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Hi everyone. This is Carmen and Christina and this is
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The Study Unknown, a podcast about Latin American history. Sometimes
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it's horrible and us with tibetopics like racism, corruption, and genocide.
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But more than that, it's also about resistance, power and community.
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And I have to warn everyone right now, this episode
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is extremely infuriating, extremely depressing. Man. I don't know how
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many times I needed a moment while writing my notes
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in while finishing this book. And the book again has
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been my main source for everything, but there's a lot
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of other sources that are in the show notes. But
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the Injustice Never Leaves You is the book, but let's
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just jump into it. Last episode, I share two lynchings
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and textas that each marked important periods during La Matanza
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or La la les Sangre, the massacre, the Hour of Blood.
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And in this episode, I'm going to be sharing one
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of the worst instances of violens by the Texas Rangers
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during this ten year time period. And like the past
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several episodes, it is a very heavy topic. Listening with caution,
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so I was angry and sad and it was a mess. Anyway,
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I shared a little bit about the beginnings of the
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Texas Rangers in episode one hundred eleven, and I also
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mentioned a little bit about the cultural relevance of this group,
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like when other people think of them, they might think
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about the baseball team from Arlington, Texas or Chuck Norris
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and all those stupid Chuck Norris jokes that I never
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found funny. Yeah, do you know which was I'm talking about?
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Chuck Norris can punch so hard that I don't know. Wait,
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was he the guy who played the Walker Ranger show
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or whatever? Oh? Ok, that is. I wasn't sure because
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I'm not into like historic American, white American media like that,
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you know, right, same, But yeah, Chick Norris started in
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the show Walker Texas Ranger from nineteen ninety three to
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two thousand and one, and in the show Cordo Walker
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and James Trivetter. I don't know why you're saying. People
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want to go fuck anyway, the pair battle crime in
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Dallas and the entire state of Texas. They're going around
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using check Norris's martial arts skills copaganda. Sorry to cut
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you off, wait till you hear my notes. Come on,
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I'm just kidding kids. So yeah, going around using Check
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Norse's martial art skills to fight bad guys, and you
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can hear phrases like no one has killed the Texas
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Ranger and lift to tail the tale like just all
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shut the fuck up, shut it, buck up. We're still
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reenacting the weekends acting. Yet we can't stop. We can't stop.
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It's very clear who is bad and who is good
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in the show. Copaganda at its best. And that's my
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problem though with a different episode. And that's the problem
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with copaganda if you have no brain anyway. At the
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Texas Ranger Museum in Waco, Texas, there's nothing but legendary
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tales and epic fights. Sorry, legendary tales about epic fights
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and holding up justice in the wastelands of Texas and
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the bad lands of Texas whatever. It's all stories of
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heroism and bravery. It wasn't until very very recently that
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the website for the Waco Texas Rangers Museum even mentioned Need.
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It was like literally in the past three or four
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years before that, zero mentioned of portve Need and they
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even have a timeline of Texas Ranger history and that
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Waco Texas Museum website and in the year nineteen eighteen,
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nothing about Bortvenide until like they were called out. Oh wow,
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I was gonna ask how it came about, called out,
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called out repeatedly wow, because you know twenty twenty was
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like a mass calling out right, and that included the
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this museum. So four there was no information about the
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board of the need massacre, not in the website for
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the Texas Ranger Museum. And this is the official website
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for the Texas Ranger Museum and the official website for
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the official museum for the Texas readers. It's always the
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same shit with this fucking country man, like they never
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want to admit or take accountability reckon with any of
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the horrible atrocities they did. And that's why we are
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where we are right now, because you can't you can't improve,
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you can't make things better until you take accountability. And
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how can you take accountability when you're like the history
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textbooks they're trying to use. I don't know if it
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was Texas or Oklahoma or what backwards ask fucking place
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they were trying to do, not trying, I think they're
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using them, but they're they're teaching slavery almost like if
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it was like an option for enslaved people to be
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and that they liked it, that they liked it. Yeah, right,
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like you're you're lying and white watching history, Yes, and
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then you get mad and we talk about the truth
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or want to learn about our actual history, and I
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take you want to blame white people for everything. Well, well,
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if the shoe fits, bitch. Sorry, we're heated already anyway.
