the Porvenir Massacre

0:09 Hi everyone. This is Carmen and Christina and this is The Study Unknown, a podcast about Latin American history. Sometimes it's horrible and us with tibetopics like racism, corruption, and genocide. But more than that, it's also about resistance, power and community. And I have to warn everyone right now, this episode is extremely infuriating, extremely depressing. Man. I don't know how many times I needed a moment while writing my notes in while finishing this book. And the book again has been my main source for everything, but there's a lot of other sources that are in the show notes. But the Injustice Never Leaves You is the book, but let's just jump into it. Last episode, I share two lynchings and textas that each marked important periods during La Matanza or La la les Sangre, the massacre, the Hour of Blood.

1:05 And in this episode, I'm going to be sharing one of the worst instances of violens by the Texas Rangers during this ten year time period. And like the past several episodes, it is a very heavy topic. Listening with caution, so I was angry and sad and it was a mess. Anyway, I shared a little bit about the beginnings of the Texas Rangers in episode one hundred eleven, and I also mentioned a little bit about the cultural relevance of this group, like when other people think of them, they might think about the baseball team from Arlington, Texas or Chuck Norris and all those stupid Chuck Norris jokes that I never found funny. Yeah, do you know which was I'm talking about? Chuck Norris can punch so hard that I don't know. Wait, was he the guy who played the Walker Ranger show or whatever? Oh? Ok, that is. I wasn't sure because I'm not into like historic American, white American media like that, you know, right, same, But yeah, Chick Norris started in the show Walker Texas Ranger from nineteen ninety three to two thousand and one, and in the show Cordo Walker and James Trivetter. I don't know why you're saying. People want to go fuck anyway, the pair battle crime in Dallas and the entire state of Texas. They're going around using check Norris's martial arts skills copaganda. Sorry to cut you off, wait till you hear my notes. Come on, I'm just kidding kids. So yeah, going around using Check Norse's martial art skills to fight bad guys, and you can hear phrases like no one has killed the Texas

2:37 Ranger and lift to tail the tale like just all shut the fuck up, shut it, buck up. We're still reenacting the weekends acting. Yet we can't stop. We can't stop. It's very clear who is bad and who is good in the show. Copaganda at its best. And that's my problem though with a different episode. And that's the problem with copaganda if you have no brain anyway. At the Texas Ranger Museum in Waco, Texas, there's nothing but legendary tales and epic fights. Sorry, legendary tales about epic fights and holding up justice in the wastelands of Texas and the bad lands of Texas whatever. It's all stories of heroism and bravery. It wasn't until very very recently that the website for the Waco Texas Rangers Museum even mentioned Need.

3:29 It was like literally in the past three or four years before that, zero mentioned of portve Need and they even have a timeline of Texas Ranger history and that Waco Texas Museum website and in the year nineteen eighteen, nothing about Bortvenide until like they were called out. Oh wow, I was gonna ask how it came about, called out, called out repeatedly wow, because you know twenty twenty was like a mass calling out right, and that included the this museum. So four there was no information about the board of the need massacre, not in the website for the Texas Ranger Museum. And this is the official website for the Texas Ranger Museum and the official website for the official museum for the Texas readers. It's always the same shit with this fucking country man, like they never want to admit or take accountability reckon with any of the horrible atrocities they did. And that's why we are where we are right now, because you can't you can't improve, you can't make things better until you take accountability. And how can you take accountability when you're like the history textbooks they're trying to use. I don't know if it was Texas or Oklahoma or what backwards ask fucking place they were trying to do, not trying, I think they're using them, but they're they're teaching slavery almost like if it was like an option for enslaved people to be and that they liked it, that they liked it. Yeah, right, like you're you're lying and white watching history, Yes, and

5:03 then you get mad and we talk about the truth or want to learn about our actual history, and I take you want to blame white people for everything. Well, well, if the shoe fits, bitch. Sorry, we're heated already anyway. Speaking of school systems, Texas public school students spend one year on Texas history, and in that one year curriculum, there is zero mention of bid of course, yeah, or any of the violence enacted by the Texas Rangers, but their heroism. Yeah. And the website I was mentioning Texas Ranger dot org has five sentences on burvnide. Oh my god, I've said I counted them five sentences. What do they say before I mention what they say? Let's let's talk about what happened. Also, sorry in previous episodes, I think I said nineteen fifteen, but this happened in nineteen eighteen. Oh, it's only three year difference. Yeah, I was very close.

6:02 I was going off the top of my head. I hadn't gotten there in my reading, you know too, Yeah, three years off. So Portve Need was a close knit ranching community one hundred and seventy miles southeast of in Baso. And I say this because some people only know, like me, only in a world Baso is right, if you even know, because not all of us ip into Texas, you know, but I think it's generally known. It's by the border. Yeah, the border town in an area known as the Big Bend. And this is where the Rio Bravo or the Rio Grande meets the tip of the rocky mountains and then bends, hence the name Big Bend. People living here are surrounded by Mexico on three sides and then one side is Texas, almost like if the border is arbitrary. It's almost like if it was fucking made up, almost like it was Mexico. Yeah, yeah, stupid.

