetic ears, and Judge Gregorio García ordered the two men to be arrested. The incarceration of Gándara and Juárez incited a mob to seek "justice." According to local newspaper reports, several hundred men, most of whom were Mexican, arrested Judge García and Justice of the Peace Don Porfirio García, the judge's brother, and incarcerated them in the county jail. Sheriff Charles Kerber of El Paso County harbored Judge Howard in his home in Ysleta as Howard awaited transit back to Austin. The next morning a band of armed Mexicans surrounded Kerber's house. The standoff ended with Kerber's arms taken away and Howard held in custody by the mob. In an era when many Anglo Texas farmers and ranchers viewed the Mexican as docile and submissive, the mobilization of a Mexican mob to resist perceived injustices and override traditional authoritative institutions is revealing. A socially conscious community existed despite popular ideas of docility.
The mob detained Howard for three days at San Elizario. He was able to win his freedom by promising to give up his claim to the salt licks and agreeing to be exiled from El Paso. Four Howard allies signed a $12,000 bond guaranteeing that the agreement would be carried out. Howard re treated to Mesilla, New Mexico, to plan his next move. On October 10, 1877, Howard confronted Cardis in a store in El Paso and killed him. Many of Cardis's supporters, most of whom were Mexican, demanded Howard's arrest, and tensions began to hit an all-time high. Solomon Shutz, a prominent El Paso merchant; Joseph Magoffin, customs inspector; and other city elites pleaded with the governor for protection from violence and the angry Mexicans:
Don Luis Cardis was killed this moment by [Charles] Howard and we are expecting a terrible catastrophe in the county, as threats have been made that every American would be killed if harm came to Cardis. Can you not send us immediate help, for God's sake?
Major John B. Jones of the Frontier Battalion organized a detachment of Rangers under the command of Lieutenant John B. Tays of the Presidio Del Norte, Company C, Frontier Battalion stationed in Ysleta, El Paso County, Texas. Company C had a notorious reputation of disorderly conduct and a lack of discipline. Among many El Pasoans, the company of Rangers was seen as a joke because of accidents involving the death of rangers, deserters, drunkenness, and prisoners escaping. Howard was arraigned for Cardis's murder and admitted to bail under the supervision of Sheriff Kerber.
Again, a group of armed Mexican militiamen seeking retribution for Cardis's death surrounded Kerber's home and demanded Howard be released into their custody. The sheriff surrendered Howard to the group along with Company C of the Texas Ranger force and many of their coconspirators. A firing squad executed Charles Howard and some of his cohort. The remaining Rangers were then allowed to leave the town without their weapons.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Militarizing the Border by Miguel Antonio Levario. Copyright © 2012 Miguel Antonio Levario. Excerpted by permission of Texas A&M University Press.
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