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Speaking of school systems, Texas public school students spend one
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year on Texas history, and in that one year curriculum,
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there is zero mention of bid of course, yeah, or
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any of the violence enacted by the Texas Rangers, but
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their heroism. Yeah. And the website I was mentioning Texas
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Ranger dot org has five sentences on burvnide. Oh my god,
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I've said I counted them five sentences. What do they
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say before I mention what they say? Let's let's talk
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about what happened. Also, sorry in previous episodes, I think
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I said nineteen fifteen, but this happened in nineteen eighteen. Oh,
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it's only three year difference. Yeah, I was very close.
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I was going off the top of my head. I
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hadn't gotten there in my reading, you know too, Yeah,
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three years off. So Portve Need was a close knit
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ranching community one hundred and seventy miles southeast of in Baso.
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And I say this because some people only know, like me,
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only in a world Baso is right, if you even know,
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because not all of us ip into Texas, you know,
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but I think it's generally known. It's by the border. Yeah,
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the border town in an area known as the Big Bend.
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And this is where the Rio Bravo or the Rio
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Grande meets the tip of the rocky mountains and then bends,
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hence the name Big Bend. People living here are surrounded
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by Mexico on three sides and then one side is Texas,
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almost like if the border is arbitrary. It's almost like
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if it was fucking made up, almost like it was Mexico. Yeah, yeah, stupid.
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There's intense summers, little rainfall, so like rough Place Eleve
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in this region. The Bend goes from Candelaria to Marfa, Texas.
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And if you don't know, have you heard of like
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the Marfa Lights No, well those into the paranormal Mary Yeah, anyway,
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and the Big Band includes sounds like Alpine, Marathon, Sanderson,
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and Dryden. And you know from what I've read, because
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again I've never been there. It was a popular filming
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location for westerns, and it's also where No Country for
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Old Men was filmed in two thousand and seven, and
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some people apparently go there for hiking. I don't know,
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that's what I read. Don't quote me because like why,
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but I'm picturing it how it looks like how like
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the mountains in Arizon, Arizona, and those are beautiful, honestly, Okay, okay,
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so you know, okay, And what a need was in
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the northeast region of Big Bend, so like in insane
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close to the Mexico like literally a couple steps and
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you're in Mexico. Now, the area is a ghost town.
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It is highly it's abandoned and likes a It's a
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region used by cartels, heavily guarded by the border Patrol,
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which is very militarized. But back then, unlike other parts
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of Texas until the year nineteen oh four, things remained
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almost unchanged after the Mexican American War, like this was
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pretty much still Mexican. The people of Portoveni, they were
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all Mexican. They paid in vessels. When they did pay,
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they mostly had a bartering system with each other. It
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was a very you know, close knit community. Even with
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the construction of Fort Davis in eighteen fifty four, things
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in Portoveni specifically didn't change. In the surrounding towns a
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little bit, but not that much at first. Again, not
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until nineteen oh four when the railroad connected like the
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bigger cities through this area and more Anglos started arriving.
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But before that, any Anglos that were there usually a
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similated and were marrying into Mexican families. They learned Spanish
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and like you know, people hear the Mexicans, they had
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their own elected officials. Again, they used vessels, they didn't
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even use the dollar. When the railroad was built, then
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that's when more Anglos began arriving. And these anglos, they're
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not feel the need to assimilate. They wanted nothing to
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do with Mexicans. They were the type of anglos that
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I've been discussing over the past few episodes, the ones
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that were like, why are there Mexicans in this area
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that is Mexican that I just moved to. Yes, I
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wanted to look like me even though I just not here.
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And this wasn't just Porvani it was like again, Portvinatees
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is now ghost town, but this whole region of Texas,
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Prestidio County, the other county right next to it, this
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whole part, they were all going through this. Then you
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add in the other things we haven't talking about, like
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the Mexican Revolution and Plande San Diego, which I will
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add one correction here. There were raids by Mexican revolutionaries.