6:55 There's intense summers, little rainfall, so like rough Place Eleve in this region. The Bend goes from Candelaria to Marfa, Texas. And if you don't know, have you heard of like the Marfa Lights No, well those into the paranormal Mary Yeah, anyway, and the Big Band includes sounds like Alpine, Marathon, Sanderson, and Dryden. And you know from what I've read, because again I've never been there. It was a popular filming location for westerns, and it's also where No Country for Old Men was filmed in two thousand and seven, and some people apparently go there for hiking. I don't know, that's what I read. Don't quote me because like why, but I'm picturing it how it looks like how like the mountains in Arizon, Arizona, and those are beautiful, honestly, Okay, okay, so you know, okay, And what a need was in the northeast region of Big Bend, so like in insane close to the Mexico like literally a couple steps and you're in Mexico. Now, the area is a ghost town.

8:05 It is highly it's abandoned and likes a It's a region used by cartels, heavily guarded by the border Patrol, which is very militarized. But back then, unlike other parts of Texas until the year nineteen oh four, things remained almost unchanged after the Mexican American War, like this was pretty much still Mexican. The people of Portoveni, they were all Mexican. They paid in vessels. When they did pay, they mostly had a bartering system with each other. It was a very you know, close knit community. Even with the construction of Fort Davis in eighteen fifty four, things in Portoveni specifically didn't change. In the surrounding towns a little bit, but not that much at first. Again, not until nineteen oh four when the railroad connected like the bigger cities through this area and more Anglos started arriving.

8:56 But before that, any Anglos that were there usually a similated and were marrying into Mexican families. They learned Spanish and like you know, people hear the Mexicans, they had their own elected officials. Again, they used vessels, they didn't even use the dollar. When the railroad was built, then that's when more Anglos began arriving. And these anglos, they're not feel the need to assimilate. They wanted nothing to do with Mexicans. They were the type of anglos that I've been discussing over the past few episodes, the ones that were like, why are there Mexicans in this area that is Mexican that I just moved to. Yes, I wanted to look like me even though I just not here.

9:39 And this wasn't just Porvani it was like again, Portvinatees is now ghost town, but this whole region of Texas, Prestidio County, the other county right next to it, this whole part, they were all going through this. Then you add in the other things we haven't talking about, like the Mexican Revolution and Plande San Diego, which I will add one correction here. There were raids by Mexican revolutionaries. I don't want to downplay that. I think you said there was. Oh I thought I said there was. Okay, No, you're right, I did. Oh you know what. Okay, I thought you said that there was, but not as much as they were trying to make it seem. Yes, yes, okay, thank you. I wasn't sure what I said. You know, I'm pretty sure that's what you said. Well, if I did what I'm saying it now, like Pancho Villa did burn some small ranches, okay, like it happened, And none of these raids were ever tied to the San Diego as far as like a documented, documented attack that was part of it the San Diego that ever happened. But there were several raids by Mexican revolutionaries and also Mexican bandits who were able to thrive in this very heavily policed area where they were able to get away, and then you know, someone else would the rangers would come in and blame someone else for it, and so they were continuing to do their stuff. It wasn't just revolutionaries.

11:00 It was also some Mexican bandits. Okay, Like I don't want to downplay that, and like you know, other people have gone on and on about the horrible dirty discussing evil bandits. I'm not gonna be doing that. So that's all I'm saying about them, that it happened, and that's it was, I underside, not just kidding, kidding that. And so yeah, raids happened, like an attempted raid at King's Ranch, and that was not part of the San Diego that was never confirmed. Again, that was just a plan, but Anglos Anglo settlers and Texas rangers conflated the two things, using that to justify attacks on Mexicans who had nothing to do with any of it. And I just wanted to repeat that because I wanted to make it clear that repeating you anyway back to Portvenide, this is the context leading up to that day, because we love context I don't care if I'm repeating it. So, on December twenty fifth, nineteen seventeen, raiders from Mexico attack the Bright Ranch not super far from portve Need. Three people were killed during this raid, one white like coach driver and two Mexicans. And after this, for some reason, the Texas Rangers and local ranchers suspected the people of ported for this raid on that ranch. So then Company B of the Rangers searched the town of Pored on the twenty six, and they found nothing. Everyone had weapons back then, right,

