a Brief History of Lynching Against Mexicans in the US

0:09 Hi, everyone. This is Carmen and Christina and this is The Studas Unknown, a podcast where we talk about Latin American history. Sometimes it's horrible and it deals with heavy topics like racism, corruption, at genocide. But more than that, it's also by resistance, power and community. Christina, what are we talking about today today? Is depressing? It's very depressing. Wow, And there is no nothing uplifting about this episode. So really, I don't think so. After I finished my notes, I don't think so strength based. I'll try to find something. Okay, I'm probably gonna forget that I said that, but yeah, go on. So we didn't learn this in school, and this is a line that we say a little too much. We should have put that in the Bengo card. Yeah, you're right, because yeah, it comes up a little too much.

0:54 And I can speak to our experience in Modesto Modesta, California High school history class. Right, they didn't talk about what I'm going to talk about today when it pertains to Mexicans, but they did talk about it when it pertains to black people. Because there's just some things that cannot simply be ignored, Like they cannot not talk about the enslavement of black people in history. They can't skip Jim Crow even though they try, and we get like the MENI version of it, right, and then also like mom violence and lynchings of black people, right, it's not taught in detail, but we know it happened. Yeah, maybe some places is not taught anymore. I don't know. I don't know what the situation. I was gonna say. In some places they're teaching that enslaved people like being enslaved, so right, So if that's the case, they're probably skipping over lynchings. But we you and I, we did learn about lynchings, especially because you learn about it in the frame of fiction through To Kill a Mockingbird. Yeah, because that's a book everyone has to read. I think fiction is important though, because yeah, we do learn a lot of things about well historical fiction through do that. And just because it's fiction doesn't mean that it didn't happened or things like that didn't happen. I mean not In some places you only learn the fiction version of it without learning yeah, this really did happen to people. And also because the ticular Mockybird to me also is very like white savior point of view.

2:13 From the Lawyer. That's true, but I think it's still important book to teach, right, we still need Yeah, that that part is true in English classes, especially like the way they frame it and the discussions you have when you read and the essays you write, Yeah about it. It's not just like reading it, you know. I think there's like a lot to learn from there. It'd be nice to also address it. And this is too asking too much, but to also address it in a history class at the same time. Yeah, that you're reading, but that's too much. That's too much. And that's really the extent of learning about lynching in the United States unless you go to higher education, write, or you seek it out yourself later. Yeah, right, like where we did for this episode. Yeah, the subject of lynching in the un is only discussed in the concept of black people, black Americans. But we don't need to say that. The amount of lyncians they face is obscene, like, right, it's insane and horrible and horrific. Almost everything relating to race is taught in a black and white like, right, and everyone else is it kind of ignored? That's very true, right, Yeah, And that applies to lynchings too, because in the United States.

3:25 Indigenous people, Mexicans, Asians, and even Irish people until they were considered considered white were all lynched for different reasons. But the group most targeted after black people with lynchings were Mexicans or just people with Hispanic lassings because during this time period, even though it wasn't just Mexicans, everyone was considered to Mexican. Right, even now they still try to do that, so, right, they still do that. Yeah, And that's what today's topic is, the history of lynchings of Mexicans in the US. And over the next two or three episodes, well, the next one I want to go into specific cases of lynchings, and then the one after that, I want to focus on Texas specifically because that place was an insane Yeah, I mean even the whole creation of Texas a state in itself, right, like I think that it, yeah, lends itself to not lend itself it It makes sense that the most lynchings of Mexicans happened there to me, right, and so yeah, in this episode, I want to set up the context of how Mexicans the situation they were living in in California, and I guess not just California, but mostly California, and the context in which these lynchings were happening, Like what was going on in that lit up to this, the history of you know, this timeframe. I am skipping over though, the violence of the Spanish towards indigenous people. That's another topic right now, Like it's Mexicans facing this violence from Anglo settlers, but we know there was a lot of violence also from the Spanish toward indigenous people, but that

4:59 were not you know, going over that today, focusing on that. Yeah, today, mostly California, though I'm talking a little bit about other places. Texas is going to have its own episode because I can't talk about lynchings in Texas without talking about a group responsible for hundreds of lynchings in Texas that were then considered legal lynchings and weren't counted as lynchings, the Texas Rangers. I was going to guess, and yeah, that's going to be its own episode. But the number of lynchings on Mexicans in the US is contested. One of the books I read for research Forgotten Dead mob violence against Mexicans in the United States offers the following numbers for the years eighteen forty eight to nineteen twenty eight, five hundred forty eight lynchings. Wow, eighteen forty eight to when eighteen forty eight to nineteen twenty eight eighty years. Yeah, When you expand the definition of vigilante justice to include like what would have been legal lynchings like those by the Texas Rangers Bush were considered legal, that number five hundred forty eight goes up to several thousands, because that's how many Mexicans the Texas Rangers were killing legally, and they're trying to bring that back, y'all. One could argue that police shootings are modern day lynchings of black people and Mexicans or Latino people, and one would be correct in saying that. So besides these modern day you know, lynchings, they're also trying to bring back like vigilante justice or whatever. Like, right, didn't they just some state passed like a thing where

