While UTRGV Special Collections & Archives is tasked with access and preservation of our collections, we do not approve, endorse, or support the attitudes, prejudices, or behaviors, which may be expressed among these materials. We recognize some materials may contain offensive and racist language and imagery, especially in depictions of Mexican and Mexican-American people. However, this research guide attempts to avoid perpetuating damaging stereotypes and tropes, systemic inequity, and ethnic and racial violence by promoting the researcher's candid evaluation and interrogation of the historical record.
gerund or present participle: lynching; noun: lynching
(of a mob) kill (someone), especially by hanging, for an alleged offense with or without a legal trial.
From Oxford Languages and Google
During the early 1900s, the borderlands region was fluid with respect to to geophysical location and geopolitical identity. The term “ethnic Mexicans” is used by many historians to reflect this fluidity and to identify people of Mexican descent including both Mexicans and Mexican-Americans.
The purpose of this research guide is to provide general historical information on the documented lynchings of ethnic Mexicans in Texas as well as address various other factors related to ethic violence including, racial discrimination, agriculture industry, and migration in the Rio Grande Valley. It focuses on the period of 1915 - 1920. (See also Texas Rangers Research Guide.)
The first recorded cases of the lynching of ethnic Mexicans in the U.S. emerged during the late 1840s and continued through the 1930s. Although the exact number of lynchings remains largely unknown, historians estimate that roughly 5,000 Mexicans and Mexican Americans were killed during this period. The majority of cases are found within the border regions of Texas, California, Arizona, and New Mexico. According to Michael Barnes of the Austin American Statesman, "the NAACP has detailed 335 Texas lynching deaths by 1919. More recently, scholars have added to the list almost 250 lynchings of ethnic Mexicans in Texas from 1850 to 1930."
The history of lynching of ethnic Mexicans living in the Rio Grande Valley (also called "Tejanos") is tied to broader historical context, including the Mexican Revolution, border raids and violence, Anglo-American migration to South Texas, and the agricultural revolution. The completion of the Brownsville railroad in the early twentieth century created an influx of Anglo-American migrants to the region driven by promises of economic capital in the agricultural industry. During this period, the Valley transitioned from a predominantly Hispanic cattle ranching culture into an agricultural production industry dominated by Anglos seeking more land acquisitions. Rebecca Onion for Slate.com writes, "Between 1900 and 1910, more than 187,000 acres of land transferred from Tejano to Anglo hands, in just two Texas counties (Cameron and Hidalgo). Many who lost their land ended up working on it, paid, not well, by its new owners." Changing social, economic, and political circumstances exposed deep racial inequalities, escalating at times to threats, violence, and lynching.
In 1915, South Texas experienced its bloodiest year of racial violence against ethnic Mexicans perpetrated by Texas Rangers, United States Army, federal law enforcement officers, and local vigilante groups. Documented cases of lynchings include Lorenzo Manriquez (alleged resisting arrest), Gorgonio Manriquez (alleged resisting arrest), Adolfo Muñoz (alleged murder), Desiderio Flores, Sr. (alleged murder), Desiderio Flores, Jr. (alleged murder), Antonio Flores (alleged murder), Jesus Bazan (no crime), and Antonio Longoria (no crime), among many more. Yet, often times victims were unknown or lynchings went unreported, and those that were reported were rarely, if ever, investigated. However, that all changed in 1919 when Texas Representative J.T. Canales led a formal investigation into the criminal activities of the Texas Rangers in the Rio Grande Valley.
The escalating violence resulted in a wave of migration called, "The Great Exodus," whereby Hispanic people native to the borderlands moved to Mexico. The wealthy and poor alike packed what they could carry and abandoned their homes, ranches, and heritage to escape persecution. Others held their ground and some radicalized in response, answering violence with violence. The Plan of San Diego called for the reclamation of borderland states through the eradication of all Anglo adult males.
The Brent Campney Collection consists of research files accumulated during Dr. Campney's research into race relations in South Texas, particularly the Rio Grande Valley, during the 19th and 20th Centuries. The collection has a series of folders dealing with (in most cases) long forgotten episodes of racism and violence in South Texas and are intended to 1) inform interested scholars that these incidents occurred and; 2) provide a starting point for their own research into the incidents.
The born-digital collection consists of images and recordings of the Jesus Bazán and Antonio Longoria marker dedication ceremony. This marker commemorates the double murder of Jesus Bazán and his son-in-law, Antonio Longoria, on September 27, 1915 along a dirt road near their ranch outside of Edinburg.
Note: This collection is born-digital but must be accessed (viewed) at Special Collections.
John Randall Peavey (Parts 1-9), 1981. Peavey reflects on his life history spanning the early family history and 1905-1915 period through his Sheriff's campaign of 1946. This interview was conducted by Hubert J. Miller in between December 22-23, 1981.