12:32 Everyone just had weapons. It was normal. It wasn't anything suspicious. So they took all the weapons they found along with two men as prisoners who they later released, And that's after taking them on a two day walk wherever they were at, and then just released them from there and just said all right, go wind or whatever. Yeah. Wow, at least they didn't kill them on their way, right, like Yeah. Also, some accounts say that this search and seizure of weapons took place on the twenty six, others say took place on the twenty fourth, four days before the massacre. Either way, it was, it happened for sure, just I don't know what day twenty four to twenty six. There was zero evidence that anyone from Portvinit had had been involved at all on the raid at the ranch, but the Rangers insisted that they believed that the townspeople were hiding a known bandit, Chico Caano. And I accidentally kept writing Chico Cano, like the corrido of Chicocano, But that's a different Francisco. I don't even think that guy's name was Francisco. That was from the nineteen seventies, one of my favorite corridos, but no Chicocano. He was wanted for several crimes, including the nineteen fifteen murder of former Texas Ranger Joe Sitter. And that's the story for another day because I haven't really looked much into Chicocano. Was that murder justified? I don't know. Yeah, I'm sorry, I'll stop doing this. I don't know what happened really, So that's who they were accusing Borbnid of harboring Chico Cano.

14:09 So then on the night of January twenty seventh, nineteen eighteen, the Texas Rangers rode into the camp of the eight Cavalry Regiment looking for Captain Harry Anderson. They presented a letter from Colonel Langhorn, and this letter instructed the Cavalry Regiment to assist the Rangers in searching the people of the Army is the army, Yeah, cavalry is the army. I wasn't sure. I feel like you never said army and then you extracting to know these military terms. Oh, I thought everybody knew what cavalry meant. But you're right. No, my bad, maybe maybi, Yeah that's the army. I mean, I've heard it Pacific Regiment. Didn't know it was specific to the army. Yes, specific to the Army. To this day, they wear a littlest special hat and the things they put on their boots anyway back to this, So that's who they the Rangers went to to get them to help them inspect. So the letter said, like, assist the Rangers in searching the people of Porvenide and making sure no one escapes inspection. And the captain questioned the Rangers' request to do this that night because it was weird to him, that makes sense, But in the end he did take his men and go with the Rangers. They left the Cavalry Regiment's camp at ten thirty at night in the early hours two am of January twenty eight.

15:31 So the next day, nineteen eighteen, Company B of the Texas Rangers, along with four local ranchmen named Buck Pool, John Poole, Tom Snyder, and Raymond Fitzgerald, along with the cavalry, they just volunteered for this. Oh. These were local ranchmen who were supposedly afraid of the what we need people because they were like, oh, they're hiding Chico Gano. Oh they attacked the Bright Ranch. Yeah. So yeah, they just volunteered for this, the ranchmen. Right, So, the Company B of the Texas Rangers, these four local ranchmen, and then the eighth US Cavalry Regiment, they all went into the small town of Borvenide. And it's really it's not even like a town. Calendar of the town is like an exaggeration.

16:17 It's like it's smaller than a town. A village maybe, yeah, like like fifteen families that most lived here. Yeah. So, with the help of the eighth US Cavalry Regiment, they woke up the one hundred and forty residents, okay, one hundred and forty residents and separated the men and boys from the women, younger children and the elderly, and his memoir, Private Robert Keel, who was part of that eighth US Cavalry Regiment, wrote about trying to sorry if you can hear my children. He wrote about trying to reassure the scared women, telling them it's going to be okay. But that seen pointless because as soon as they heard rangers, they were deadly, deathly afraid, because they had this horrible reputation already. Yes, and he would later write, quote, this story will prove I believe that the terror was more than justified end quote. And so the rangers then searched each home for weapons. Then Ranger Captain James Monroe Fox dismissed the Calvary men. He's like, all right, you can go, And the Captain's like, I guess, like this is weird, but okay, we'll leave, like this doesn't seem normal. But they left. And so they left, and as soon as they left, the rangers lined up the boys and men and marched them to a nearby bluff. The rangers stood three feet behind the fifteen boys and men and then they shot them all. There were no interviews, no investigations, nothing.

17:49 I'm sorry, but also like if they pulled out, everybody divided them up. Presumably that's everyone there, and that Chico guy was not there, right, what the hell? It's almost like they never they knew he wasn't there, and they just wanted to kill a bunch of Mexicans. Honestly, almost Yeah, as if it was like that. Yeah, so, yeah, they shot and killed fifteen people, ages sixteen to seventy two. Wow, sixteen to seventy two, Like, that's ridiculous, insane. From some distance away, the cavalry could hear the screams from the women and children, and about that, Private Robert Qle described what he heard. Quote for perhaps ten seconds, we couldn't hear anything, and then it seemed that every woman down there screamed at the same time. It was an awful thing to hear in the dead of night. We could also hear what sounded on like praying, and of course the small children were screaming with Fright. Then we heard shots, rapid shots, echoing and blending in the dark end quote that sounds like it would be so chilling. But I also wonder why did they go back? Right? Yeah, well, okay, so as someone in the service working alongside with someone else is supposed to be in this type of service,