6:30 they're adding on like militia groups to act as border patrol. Yeah, I forgot which state, but yeah, pro Texes is probably Texas and Arizona probably both. Yeah, And when you lump in indigenous people with Mexicans, that number grows even more because that happened too, especially during the Yaqui Wars, which the Yaqui people face state violence by both the US government and the Mexican government. Man, and they're here today, and that is resistance. Yes, thank you. But the Yaki Wars, that's going to be a topic for another day. I already added it to our list and one of the books I use it. All of the sources are listed in the show notes. But one of the books I use does have a toll chapter on the Yankey Wars, and we did talk a little bit about them in the Terre Saura episode as well. Okay, but before talking about the mass lynchings of Mexicans in the US, I need to set up some context.

7:25 First. Let's define lynching by using the Tuskegee Institute's definition, because it's the most accepted one. So there must be legal evidence that a person was killed. That person must have met death illegally. A group of three or more persons must have participated in the killing. The group must have acted under the pretext of service to justice, race, or tradition. That part is the most like essential partner. There So, the first documented use of the term lynching in the US was known as Lynch's Law, which happened in seventeen eighty in Virginia. General Charles Lynch and his commanders used Lynch Law to put an end to the Tory conspiracy, which I didn't know this was the thing. Tories were British sympathizers during the American Revolution. Oh you knew that. Yeah, I don't remember how, but yeah, they rolled through Chestnut Hill Gathering imprisoning the British sympathizers, the Tories, and one of the more outspoken British sympathizers, John Griffith. John wentn' shut up about Britain and loving them. He wasn't lynched in the sense of like being hung up to die, but in the sense of a public lashing where people came out to watch. And that's what a Lynch Law was, like, punishing someone in public like that. Okay, but then this was expanded to me just the use of military law by non military personnel, so regular ass people taking justice into their own hands. And when we think of lynching, because of the US education system, the South is the thing that comes to mind for people because yeah, it was absolutely brutal for black people. There's no denying that.

8:57 From eighteen eighty two to nineteen sixty eight. They do, documented number of lynchings towards black people in the US is four seven hundred forty three wow, according to the n double ACP, while the Equal Justice Initiative reports four eighty four and just twelve Southern states from eighteen seventy seven to nineteen fifty. Well, that's already more. But historians all agree, will like credible historians all agree that this number is like low balling it, yeah, because that's what's documented, right, and the real number is probably way higher. Those are all lynchings, all lynchings in the US. And then seventy five percent of that number is all black victims of lynching. Wow, lynchings.

9:39 And when it came to trying to find the number of Mexican victims of lynching, that's a little trickier because in some places they only documented black and white people. Again, like that black and white thing where they don't know nobody else mattered in between. In these years, other times Mexicans were counted as white because legally, by law, Mexicans were white. This was since the age and forty a Treaty of Guago, the Mexicans who were supposed to count as white, they were supposed to receive citizenship, but that didn't matter to the Anglos killing them because they were Mexican, right, Like, that didn't matter. So that was a little difficult, you know, keeping track of the Mexicans who were lynched, because sometimes they weren't counted as Mexican. Some people were just listed as other. The people who were most well documented after black people were probably Chinese people because they were the easiest to identify for the people doing the lynchings. Just because the treaty said, you know, Mexicans in these states are US citizens that are considered white, it didn't mean anything to the Anglos, the Anglo settlers, which is insane to me because like I don't I feel like I don't need to say this, but I'm going to any way.

10:45 Like they were the people moving to these places where people were already living California, Texas, to Mexico, Arizona, and they they arrived at these places and like just talked matt shit about everyone who was already there. You know, they got to places like Texas immediately were like, eh, who are these dirty greasers who were here? They don't deserve with the same rights we do. It's like, bitch, who are you? Exactly? And then like in Texas they created a version of Jim Crow informally known as Huan Crow. Wow, I didn't know that me neither. From eighteen ninety three to nineteen oh five, Texas passed English only laws that segregated Mexicans from public places like school, stores and pools, which I did know that well that yeah, I didn't know. They informally called it quan kuan pro. I had no idiculous How long have they been using a kuan as a dumb ass fucking little like insul for everything since they fucking got to you know what? This shows how unfunny they are. They've been using the same fucking joke since what eighteen hundred, We'll see, yeah they late eighteen hundreds. Dumb, unoriginal, bitch, unoriginal and unfunny. And yeah, this wasn't only in Texas.

11:55 Everywhere they were arriving as manifestors of destiny or whatever the fun They brought this system of beliefs with them And yeah, manifest destiny and the gold Rush is what was bringing white people west. They like truly truly believed it was a god given right, Yeah, they go west. And the insane part is that we, like again, in the US school system, we learn about manifest destiny and how amazing it was supposedly. Dude, I was just gonna say, we spent so much fucking time learning about fucking manifest destiny, as if it didn't destroy the environment, as if it wasn't the enacting or I don't know how you would say, but as if it wasn't the primary leading cause of genocide, like this is ridiculous, like and they didn't at all, as if manifest destiny wasn't what killed all of the buffalos, right, destroying nature, destroying everything in its path for what gold capitalism, yeap, domination, yeah, colonialism. Yeah, they brought themselves to these lands that were already someone else's, and they brought their views with them, also their views of justice, which was very different than everyone else's, very uh, punitive, backwards ass bullshit and violent violent h and yeah, I mean it's the tradition of violence that they've always had, that they from the inception of this fucking country, the right to conquer blah blah blah, so on and on.