Delia Ramirez Alaniz Oral History, 1987. Delia Ramirez Alaniz talks about life as a child: family, education, religion, and funerals in Havanna, Texas. She also talks about marriage and land grants. Additionally, she talks about how one of her teachers stated a Tabasco school on fire, how Texas Rangers killed a Mexican, Patricio Perez and Senovia Perez, A.Y. Baker of Edinburg, how Juan Cortina is a relative, Clay Henry Davis, Josefa De La Garza Perez, land title for Fort Ringold, Porciones 70, 71, 72, 78, 80, 81, 88, 104, the history of Havana, Matias Tijerina, the Walkers, and how the Great Depression wasn't felt in the ranches. Interview conducted in Spanish by Ruben Alaniz in 1987.
Founded in 1954 “to encourage and to aid in the development of local historical societies and to discover, collect, preserve, and publish historical records and data relating to South Texas, and with special emphasis on the Tamaulipan background and the colony of Nuevo Santander.”
ANTIGONE’S REFUSAL: MEXICAN WOMEN’S RESPONSES TO LYNCHINGS IN TEXAS, by Annette M. Rodríguez
The author seeks "to recognize the gendered effects of lynching," asking questions like "What of the women who watched as their husbands and sons were taken away to accomplish what I have termed 'disappearance lynchings'? What of those made to watch as their husbands, brothers, fathers, and son were lynched? What of the women who stayed near through the entire public ritual, and stayed close as the bodies lay—waiting for the safety of retrieval and burial? What of the women who in fear for their own lives, would ask for the bodies of their family members to give them a proper burial?"
Documented Incidents |
Relevant People |
Samantha Bustillos earned a Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies (MAIS-Anthropology) at the University of Texas at Rio Grande Valley (2021). Ms. Bustillos earned a Bachelor of Arts in History with a minor in Anthropology at UTRGV in 2019. She worked at UTRGV Special Collections as an intern and later student assistant while earning her degrees. Samantha is a Benjamin A. Gilman Scholar and UTRGV Engaged Scholar. As an Engaged Scholar, she conducted and presented her research findings on biracial families in the Rio Grande Valley during the U.S. Civil War at UTRGV ES2 Symposium in 2019. Samantha also served as a docent for the Community Historical Archeology Project with Schools (CHAPS) in collaboration on the traveling exhibit "War and Peace on the Rio Grande." She is now employed with UTRGV University Library as a Library Assistant I.
The research guides compiled by UTRGV staff and students are intended to assist patrons who are embarking upon new research endeavors. Our goal is to expand their knowledge of the types of resources available on a given topic, including books, archival materials, and websites. In so doing, our compilers have taken care to include collections, digital items, and resources that may be accessed not only through UTRGV but also via other institutions, repositories, and websites.
We wholeheartedly respect the research interests of others. Therefore, please contact us if you wish to submit a resource for consideration, or if you have a question about or an issue with a specific cited resource.
A Crooked River by
During the turbulent years of the Civil War and Reconstruction, a squall of violence and lawlessness swept through the Nueces Strip and the Rio Grande Valley in southern Texas. Cattle rustlers, regular troops, and Texas Rangers, as well as Civil War deserters and other characters of questionable reputation, clashed with Mexicans, Germans, and Indians over unionism, race, livestock, land, and national sovereignty, among other issues. In A Crooked River, Michael L. Collins presents a rousing narrative of these events that reflects perspectives of people on both sides of the Rio Grande. Retracing a path first opened by historian Walter Prescott Webb, A Crooked River reveals parts of the tale that Webb never told. Collins brings a cross-cultural perspective to the role of the Texas Rangers in the continuing strife along the border during the late nineteenth century. He draws on many rare and obscure sources to chronicle the incidents of the period, bringing unprecedented depth and detail to such episodes as the "skinning wars," the raids on El Remolino and Las Cuevas, and the attack on Nuecestown. Along the way, he dispels many entrenched legends of Texas history--in particular, the long-held belief that almost all of the era's cattle thieves were Mexican. A balanced and thorough reevaluation, A Crooked River adds a new dimension to the history of the racial and cultural conflict that defined the border region and that still echoes today.
The Injustice Never Leaves You by
A moving account of a little-known period of state-sponsored racial terror inflicted on ethnic Mexicans in the Texas-Mexico borderlands. Between 1910 and 1920, vigilantes and law enforcement-including the renowned Texas Rangers-killed Mexican residents with impunity. The full extent of the violence was known only to the relatives of the victims. Monica Muñoz Martinez turns to the keepers of this history to tell this riveting and disturbing untold story. Operating in remote rural areas enabled the perpetrators to do their worst: hanging, shooting, burning, and beating victims to death without scrutiny. Families scoured the brush to retrieve the bodies of loved ones. Survivors suffered segregation and fierce intimidation, and yet fought back. They confronted assailants in court, worked with Mexican diplomats to investigate the crimes, pressured local police to arrest the perpetrators, spoke to journalists, and petitioned politicians for change. Martinez reconstructs this history from institutional and private archives and oral histories, to show how the horror of anti-Mexican violence lingered within communities for generations, compounding injustice by inflicting further pain and loss. Yet its memorialization provided victims with an important means of redress, undermining official narratives that sought to whitewash these atrocities. The Injustice Never Leaves You offers an invaluable account of why these incidents happened, what they meant at the time, and how a determined community ensured that the victims were not forgotten.
