The lynching of persons of Mexican origin or descent in the United States, 1848 to 1928

Journal of Social History, Winter, 2003 by William D. Carrigan

Scholars commonly describe these Mexican outlaws as "social bandits." (59) Their criminal behavior was specifically conditioned by the racially oppressive climate of the Southwest. Dispossessed of their economic resources and their political rights, the outlaws launched a direct retaliatory assault upon the Anglo populace. Anglos refused to distinguish between general lawlessness and legitimate acts of resistance, indiscriminately labelling any challenge to their legal and political power as "banditry." Although some "bandits" did engage in indiscriminate acts of lawlessness, others explicitly assumed the mantle of political revolutionaries. Juan Cortina proclaimed that he was an instrument of divine retribution, sent to avenge those Mexicans murdered and dispossessed by whites. As he once observed: "There ate to be found criminals covered with frightful crimes, but they appear to have impunity until opportunity furnish them a victim; to these monsters indulgence is shown, because they are not of our race, which is unworthy, as they say, to belong to the human species." (60)

The confrontational tactics pursued by Mexican outlaws proved counterproductive. White authorities utilized the full enforcement power of the law in response to these raids, beating, arresting, and murdering suspected criminals. This in turn strengthened the bitter resolve of the outlaws. A vicious circle of violence and retribution was therefore created. In October 1859, Texas Rangers lynched Tomas Cabrera, a leading member of the Cortina gang. An enraged Cortina immediately launched a bloody assault on white settlers near Brownsville. Whites retaliated by assaulting innocent Mexicans throughout the region. (61) As this episode suggests, the persistence of outlaw raids appeared to confirm Anglo prejudices about the innate lawlessness of the entire Mexican population. Rumors spread throughout the borderlands that Mexicans secretly conspired with insurrectionists on the other side of the Rio Grande. Mexicans were therefore warned that unless they controlled the outlaws within their midst, they risked brutal reprisals. As the Weekly Arizona Miner exclaimed in September 1873: "Cut throats from Mexico have commenced another bloody crusade against American citizens, and we call upon our Government to take measures that will, forever, put a stop to the diabolical crimes of the half-civilized, semi-devils of the accursed land of Montezuma. Nothing short of the conquest of Mexico, by our government, can cure the disorders of that paralyzed country or quench the thirst of its miserable people for American blood. (62)

Nothing more dramatically illustrates the futility of armed retaliation against whites than the Plan of San Diego. In January 1915 a small band of Mexicans signed a revolutionary manifesto calling upon the racial minorities of the southwestern states to violently overthrow white role in the region. In its wake the insurrectionists sought to establish separate borderland republics for Mexicans, Indians, and African Americans. "Yankee arrogance has reached its limit," asserted the authors of the plan; "it is not content with the daily lynching of men, it now seeks to lynch an entire people, a whole race, an entire continent. And it is against this arrogance that we must unite." Under the leadership of Aniceto Pizana and Luis de la Rosa, the insurrectionists undertook a series of bloody raids. The authorities responded by indiscriminately slaughtering unknown numbers of innocent Mexicans in a manner reminiscent of Russian pogroms. As one scholar has suggested, "open season" was declared "on any Mexican caught in the open armed or without a verifiable excuse for his activities." (63)