19:19 that's the same as your service. And if you hold yourself to like a high standard, like I'm following the law word for word, always the law, the law and justice, I don't think they would have ever suspected. And even though the Texas Rangers had disreputation, you know why, people they don't believe it until they see it, and so I believe that this whole regiment probably was like, Okay, they're not going to do anything, Like, what about after the screens and the gunshots, Well they do go back. Oh okay, well that's it. Okay, I see after the second round of shots. Okay, I can't see what you're saying that before the gunshots and the screams, they were like, okay, this is weird. Yeah, they heard the first round of shots and they stopped. Then they heard like ten seconds of silence screaming, followed by more shots. They were so far they couldn't make it in time to see, like or stop anything. Yeah. So yeah, anyway, let's continue with my notes here. The Rangers, the Texas Rangers didn't just kill these boys and men. They continued to shoot until there were only pieces of their victims left. You couldn't even like they were like indistinguishable from each other. That's horrible, And like, why this extremism? Why because they hate us, That's why. Yeah. As they heard the screaming and the insane amount of gunshots that followed, Captain Anderson ordered his soldiers to return to the area. When they arrived, they heard rangers yelling, we got them, Captain, we got them.

20:50 Then the rangers rode away. The cavalrymen arrived at the bluff and set eyes on what the rangers had done. Private quel rot quote. At the foot of the bluff, we could see a massive bodies, but not a single movement. The bodies lay in every conceivable position, including one that seemed to be sitting against the rock wall. As soon as we were closed, we smelled the nauseating smell of blood, and when we could see, we saw the most hellish sight that any of us had ever witnessed. It reminded me of a slaughterhouse. A hospital corman who was with us went over to the bodies, but not a breath of life was left in a single one. The professionals had done their work well end quote. Oh my god, they killed everyone the fifteen. The women and children were separated.

21:43 These were they were looking down at the bluff. A bluff is like you know, oh, I see, okay, so they got to the bluff. That's what you just said. I thought they got to the whole Like no, no, no, So well you'll seques I could see on how things went down. Yeah, I'm sorry, So you know, sound so dumb. No, you could keep it, okay, I'll got that fall for not writing these clearly not that's how it was written. Just kid, go on, go on, all right. Most of the bodies were missing their limbs, some so riddled with bullets that their faces were no longer recognizable. On top of the bullets, many were also full of stab wounds. When the cavalry spoke to the women and children, and you could tell they were still alive because they were the ones crying and screaming. Sorry, yeah, I don't know what's going on in my brain today. An interpreter, with her baby in her arms, told the cavalry what happened.

22:37 She said, the rangers tied all the men together with a rope, then hit one with a pistol, knocking him down. Then they kicked and shoved the tied up men and boys over to the bluff. The women tried to protest, but they were also pushed and knocked down by the rangers. By the men, but then the interpreter says, no, not men, beasts, criminals, devils. Before the rangers shot at the men and boys, the rangers asked each one, are you Chicocano? They knew it wasn't him. There was pictures of Chicocano, some of them even have might have seen them. Yeah, there's like no way. Forty two children were left without their fathers. And also, sorry, don't they they would know the average age of Chico.

23:23 They would, and so they would know he's not sixteen, yeah, like and sixteen year olds very much like sixteen year olds, you know, even back then. So it's like come on, yeah. Captain Anderson of the Cavity Regiment sent soldiers to Colonel Langhorne to go give word of what they just witnessed, this like atrocity that they you know, see the remnants of, right, and then he sent a second group of soldiers to go get a priest so that the townspeople can have someone to do you know, Yeah, the right funerals. Yes, right, so that's right. I forgot what it's called, but something like that, yeah, like funeral things, you know, Catholic funeral things. Yeah.

24:06 And then a survivor ran on foot to talk to Harry Warren, a school teacher who taught many of the Portoveni children and who was married to Juliana Hakis, daughter of Divuziojakis, one of the murdered men. Oh wow. Harry Warren left for Portvined immediately upon hearing about the massacre, and he began to document the horrific event right away, with the help of eleven year old Juan Flores. Oh my god, eleven year old. He was from there too, so his dad, presumably Juan Flora is yes, another survivor and son of the massacre Longqino Flores. He identified his father and all the victims for Harry Warren's records. Wow. Also, sorry to cut you off and bring things to today at this day and age, but I know, like a lot of people are like like saying like at anyway, ok, before I got like log right, like this is why it's bordant to document. And in the same age we document with their phones and by posting it and sharing it online. Yeah, the kid den. I think that they're doing this shit when it's on record, right, like the Palestinians. Yeah, so Harry wrote, quote. The women and children then ran to the Mexican side of the river, to a desert country where there wasn't a house or a sign of habitation.