13:20 So they headed west, and yeah, for some reason, They thought by them heading west, that Natives and Mexicans would vanish once they arrived. They thought that the world was theirs and nobody was there, and if they were, they were akin to animals, you know, in their view, Yes, exactly, because that brings me to my next literally my next point in my notes. Okay, go on. When they arrived, they were like, who are these half breeds, these mongrel Mexicans, these savage Indians, these half civilized black men. That's how they refer to Spanish people, half civilized, Like not even the Spanish would properly picked. Not even the Spanish. Europeans were spared. They're worse than the Spiolis. Yeah. Yeah, They literally wrote, the Indian and white races in California must fade away.

14:07 With the secession of the former Mexican states during the Mexican or after the Mexican American War, the you know that came with the Treaty of Guadalupealgo and the states these states now belonged to the US. They that belief that it was a god given right to head to these new states. It grew and massively, especially when gold was discovered, and they were like, oh, these are barren wastelands free for the taking, like no, bitch, They weren't. No. They were shocked to see natives like indigenous people, Mexicans and also Chilenos, Peruanos and Chinese people. They were all they were already there. And it's no surprise that as more Anglos were arriving, violence towards the other groups only grew and grew and grew and grew. The most violent years for Mexicans in these areas were eighteen fifty, which coincides with the gold Rush eighteen seventy, and nineteen ten nineteen ten coincidence with the Mexican Revolution eighteen seventy and monestly not sure about you, who knows what that coincides with it. We're probably gonna find out when we're doing research or something else. You're gonna be like, oh, that was that, Oh that's what? Yeah, for real. And as they started arriving in California, they didn't understand the local language, which was Spanish. They only got more violent because they didn't know what was going on. And then they also didn't believe that the current justice system that the Spanish had set up Spanish law, it didn't apply to them like course everywhere they go. Their answer that Anglo's answer to crime was death, any crime, death, you steal something dead, you look at that woman dead like they literally that's

15:39 their answer to everything, straight to death, exactly. And this is why to this day they're so pro death penalty. Oh yeah. White Evangelicals are the group of people that believe the most in death penalty, while back in their ancestral land of England, they didn't even kill people over theft anymore. They left England but kept all the conservative, puritan violent ways. Yeah, yeah, but that's. Why they left. No, you're right, because it was impurison enough and you know, yeah, and then they came over here with that shit and I were and we're still suffering, yeah seriously. And yeah, the Anglos justified hanging people for stealing horses, cattle, anything, anything.

16:26 And they claimed that the current just a system was not efficient and that's why they had to kill people by hanging them on trees for fun. And they want to still do that now, oh yeah. And you know, part of that was a little true because of how many Anglos were arriving, the existing court system was too small for the amount of people arriving I see, it was made for the people who were already there, So it was their fault in whatever way you look at it, it was their fault. Yes, it wasn't ready for the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of Anglos arriving during the gold Rush. And yeah, they also believed. The Anglo believed that these existing courts were favoral to Mexicans and let them get away with too much. And that's why they had to take matters into their own hands. Always, always with their little victim mentality. Yeah, they accused other people of having but every accusation is a what is that word? Confession? Yes, but guess what what records of the time show that existing courts were more likely to punish Quricans than severely punish them severely when compared to the Anglos. Of course, of course, Yeah, like that's not surprising at all. Please you always they want to make up their little persecution. Yeah, it's all fake always, Oh my god, I'm so matter ready you.

17:36 Even sat up. Yeah, And before the gold Rush, California was not insanely super populated, like there was the indigenous people there, right, but Spanish colonization was brutal and the number of indigenous people decreased by the thousands over the years, and Mexicans arriving to California, well Spanish, they were not Mexican, they were Spanish. It wasn't a lot, It wasn't a huge migration. When word of gold spread though, Mexicans they were the first to rite for the gold rush, not white people, which is what we learned when we learn about this kind of shit in California history, when we learn about the forty nine ers, right, like they tell us that white people were the first till arrived, but no Mexicans were because many of them already had family in the area. Right. In fact, the biggest group to migrate from Mexico was people from Sonora, really m and they even had like you know, chinatowns. They had Sonora towns, that's what they call the Mexican part of California, So noa towns. And sometimes when people were lynched and documented like what race quote unquote race, they were instead of saying Mexican, it says Sonorian. Oh wow. Yeah. Also a lot of these people were also just called Californios. Okay, yeah, that I knew, Yeah, Californios Sonorians. And then I legistrat out of Mexican and so between eighteen forty eight and eighteen fifty two, twenty five thousand Mexicans arrived. Along with them, there was people from Chile and Peru. They were the first miners Mexicans, Chilenos, and Peruvians. Actually, I think I read about this somewhere, better remember where or listened to something about. I forgot if I did. And yeah, these three groups and Chinese people as well, they had way more experience mining for