The Lynching of Mexicans in the Texas Borderlands by
More than just a civil war, the Mexican Revolution in 1910 triggered hostilities along the border between Mexico and the United States. In particular, the decade following the revolution saw a dramatic rise in the lynching of ethnic Mexicans in Texas. This book argues that ethnic and racial tension brought on by the fighting in the borderland made Anglo-Texans feel justified in their violent actions against Mexicans. They were able to use the legal system to their advantage, and their actions often went unpunished. Villanueva's work further differentiates the borderland lynching of ethnic Mexicans from the Southern lynching of African Americans by asserting that the former was about citizenship and sovereignty, as many victims' families had resources to investigate the crimes and thereby place the incidents on an international stage.
North from Mexico: the Spanish-Speaking People of the United States, 3rd Edition by
Carey McWilliams's North From Mexico, first published in 1948, is a classic survey of Chicano history. Now fully updated by Alma M. García to cover the period from 1990 to the present, McWilliams's quintessential book explores all aspects of Chicano/a experiences in the United States, including employment, family, immigration policy, language issues, and other cultural, political, and social issues. The volume builds on the landmark work and also provides relevant up-to-date content to the 1990 edition revised by Matt S. Meier, which added coverage of the key period in Chicano history from the postwar period through to the late 1980s. As the largest group of immigrants in the United States, representing more than a quarter of foreign-born individuals in the United States, Mexican immigrants have had and will continue to have a tremendous impact on the culture and society of the United States as a whole. This freshly updated edition of North from Mexico addresses the changing demographic trends within Mexican immigrant communities and their implications for the country; analyzes key immigration policies such as the Immigration Act of 1990 and California's Proposition 187, with specific emphasis on the political mobilization that has developed within Mexican American immigrant communities; and describes the development of immigration reform as well as community organizations and electoral politics. The book contains new chapters that examine recent trends in Mexican immigration to the United States and identify the impact on politics and society of Mexican immigrants and later generations of U.S.-born Mexican Americans. The appendices provide readers and researchers with current immigration figures and information regarding today's socieconomic conditions for Mexican Americans.
The Plan de San Diego by
The Plan of San Diego, a rebellion proposed in 1915 to overthrow the U.S. government in the Southwest and establish a Hispanic republic in its stead, remains one of the most tantalizing documents of the Mexican Revolution. The plan called for an insurrection of Mexicans, Mexican Americans, and African Americans in support of the Mexican Revolution and the waging of a genocidal war against Anglos. The resulting violence approached a race war and has usually been portrayed as a Hispanic struggle for liberation brutally crushed by the Texas Rangers, among others. The Plan de San Diego: Tejano Rebellion, Mexican Intrigue, based on newly available archival documents, is a revisionist interpretation focusing on both south Texas and Mexico. Charles H. Harris III and Louis R. Sadler argue convincingly that the insurrection in Texas was made possible by support from Mexico when it suited the regime of President Venustiano Carranza, who co-opted and manipulated the plan and its supporters for his own political and diplomatic purposes in support of the Mexican Revolution. The study examines the papers of Augustine Garza, a leading promoter of the plan, as well as recently released and hitherto unexamined archival material from the Federal Bureau of Investigation documenting the day-to-day events of the conflict.
Rebellion in the Borderlands by
Sandos (history, U. of Redlands, California) examines the Plan of San Diego, by which Mexicans and Mexican Americans sought to liberate Texas from American rule by exterminating all adult North American males in the lower Rio Grande Valley.
Revolution in Texas by
In Revolution in Texas, Benjamin Johnson tells the little-known story of one of the most intense and protracted episodes of racial violence in United States history. In 1915, against the backdrop of the Mexican Revolution, the uprising that would become known as the Plan de San Diego began with a series of raids by ethnic Mexicans on ranches and railroads. Local violence quickly erupted into a regional rebellion. In response, vigilante groups and the Texas Rangers staged an even bloodier counterinsurgency, culminating in forcible relocations and mass executions. eventually collapsed. But, as Johnson demonstrates, the rebellion resonated for decades in American history. Convinced of the futility of using force to protect themselves against racial discrimination and economic oppression, many Mexican Americans elected to seek protection as American citizens with equal access to rights and protections under the US Constitution.
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