25:26 Without a canopy to shield them from the pitiless winds of January, and without a change of clothing, and without remortals to eat. There they stayed, and the quiet little village of Portvened, with its peaceful farms and happy hopes, was no more. The rangers and the four cow men made forty two orphans that night. End quote. Wow. Yeah. After burying their loved ones in one shallow mass grave, the women, children and elderly fled Portvenide to Mexico, and then the army burned what remained of their former homes. I don't know why. Oh, the army burned it down. I thought it was the Texas Rangers this whole time, because I have read a little bit about the Portavinid messacre over the years, and I thought this whole time that the Texas Rangers burned it down. But I read in a couple of different sources that it was the army who burned it down. Interesting, I wonder why, and I don't know how long after either, because apparently, once these survivors were in Mexico, they wrote to the Mexican government for help, and the Mexican government did return to gather some of their things from their homes, and they were still there. So that's why. I don't know when the army burned it down either. But to this day there's nothing there except and the grave is not even in Portovini. The mass grave is in Mexico because they took the few pieces that they could and bury them in Mexico. That's how close this is too, Like it's insane,

26:56 like it's literally like so close. And so. In their report, the rangers stated that while they scouted the region of Porvenid, they came across some Mexicans. They gathered these Mexicans for questioning, when suddenly they came under fire by a second group of unknown Mexicans. This firefight was in the dark and they could not see, but they only fired to defend themselves. When they returned in the morning, they found fifteen dead Mexicans. He also added that when they inspected the homes of these dead Mexicans, they found items from the Bright Ranch raid. These items were never like named. He was just like, we found things. That means it was them making shit up and if they could, they would plant shit. They probably did. Is this not reminiscent of like Israel going into Gaza and then like putting things to make them seem like they were hamas? Yeah, in a hospital or police literally putting you know, a piece of a fire or gun, sorry, a gun and on the floor, like are like sending in undercover cops to agitate protests and then try to say they're non violent, I mean are violent? Yeah, they are not non violent? Yes, So that's what he wrote, and he entered his report by wishing the General a happy New Year. Fucking bitch. If this had been the only documentation, we would never know the truth. But the survivors, Harry Warren, Private Keel, even Captain Anderson all kept meticulous

28:30 documentation of the events. Documentation is key, yes, record when if you have like, if you don't know what you sorry to bring this into times of now, but if you don't know what else you can do right now? And the mass raids that are happening, get your phone on record, like or if you're not there, you can also make videos about what is happening. I know that's one thing that man, I think it's a podcast. No, I think I just saw it all over TikTok, because you know, everyone compares what's going on now to nineteen thirties Germany. They're saying, like and Frank in her diary, Like what would we know about in Frank's story. People hadn't found her diary. And so like a lot of people that studied that time, that time in history or study fascism, I saw a lot of posts saying, like, oh, document document, even if you're not making videos, document in your journal, like document what's going on, because even that, just telling the truth during this time is one way to fight it exactly. And that's what these four did.

29:36 They documented everything they saw and that's why we have real accounts of what happened. So while Harry Warren and the survivors now in Mexico attempted to demand justice, Texans celebrated the big company of the Texas Rangers and Captain Fox ridiculous. They love them for upholding justice. And I say that in quotations upholding racism and violence and murder killing Mexicans. Yep. And like I said, luckily, the survivors all kept testimonies about what they witnessed. Juanman this he wrote his official testimony for General Murhia, and Muria telegrams Colonel Langhorn asking for an official investigation into this matter.

30:25 And by then Langhorn had also received Captain Anderson's testimony, which corroborated what General Murhia said he was told by Juan, a survivor. General Murhia spoke to all the survivors. They documented everything. They went down from El Comelor, Mexico to examine the sites of the massacre themselves. Then they had reports, and in these reports they showed that the men and boys had suffered a rain of bullets to their bodies and on top of that each taking a bullet in the head, and they're all had stabbings stab marks in them as well. Wow, And they documented all this. This is when they also brought back whatever was whatever they could for the families of their belongings. So I know at this point that was still there the houses. I just don't know when the army went back and burned it like that's what I can't find Their testimonies, along with Harry Warren, revealed that one of the four ranchers that were there with the rangers during the massacre had motives.

31:29 Of course he did, because why was he even there? First of all? Now for real, for real, So Tom Snyder had stolen horses from the farmers at Bovenide and sold them in a different town, and fearing persecution for his banditry, he went to tell the rangers about BORVNID hiding bandit Chico Cano. And it was the real person committing actual theory, this fucking bitch. Yes, And like always, they used racism to hide their crime. He used his whiteness to protect himself and blame it on the Mexicans. Yep. And so the US did investigate. They talked to each witness of the massacre, as well as Captain Aderson and other members of the eighth Cavalry Regiment. It all matched the evidence of the Mexican government had a already provided, but they had to go get it for themselves. Apparently, then they dismissed most of these testimonies. If someone couldn't read or write, they're like we're not accepting testimonies from an illiterate person. Always always dismissing oral testimony, oral histories, like always, Yeah, Captain Harry Ederson describes what happened at Porvinid.