19:08 gold than the white people when they arrived, and the superior skills of these Latino men made the whites very angry. They were so jealous, they were so mad, they were rabbit at the mouth of their jealousy. Literally. One Chilean gold miner named Ramon Hill Navarro and his journal wrote that they got red with anger because these Latino miners were way better than them. The whites had to use mob violence to drive them out and keep all the minds to themselves because it was a skill issue, of course, yeah, of course, but it wasn't just mob violence. They also used laws to make this happen. Akin to now, with their little outbursts, emotional outbursts about DEI and being discriminated against quote for being white. Yeah, there's the same, the same as the A three hundreds. Oh my god, they haven't changed. They've always been. Little bitch is dis emotional and jealous read with a good violent. The Foreign Miners Tax was passed on April thirteenth, eighteen fifty and this made non American born miners and made them pay twenty dollars a month to remain in the gold field or gold mines. But the more, like the dumbest fucking part to me is that legally Mexicans were citizens. Yeah, but because they weren't American born, they had to pay.

20:34 And they were they had been in these places way longer than these people and they quote American born. Yeah, but they had to pay twenty dollars a month, which was a lot. That's what I'm saying, Like even now, like they want to not just now, but they've always like wanted to depoor Mexicans and Latinos from the United States. Yet Latinos are basically indigenous to the Americas and they are from Europe, right, Yeah, It's like what the fuck, dude, And then they're not even the original colonizers of these lands. It's the Spinyard. They were the second or third. Shut the fuck up first for the French, then the Spaniards in different areas, So yeah, shut the fuck up, and yeah, this foreign miners tax was purposely designed to drive Mexicans.

21:20 And I say Mexicans, but this included the Chilenos Peruanos. They were all lumped in US Mexican so it was purposely designed to drive them out. And it's not a coincidence that the person who introduced the bill, Thomas Jefferson Green, hated Mexicans. He was known to say things like quote, I can maintain a better stomach at the killing of a Mexican than at the crushing of a body lice. But the fuck and this bitch. Was one who made this law. Oh my god. By October of the same year that the foreign tax law was passed, Mexicans and Chilean's they left the mines. They were all gone by October, either because of the tax itself or at the violence faced when the whites came to collect that tax. In totally town, a Mexican was shot by tax collectors when he resisted paying the monthly fee.

22:09 And this was common. This was a common thing, and this tax legally gave Anglos a reason to justify the lynching of Mexicans. Oh, they're not paying their tax, that means we can kill them. And this coincides with the rise of lynchings in eighteen fifty as well, along with just the all the people arriving for gold. When that tax wasn't enough to drive the foreign miners away, they simply just started kicking them out of mining towns. They would put up signs saying Chilean's Signorians, Peruvians, and Mexicans don't have rights to work in the mines, and they would give them a twenty four hour notice to leave, and anyone who didn't leave in that twenty four hour notice would then be driven away by the force of arms.

22:50 In a town called sorry, the name of this town is fucking insane. In a town called Haying Town. Oh my god, if we were recording the waymen mouth's just drump. Yeah. In a town called Placerville, California, they put up signs Plasterville. Oh that's how you say that, Okay, Hangtown is now Plasterville, California. Wow. And they're still so racist there. Whereas Plasterville Plasterville is okay, so the central valley and then when you go right north is the bury and right but then like when you go usually you know it's bad directions, but like it's like west or east. It's on the sides. Mountain towns that are on the sides, oh sides, And yeah, all of those are like gold rush towns and a lot of them still have like their historic buildings and stuff, and they're still so racist. Yeah, and there's a reason. Wow, I can't believe Plasterville. I'm gonna next time I go to work with the kids. You guys know that Pasterville used to be called Hangtown. Wow, I am shocked. I did not know that. Yeah I saw that. I was like, what the fuck? What the wow? I'm sure like Orville probably is hell of crazy, has crazy lunching history as well.

23:53 It's like with those like little mountain towns, all the the mining towns. Yeah, my god, Hangtown. Now Plasterville, California. They signs that any non citizen that refused to leave within twenty four hours would be met with violins. And Antonio Coronell who would go back and forth. He was born in Mexico City, but he became a naturalized citizen in eighteen thirty four. He arrived in Hayingtown as this was being enforced. He normally stayed in La and he would just go, you know, He's like, oh, maybe I'll go get some gold, and he would go and come back make money. Right. He was used to this, And so as he was arriving in Hayktown, a Spanish man was being arrested for supposedly for stealing but who knows if that's even true, probably not for stealing a tiny amount of gold. Antonio Coronell offered to pay more than what this man stole for him to be free, for them to let him go. But the group was like no, because it wasn't about the money. They just wanted to kill him. They had blood on there. Yeah, they were bloodthirsty, fucking monsters. I couldn't think of how to finished that.