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I don't want to downplay that. I think you said
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there was. Oh I thought I said there was. Okay, No,
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you're right, I did. Oh you know what. Okay, I
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thought you said that there was, but not as much
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as they were trying to make it seem. Yes, yes, okay,
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thank you. I wasn't sure what I said. You know,
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I'm pretty sure that's what you said. Well, if I
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did what I'm saying it now, like Pancho Villa did
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burn some small ranches, okay, like it happened, And none
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of these raids were ever tied to the San Diego
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as far as like a documented, documented attack that was
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part of it the San Diego that ever happened. But
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there were several raids by Mexican revolutionaries and also Mexican
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bandits who were able to thrive in this very heavily
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policed area where they were able to get away, and
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then you know, someone else would the rangers would come
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in and blame someone else for it, and so they
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were continuing to do their stuff. It wasn't just revolutionaries.
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It was also some Mexican bandits. Okay, Like I don't
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want to downplay that, and like you know, other people
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have gone on and on about the horrible dirty discussing
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evil bandits. I'm not gonna be doing that. So that's
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all I'm saying about them, that it happened, and that's
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it was, I underside, not just kidding, kidding that. And
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so yeah, raids happened, like an attempted raid at King's Ranch,
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and that was not part of the San Diego that
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was never confirmed. Again, that was just a plan, but
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Anglos Anglo settlers and Texas rangers conflated the two things,
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using that to justify attacks on Mexicans who had nothing
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to do with any of it. And I just wanted
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to repeat that because I wanted to make it clear
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that repeating you anyway back to Portvenide, this is the
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context leading up to that day, because we love context
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I don't care if I'm repeating it. So, on December
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twenty fifth, nineteen seventeen, raiders from Mexico attack the Bright
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Ranch not super far from portve Need. Three people were
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killed during this raid, one white like coach driver and
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two Mexicans. And after this, for some reason, the Texas
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Rangers and local ranchers suspected the people of ported for
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this raid on that ranch. So then Company B of
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the Rangers searched the town of Pored on the twenty six,
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and they found nothing. Everyone had weapons back then, right,
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Everyone just had weapons. It was normal. It wasn't anything suspicious.
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So they took all the weapons they found along with
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two men as prisoners who they later released, And that's
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after taking them on a two day walk wherever they
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were at, and then just released them from there and
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just said all right, go wind or whatever. Yeah. Wow,
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at least they didn't kill them on their way, right,
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like Yeah. Also, some accounts say that this search and
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seizure of weapons took place on the twenty six, others
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say took place on the twenty fourth, four days before
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the massacre. Either way, it was, it happened for sure,
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just I don't know what day twenty four to twenty six.
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There was zero evidence that anyone from Portvinit had had
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been involved at all on the raid at the ranch,
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but the Rangers insisted that they believed that the townspeople
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were hiding a known bandit, Chico Caano. And I accidentally
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kept writing Chico Cano, like the corrido of Chicocano, But
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that's a different Francisco. I don't even think that guy's
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name was Francisco. That was from the nineteen seventies, one
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of my favorite corridos, but no Chicocano. He was wanted
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for several crimes, including the nineteen fifteen murder of former
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Texas Ranger Joe Sitter. And that's the story for another
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day because I haven't really looked much into Chicocano. Was
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that murder justified? I don't know. Yeah, I'm sorry, I'll
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stop doing this. I don't know what happened really, So
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that's who they were accusing Borbnid of harboring Chico Cano.
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So then on the night of January twenty seventh, nineteen eighteen,
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the Texas Rangers rode into the camp of the eight
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Cavalry Regiment looking for Captain Harry Anderson. They presented a
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letter from Colonel Langhorn, and this letter instructed the Cavalry
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Regiment to assist the Rangers in searching the people of
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the Army is the army, Yeah, cavalry is the army.
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I wasn't sure. I feel like you never said army
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and then you extracting to know these military terms. Oh,
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I thought everybody knew what cavalry meant. But you're right. No,
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my bad, maybe maybi, Yeah that's the army. I mean,
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I've heard it Pacific Regiment. Didn't know it was specific
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to the army. Yes, specific to the Army. To this day,
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they wear a littlest special hat and the things they
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put on their boots anyway back to this, So that's
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who they the Rangers went to to get them to