32:39 Asked quote as sorry as the midnight massacre, and he said that the rangers quote took out the owner of the ranch and fourteen others, all farmers and small stock owners, and shot them to death. There was not a single bandit in the fifteen men slain. Two of them were boys end quote. So he wasn't lying about what happened at all. He's like, no, despite what the rangers had just done at Burvinid, they were unfazed and they went about their normal business, just like a few days after they did the Borvadian massacre. They killed another Mexican man in Guadalupetrrees because he was near the gates of the Bright Ranch and they thought he had some he had done something like stolen something. And then they said that he was killed while attempting to escape, which is probably not true, probably not just we talked about Lala de Fuga.

33:29 So yeah, after hearing about Wales, Captain Allison was like, oh my fucking god, that's not what he really said about that's how we felt. Basically, he wrote to the Texas Governor and I quote, the object of this appeal is to call to your attention this unprovoked and wholesale murder by Texas rangers in conjunction with ranchmen, rangers who, instead of maintaining peace, are committing murder by the wholesale, and to request your excellency to have these rangers removed at once. No matter what whitewash reports may have been made to you or the adjunctant General, the facts herein are true and can be proven and quote. And several members of the same his regiment also wrote out the testimonies to send to the governor. They were it's like, you know, people in law don't want to be like, well, we're not all like that, even though they're all holding the same system of white supremacy a lot of people, and it's true, like not all of them are like this, right, And so these soldiers were like, no, like these rangers need to be stopped. Yeah. So yeah, they sent their testimonies to the governor. Good and I mean that's the right thing to do, and good job for them doing the right thing in this Yeah, because other rangers that were in Company B lied about their testimony along with the captain. They're like, oh, yeah, no, that's exactly how what happened. Whatever the captain said, and that was wrong.

34:57 And because of the ongoing heat from the public from Mexico, the governor did disband Company B. Of the Texas Rangers, five of them were fired and eight were transferred to Company D, and Captain Fox was forced to resign. I don't know that that's a real punishment, because yeah, there was never Okay, the ranchers. Nothing happened to them, the four ranchers, which is ridiculous because they shouldn't have been in the first place. Obviously that Texas Rangers shouldn't have been there either, Yeah, but much less. But the ranchers, the ranchers. Yeah and yeah, none of these men any received any formal charges, any indictments for what they did at what we need and the government insists there that firing them was enough. However, the five that were fired rejoined some other form of law enforcement to go and enact their racism and violence elsewhere. Yeah, as well as Captain Fox eventually he did. It wasn't the rangers again, but he did in some other form of law enforcement.

36:02 So yeah, that's not real justice. And in the meantime, those who were calling for justice, like Harry Warren, son in law of the Wutzio Hakkis who was murdered during the massacre, Harry Warren was blackballed from working in Texas and he was you know, those teachers that that's their calling and that's what they were meant to do, and they have respect for their students and they love their students no matter what background they're from. That was Harry Warren, and he was blackballed from working in Texas for standing up for the survivors. This is so ridiculous because he didn't they wrong. Yeah, Oh my god, rangers and ranchers, even US Army soldiers intimidated him and he was forced to flee the state. He was an educated man with a law degree who chose to teach, but because of the black balling that he faced, he could only work picking cotton in Arizona. My god. In his later later years he did return to Texas and teach again, which is what he was meant to do in his life, and he did this until he died in nineteen thirty one, and his giant collection of testimonies is now at the West Texas Historical Society. And this archive of his of testimonies and witnesses of Borveni included over nine thousand leaves of documents. Wow, that's a lot. Yeah, and it's now there.

37:34 I must go there, I know I wanted to. And then Private Robert Kiel, who I've been mentioning in a bunch throughout this. The reason I have those quotes is because he has a memoir His mom is called Bonito something my times in Texas. Why can't I sorry, Why does that old man me think of? Do you feel Bonita? I feel Bonita? So Private Robert Kiel on his and then his daughter after him, Linda Davis, also worked their entire lives to keep this story and the history true. Oh that's amazing, and I love that. This is the part that made me cry. Well, this is one of the many parts that made me cry. Hold on, let me prepare myself to cry also, yes, okay, So Robert Keel dedicated countless hours into preserving his account of the massacre and defending the victims. He called out historians like Walter Prescott Prescott Webb, who depicted the Rangers as heroes.