24:52 Sid It was like, oh, Christian, I'll figure it out. So the group refused, and they announced that anyone who intervened would be killed. They put the Spanish man in a cart, took an over to an oak tree where they hung him. Oh my god. And they seen this made Antonio, who was used to going back and forth took mine gold. He was like, nope, not anymore. He went back to La, stayed in La. He quit mining for gold after that, and that's what they wanted. Wow. And things like that occurrence in Hangtown aka Plasterville were so common that there's even a famous poem of the time, and it's called the Great Greaser Extermination Meeting. It was a satirical poem. But these things, okay, that was my question.

25:34 I'm like, okay, who was this ram by? What was their meaning? But these things were happening. Okay, yeah, I see okay, and so Nora, oh sorry, this this is the poem in Sonora one hot and sold tree day. Many people had gathered together. They were bound to drive the greasers away, and they cared not a damn for the weather. And I hope coming Folds will take warning and choose if they would, their property saved some American place to be born in. Wow. Yeah, sorry, why did there me? That poem? Even though it's satire, reminds me of the current stupid christy bitch asz gnoam commercials or propaganda. If you come here, we will find you. Like doesn't it sound like that? It does? It? Does. And you know that's the fucking infuriating, sad part of all this. These times are precedented, and like the fuck what you say? These are presidented times, these are the beginning times. We've come full circle. We were always there, actually, we never left. It's always an infinity loop with them.

26:29 As long as we're here, yeah, in the US and they're here, it's going to be this infinite loop of like xenophobic racist shit always. Yeah. I don't know what it's going to take to change. And I know that's like very depressing to say. And that's not all white people, right have shot gon all white people of course, and that goes without saying obviously, But the ones that we're talking about, they're still here. They pass on these beliefs. Yeah, and it takes a lot to break that cycle. I'm still stuck on Haying Town, yeah, being Plasterville today. Yeah, that's fucking crazy. So in Mariposida, after growing tensions between Mexicans and Anglos increased, they was growing and it grew and grew. Right eighteen fifty two, a mob of two hundred white men formed and when they were done with their shit, with their violent shit, forty Mexicans were killed.

27:19 Oh my god, they were remaining Mexicans. They all left after this. This type of violence on the part of anglos so common. It was completely normal and valid to punish all Mexicans for the crime of one. And this could never be the other way around Mexicans. They weren't even allowed to testifying court against the white person. And that's even if their claim went to court in the first place. And again, Mexicans were legally white. Yeah, so Ranchetia was a mostly Spanish speaking mining town, at least until all the whites started arriving. This Dranchedia no longer exists, but it is two miles away, or it was two miles away from dry Town in I'mador County today, so same areas and bandits were super common. I'm not discounting that they were a thing. They weren't always Mexican either, but like the term Mexican bandit is the one that stuck the most. And so a group of bandits that did happen to be mostly Mexican this time, or so they say, I don't know, I don't know anymore. But on August sixth, nineteen fifty five, a group of six to ten Mexican men, one Anglo man and one black man rolled through Dranchittia. They robbed the town store and hotel.

28:31 And by the time they were done, they had killed six people in the process of this robbery. Then they left. They were on their way when the next town over, Jackson, heard what happened at Ranchetia. They stormed the small town with a group of one five hundred angry allows. They rounded up thirty six Mexicans in a makeshift prison, and they wanted to hang all of them. But then they formed some sort of committee, a Lynchin committee, if you will. They came to the conclusion, not only three of these thirty six men should be hanged, hung whatever lynched only how many of them? Three out of the thirty six, okay, And how are they going to pick these three men? Well, let me tell you that one of them was convicted on the alleged testimony of a man named Jim Johnson, who heard this man say Viva Mexico during the robbery.

29:17 Why would he say Mexico during a robbery? And then he was like doing the little Mexican yell. Oh my god. They were stereotyping. I'm not gonna do it. I can't channeling my inner Speedy Gonzalesce. That's why I have a. Problem with Speedy Gonzalace. No exactly, we're thinking of I just I just said that's why I have a problem with him. No. Actually I loved him as a kid, but I think as an adult. You can see now knowing this shit that we're talking about today, there isn't You can see that there really is an issue. And it's not that we're being cry babies. It's like, no, but understand where it comes from. Right. So, yeah, but I didn't like him.

29:57 I'm not gonna lie, who's your favorite Lettunes character? No, Hans was my favorite. He was my second favorite. Yeah, it was your second favorite. So they hung these three men, but the mob was still not happy. Oh my god, No, they weren't happy. That wasn't enough. So I was gonna ask, didn't you say that the bandits left town? This is none of these men are the bandits. No, So once these three men were again, they weren't even the ones who did the robbery, but three men were lynched. The mob was still unhappy. They ordered all Mexicans and Ranchedia to leave before seven pm that same night. Whoever didn't leave, they just went burning every Mexican house in Rancheria. Then they murdered Mexicans that were still running away, who were still trying to flee. My god, so they said to lay by seven pm. Then they killed them as they ran away. Then the next nearby town felt inspired and proceeded to do the same thing. They ordered all Mexicans to leave, and whoever didn't leave they killed.