38:30 He was like nah, bitch nah his entire life. He mourned those killed in the massacre. He insisted they were not bandits, and he condemned the Rangers his whole life. After the massacre, he typed out his memoir and tried to have it published, but it didn't happen during his lifetime. His daughter Linda, who watched her dad cry as he typed every night since she was six, made sure got published. Oh my god. He started the memoir when she was six, and he finished it twelve years later, and then he tried to get it published, and then he, you know, passed away, and she went to different people to get it published. He would cry, type and tell her, Linda, those poor people, and he would tell her all the time, they were like his family. They fed him, made him tamales tortillas, and he regretted that his relationship with the people of Borvand could not save them from the Rangers.

39:30 Oh my god, I really shamble. I didn't think I was gonna cry because most of the time I'm dead inside. But yeah, I guess the reason it's making me so emotional because he saw my boy. Sorry, I'm so sorry, he saw he saw their humanity. He saw the humanity of Mexicans instead of dirty bandits or what today they would say illegal illegals, legal aliens. Yeah, and I think that's especially with what's been going on, not only you know now with the raids and what's going on in LA, but our whole lives with you know. Well, you know, we've talked about it a lot, we have, but I don't know, like I always I feel like I always want to try to see the best of people, you know, even though it's really hard, and even though we talk our shit, But I like I have been asking myself constantly, but even more not because I feel like hatred, racism, and xenophobia is even more blatant now, Like it's always been here, right, yeah, and those of us you know, who have lived it know that it's always been here, but it's more out in the open, more depraved now more Yeah, I don't know if we just see it more because the internet is here, so you see people's opinions that you wouldn't see. What it's like now normalized because of who's right the president, you know what I mean.

41:02 They're emboldened to be out emboldened. And so then I always ask myself, like, what is it going to take for people to see our humanity? Yes, and I don't know this. This he was a private, this person in the army in a time when also racism and senophobia was so also so blatant. He saw the humanity of Mexicans and so did Harry Warren. And you know, these are people that they didn't have to, but they did. And then and then he taught his daughter, who felt it was so important to get his book published because she saw him every night trying to type. I just yeah, it's like it's like racism is taught. Yeah, I just like this can be taught, right, Disrespect for people can be passed down. Yeah. So during her work and getting her father's memoir published, Linda Davis met Benita and Evaristo Albarrado.

42:04 Benita was the daughter of Juan Flores, who was eleven and survived the attack where his father, Longqino Flores, was killed, and at first they thought her the regiment was complicit with the Rangers, and when they read Linda Davis's father's book, they forgave her. They told her like, no, we know your dad wasn't part of it, and they like h did cry together. It was beautiful wow reading about it because I wasn't there. WHOA That's why reading is so boring.

42:45 And just like Linda, Benita watched her father struggle his whole life from the events of that night, Juan Flores would wake up in cold sweats and with nightmares that the Texas Rangers were coming to kill him, and he carried the burden of that night until he was very old. When he was almost on his deathbed, he gathered the family, the whole family, and said he needed to tell them what happened that night. And this is the first time they heard of the accounts. And there's actually a really good podcast episode by Borderland Crimes. The episode is titled a mass Murder and a Cover Up the Massacre at Provini, Texas.

43:25 It was from January twenty eight, twenty twenty one, and so the little synopsis they have here and El Paso women learned a horrible secret about her family. Her great grandfather had been massacred along with fourteen other men and boys. When Adlena Valentia learned who was to blame for the terrible acts. She realized more needed to be done to expose the dark past village of the legendary law enforcement agency, the Texas Rangers. So Arlena Valencia, who is like a descendant of Juan Florda's, not like a direct granddaughter, but like a niece. Conflorida's was her uncle. I'm pretty sure, but she This is where she learned about it. He gathered the family and told them what had happened that night, and she couldn't believe it because she had been watching shows like the Texas Ranger Show with the Chuck Norris and she was like, but they're good guys, they could never do this, and they didn't know. And when she learned, she was like, no, everyone needs to know this. And she actually runs a website called Barende Maassacre dot org that has stories of the victims. All the history she could find of each family member is in that website.

44:33 There's pictures, such a beautiful source there. But me, before I continue on about her, go back to where I was in my notes. So he gathered his family and told them what happened. He told them how he watched his own mother, Juanna Flores, suffered from flashbacks of that night. Juana Flores would wake up screaming that the rangers were coming to kill her family. She would knock on her neighbor's doors at midnight, telling them to run for their lives because the rangers were on their way. She kept hunting rifles in a log chest to protect the family, and one day she found it unlocked. The PDSC was too much from the massacre, and she died by suicide.