30:55 Soon Sutter Creek, Dry Town, Sonora, a Mexican called Salvada all did the same. They went to these places, ordered Mexicans to leave, burn destroyed every Mexican house that was there. And over the next several weeks after Ranchetia, Mexicans all over this area were being killed. Wow, that is so disgusting. And we didn't even know this shit happened, like until I looked it up reading all this, this is what the Yeah, the forty nine ers, the gold miners, right, that's what they call themselves. That's what this is who they were. The San Francisco newspaper Alta, California even put out a headline that read the work of revenge going on Mexicans and Chileans being shot down like coyotes. Another newspaper wrote that it was a war of extermination against Mexicans, and yes it was. There has never been an official number provided for the number of Mexicans killed after the nineteen fifty five Ranchetia raid, but it was probably a lot, I'm sure. And then newspapers were printed with the headlines defending the vigilantes. Of course, yeah, the media to standardize. Yeah, the visually defend the outright cold blooded murder of Mexicans and Chileans. Wow. Wow. And they said that this group had their right to take law into their own hands and a duty to defend themselves, defend themselves from people just doing their doing nothing, defend themselves from a place they went into attack, defend themselves from what that is ridiculous.

32:23 That is so fucking ridiculous. Oh, my fucking god. And this again a very very common occurrence, and we don't even have official numbers of how many people were killed during this. Wow. And Anglo miners resented and hated Mexican miners, and they used mob violence and laws to drive them out. Like you know, we talked about the foreign Minor tax law and all you know the things they just mentioned. But another law, paired up with the Foreign Minor Tax Law, was also used to drive Mexicans out of places again, places that they had been in longer than these newly arrived white miners. Again, I'm sick of this. I'm so sick of this. And this was the Anti Vagrancy Act of eighteen fifty five. This is hwang cro No, just kidding, No, it is do you know what the other name for this, the Greaser Act? This is the Greaser Act? Oh, I wonder Okay, A long time ago I bought this book and I never finished it, and I've been meaning to finish it. It's called something greaser. They call this greasers or something like that. That has been on my list to read. And I want to say what I think Maybe this is where I read all of this and why I kind of know it. This is what one hundred percent makes so much sense if that's where you read it. Yeah, yeah, I think so so the first purpose of the greeceer Act was to punish vagrants, vagabonds, and dangerous and suspicious persons, and a similar law targeting indigenous people was passed in eighteen fifty This one was called an Act for the Government and Protection of Indians. And when you hear it it sounds like a good thing, But no, these never are my God, of course not so. This first line eighteen fifty was used to facilitate the removal of Natives

33:56 from their lands and indentury native Native children to whites. The Act for the Government and Protection of Indians was used to facilitate the removal of Natives from their lands and indenturing Native children to whites. Like what the fuck? And the Anti Vagrancy Act eighteen fifty five aka the Greaser Act was like an extension of this first eighteen fifty Act, but to be applied to Mexicans. And it created a protocol for disarming greasers, that's what they said. It created severe consequences for second convictions. It laid out potential avenues of employment for vagrants, meaning forcing them to work.

34:37 It defined a vagrant as all those who don't have employment, including sex workers and drunkards, and it called for incarcerating them for up to ninety days. And this ninety day sentence included hard labor and Section two identified who. This applied to vagrant, vagabond whatever, all persons who are commonly known as greasers or the issue of Spanish and Indian blood who go armed and are not peaceable or quiet persons so allowed and rowdy. Mexican like my god, and I have used this term twice, but I haven't like really defined it. I feel like some of us know, but maybe not all of us, but greecer. Greecer was a derogatory term to refer to Mexican and Mexican Americans.

35:20 They didn't separate Mexican and Mexicans and Americans back then. They were one and the same. But it was also really for all Latin Americans because again I've said people from Chilean but were all also in this area at the time, but all of them were greasers. Everyone was Mexican to them. And use of the word greaser is recorded as early as eighteen forty six and as late as the nineteen seventies, and back when it was first around, it was equal to the N word for Mexicans. That's what this book talks about, and actually one of the chapters straight up as the N word. I don't know so did my book actually me see it's a chapter chapter two. N word are word? Sorry, I don't know. I don't want to make you say it. Huh. Red skins well like red because that's a slur as well.

36:02 Although it was a name for a sports team. This says n word redskins and Greaser's they kind of mixed bloods and a white racial stain. Okay, I remember I read this chapter and they compare like a cast, so that makes sense we should read that. Yeah, well me, I haven't. The origins of Greaser are unknown. There's different theories. Some say it came from the cool, shiny skin and hair of the darkest Mexicans. Others say it came from greasy Mexican food, which doesn't make sense because the foods eaten by Mexicans and the Frontier were really just Dorthias beans and roasted meat, which is not greasy, right. And if it's from the shiny hair, they're just jealous. They are they are, I mean shiny skin like, yeah, because we glow in the sun. Jealous jealous yeah. Others say that it's from the practice of Mexican laborers in the Southwest greasing their bags to make it easier to load and unload their cargo. I hadn't heard that one. I don't think I like said. Remember, I hadn't heard that one either of the other two I had. The following is a quote from The Atlantic Monthly from eighteen ninety nine.

37:04 It's gonna piss me off, isn't it? Oh? Yeah? Sorry? No, actually quote The Mestiso the Greaser is the half blood offspring of the marriage of antiquity with modernity. Time cannot take from him the unmistakable impress of old Spain, but his Spanish appearance is not his dominant characteristic. His skin has been sun brown for centuries. His nose and cheeks are broad, his lips are thick, his brows are heavy. What is wrong with these people? He has sheltering eyes, sobbed, passionate, hot, unscrutable, anomalist as he is, he is one of the distinct types international life whose origin is fully known to us.

37:44 End quote like a fucking animal, because I get there. Yes, that's how I'm like, what the hell's wrong with them? Seriously, they really just because we're cute. They always hated us because we're cuterer than them. No, truly, they really just thought this applied to all Mexicans. But then all, oh God, look. At his eyes and oldery eyes, so big, so brown, those beautiful eyebrows, the way they frame history, the shining dark hair, glowing hair they've been glowing their skin, and the sun bronze. It's like an insane stupid Wow. I fucking can't. This was not. Infuriating in the way that it's it's not gross like the gross things that they have said about us. It's just like they're framing Mexicans that this exotic, random thing.

38:30 This is where the Latin lovers stereotype started. Yeah, and also like a man wrote that it wasn't a woman. Well, I guess that they were letting women write back then, So yeah, that is where the Latin lover comes from. Honestly. Wow. Yeah, they really thought Mexicans were all the same, dark haired, brown eyed people that don't deserve rights. Cuties. Although cute, they don't deserve rights. Yeah. And I know I've been talking a lot about California, but again, this happened all over the West in Colorado. In Colorado from eighteen sixty to eighteen eighty four, twenty three Mexicans were lynched. Wow. In eighteen fifty nine, Anglos in Arizona did the same things that happened in eighteen fifty five at Ranchetia, California. Greenberry Bird that was his name.

39:16 Greenberry Bird, a white man, stupid name, was sleeping in his room when two Mexican ranch hands snook in and killed him. He was found the next day at three pm, and the Arizonian described Greenberry Bird as quite a good natured, respectable young man who treated his men kindly. Others said he was like he led a gang of thugs and didn't pay his migrant employees and often beat them. That's why they killed them. I mean, either way, white men felt the need to avenge his murder. So John Page, Bill aik Achy, I don't know, ake, Alfred Scott Achi, I'm just kinnnauky. That sounds even more wrong words. Yeah, Alfred Scott, Sam Anderson, Jack Pennington, and two men who were only known as Round and Bolt. I don't know, and don't ask me. They went along the Gila River kicking out all the Mexicans they saw. They went from ranch to ranch, camp to camp, chasing Mexicans and as they ran away, killing them. Wow. They also killed indigenous Yankee workers because they looked Mexican to them. Wow. Even back then they couldn't tell, and the number of those killed during this is unknown. This became known as the Sonoita massacre, and no one knows how many were killed.

40:28 But because of the killings, because of the massacre, migrant workers at mines and farms all left, which shut down operations immediately and devastated the seasons the crop of that season. Wow. And never mind that the murderers were not workers in these mines or farms. They weren't in these ranches or camps that they went to after. They were this man's own workers who were probably just tired of the abuse and of not being paid. Yeah. And unlike other white men who participated in lyncheans, these four who enacted these that massacre were arrested and tried because once they saw all the Mexicans leave, all their nice, cheap labor leave, officials in Arizona wanted to make it clear that Mexicans were welcome. But just like in other places, these white people in Arizona meant only some Mexicans are welcome, only the quote docile ones end quote, so that they could control them and use them for their labor. Wow. Of course, Yeah, this kind of reminds me of Esuspiata's episode where they're fine with using us for our cheap labor. Yeah, but once we're inconvenient to them, they're fine with killing us or kicking us out. And that applies to today. And it's again precedented.

41:39 Yep. I've been, you know, focusing on you know, California the most, but yeah, again, it happened everywhere anywhere there was white settlers in an area that was predominantly Mexican slash indigenous before. Right in eighteen fifty four, a vigilante committee in Austin, Texas expelled every quote landless Mexican who's not vouched for by respectable citizens end quote, oh my god. And the Mexicans that owned land before in this time period were the white Spanish Mexicans. They weren't even right like, they weren't the brown Mexicans. And if they had to be vouched for by respectable citizens, these were all the white people who are now techanos who've been in Texas for so long who hate immigrants, like, right, it's all connected. Yes, I feel like that mean you know of Charlie, Yeah, yeah, or have I heard this system of vouching before that sounds so familiar.

42:37 It's not. I'm not going to remember. Maybe maybe Vampires. Of the North maybe, oh, maybebe it's set in this time period. Yeah. In eighteen fifty six in Colorado County, Texas, Mexicans were ordered to leave because the Anglo suspect their Spanish speakers of helping enslaved black people escape into Mexico. And they were, they were, they were, they were, Yeah, they were because they're not insane. Also, a lot of the Mexicans knew that, you know, they were tired of the treatment of Anglos towards them in these areas, and they knew that by helping inside black people escape, it was a way to undermine Anglo power in the area. And that's resistance right there. That's community.

43:18 Yeah. I've been wanting to do an episode on the underground railroad from Texas to Mexico, but I just haven't gotten to it. That would be interesting. Why did to the list? Yeah, if it's not already there, I remember seeing it. Okay. One of the most deadly summers for Mexicans in Texas took place in eighteen fifty seven, and it's known now as the cart Wars, which I didn't know either. Cart wars cart Forty masked men attacked a group of Mexicans leading a train of seventeen train carts heading towards San Antonio. And this was common. There was a way to get it was a job leading this merchandise into you know, the US. Many of the men leading the train managed to escape this attack, except for fifty seven year old Antonio Delgado, who was shot fourteen times by these men.

44:07 These anglos. These anglos worked in transporting goods and they would attack their Mexican competition. They would then destroy their property, steal it and kill Mexicans. Wow. And many of the Mexicans who were killed during this time period, this summer, it was literally just the summer. Their bodies were never found and many of these killings were done by hanging them on a tree. And I don't know how. I'm not sure I'm pronouncing this right, but goldiad Texas or gliad, I don't know. It's go lad, I don't know either. And this where the highest number of lynchings took place in this summer because it was right in the middle of the coast of Texas, heading towards San Antonio, where all this merchandise, was heading all these goods, and because the Mexicans were better at this job, the Anglos who were doing the same job were killing them. That tree is marked today by a plaque that talks about the cart Wars, and this tree is known as the Cartwar oak.

45:03 Also the tree most used for lyn cheens in California, the oak tree, because it was the strongest tree and it's old. And so one of the books I read is a journalist who went and took pictures of all these trees that are still there, and the pictures are on the book of these trees, and yeah, are they're still there? Oak trees live a long time. Yeah. Anyway, so back to the cart Wars. The Mexican government filed several complaints with Texas and the US government about these killings. When Texas finally responded to these complaints, they did so by trying to send a militia to defend Mexicans. But it was pointless because by then Mexican workers had already found a different route. They're like, we're not going that way anymore. They need to do anything, And the Mexican government didn't investigate this, and they found that at least seventy five Mexicans were killed during this one summer. Wow, in this one route in Texas. Oh my god. That's a lot for that timeframe, like short amount of time summer, one summer. And this is a on the low end of estimates because some remains were never found. Wow. And these are just some examples of violence Mexicans face and the environment in which these lynchings were taking place towards Mexicans in the US. That's part one. That was only part one? Were those part one? You were not kidding about it being depressing. It's very depressing. And it's like this, this is the history. This is the attitude that these people passed on. I feel like that's what is the

46:34 most hurtful about it. That besides, like there's there's no actual, like physical act of lynching now, but there's this mentality and racism and noophobia against Latinos Latinez remains, and we're talking about like from the eighteen hundreds, And I'm like, how have these people not changed? I don't know. Right from the moment they set foot into these lands that were never there, they were doing this right, and today they are doing this right. I did I think it's ridiculous when you know, whenever there's always talk about immigration and land back and stuff like that, they're like, well, how far back do you have to go? And I'm like, far enough, so you go back to Europe, bitch, that's how far we have to go? Fin enough so you go back to England. Yeah, And it's it's it's wild that like this treatment of Mexicans isn't even a brief sentence in textbooks, and even we find not obviously not elementary schools, not middle schools, but high schools. Please. Yeah, like eleventh graders in US history can learn about this.

47:40 This is US history, this is yeah history of violence, Yeah, and racism. In part two, I will be sharing specific cases of lynchings, including the only documented lynching of a Mexican women in California that I've heard about. You have heard about it, okay, And then the next part is where I'm hoping to dive into Texas specifically and the Texas Rangers. But man, it's so much to read, And then I had to keep scoring, like I don't have my books with me. But if I show you, I can imagine I'll send you a picture. I will send you a picture she posted on our story I will, I will, but man, yeah that is yeah, that is part one. Wow. Shout out to our Patreon members Sarah Bred, Marilyn, Desiree, Mariah, Michelle, and Chata, thank you so much for supporting us in making this podcast again. Like we say at the end of the episode, now, it's a lot of work, Yes, it really is. I enjoy it, like I enjoy reading about everything we and talking about everything we learn, but it is hard to keep up with it is, especially the just the research aspect. Man, how many books I'm reading for this, like three or four? Oranger four? Yeah, four different books. So we'll be back next week with part two and other than that, we hope this was one last Historia known for you. Bye bye. Astoria Unknown is produced by Carmen and Christina, researched by Carmen and Christina,

49:13 edited by Christina. You can find sources for every episode at estorias Unknown dot com and in our show notes. Creating the podcast has a lot of work, so if you want to help us out financially, you can do so by supporting us on Patreon at Patreon dot com. Slash Studied as an own podcast