45:14 Oh my god, this is a terrible because like the trauma lives on, and these stupid people got to live their lives and they pritn't give two shits about what they did because they again, they didn't see Mexicans the human beings, so to them it was the same thing as killing some fucking bug, you know. And they literally have quotes saying that, like I shared in that one episode where the guy grows. Yeah, a few episodes back, Oh, I thought you were talking about when we talked about the history of the Kukata taw the song. Oh oh, I mean that too, But no, that one guy who made the law the Foreign Minors tax. Yeah, who said I feel better at I feel more Okay, I stop like more guilty about killing a bug bug, yeah, than a Mexican, so yeah, of course they didn't care. Meanwhile, everyone else is living with trauma and generation the worst time of their yeah, yes, yeah, yeah yeah. And Juan Flores, who had witnessed the execution of his father then found his mom dead seventeen years later, Oh my god, how can one person go through so much? And he yeah, he would wake up from these nightmares and sweats, but he didn't want to tell anyone because he didn't want to make them feel bad or you know, like relive that day and on his death. But it is when he finally told his family about his mom and about that night, like and this is one family. There was fifteen, yeah, fathers and brothers, and what did they say? I forgot

46:49 how many orphans I said earlier forty two? I think yes, and all those people pass on this generational trauma. It's it's, oh, it's too much. When Benita talked about Borvenid when she was still alive, she would count Juana Flores as another victim of the massacre because that's what killed her, the PTSD. And yeah, she's right for that, I would agree. Also, Valencia, she does the same when she retells this and like I was saying, she runs the website bid massacre dot com where you can find you know, a collection of the victims, their life stories, their families so much. And the victims of Borvenid were Lonquino Flores, Romaan, Nievez, Pedro Errera, Severiano Errera, Vivian Errera. They were brothers, three of them Alberto Garcia, Juan Jimenez, set Up Jo Jimenez, Pedro Jimenez, two brothers and a father, Divurciojkies, Marcellonio Ertas, Altimo Gonzalez, Ambrosio Ernandez, Manuel Mare and Antonio Castagneeda who had just arrived that put many three weeks before the massacre, who was also the oldest, he was seventy four. And the Mexican government first tried to file separate claims for each family, and then they tried to file on joint, one big joint case to try and get justice for these families.

48:22 But after delay and delay and delay from the US, both of these claims went nowhere. But one senator would not let this go. His name was Jose Tomas Canales. For years he had been collecting testimonies against the Texas Ranger and Portovinide was his last straw. Jose Canales was born in Wess County on March seventh, eighteen seventy seven. He went to Business college in Austin, Texas. Then he went to study law at the University of Michigan. That's where he got his law degree in eighteen ninety nine. He then returned to Texas, passed the bar, worked in Corpus Christi, then Laredo, and then he eventually settled in Brownsville, Texas.

49:08 He was elected and served with five terms in the Texas House of Representatives from nineteen oh five to nineteen eleven and then nineteen seventeen to nineteen twenty one, and at those years he was the only Latino representative wow in the entire state. He had been an outspoken critic of the Texas Rangers for a long time and once he heard about Borovini, He's like, nope, this is too much. He brought nineteen charges of misconduct against them in nineteen eighteen, and these nineteen charges led to an official investigation to look into the actions of the Texas Rangers. These hearings informally known as the Canales Hearings. They have a very longer name that I don't care about because I honestly like, how Canalis hearings sound like that too? Yeah. They were set to begin in January of nineteen nineteen, but before the hearings began, Jossee Canales received a threat received threats by rape by the Rangers, specifically Ranger Frank Hamer, telling them to stop collecting cases of ranger abuse, and Josse reported this to Governor William P. Hobby, who forced Hamer to apologize. But that was it. He didn't receive he wasn't fired nothing. So Frank Hamer continued to stop Jose Canalis.

50:21 If I found out that he killed him. By the end of this, I'm gonna be so fucking pissed. No, okay, yeah, because Seramo No. Yeah, Jose had to be scored it into the hearings for protection. Lindley B. Johnson's father escorted Jose Canals into the hearings. Eighty three witnesses testified over a two week period. These witnesses were mostly Mexican American black or Mexican immigrants, who all shared abuses from the Rangers. Incidents that were brought up included the Bordernade massacre, and the investigation concluded that between three hundred to five thousand, mostly Mexican ethnic Vexicans, were killed by the Rangers. That's where that number comes from. Wow, because I know a lot of time people ask like, well, where does this number come from? And the number again could never be confirmed because the Texas Rangers routinely disappeared people, so that's why it can't be confirmed. But when someone didn't return and they were lasting with the Rangers, they were counted.

51:25 So that's where the five thousand comes from. There were no punishments from these hearings other than the already the already punished firing them like the already that they were fired that consequence, that's the only thing that ever happened to them. There was nothing else that came from these hearings other than canalists introducing a bill that called for changing the hiring practices of the Rangers and then restricting adding restrictions that would reduce vigilante action, and then providing an official an official channel for citizen complaints. But this bill never passed, though the Rangers did change how they hired. Okay, I guess I at least they did that. Yeah, they could no longer hire criminals people are convicted of murder. Wow.

52:15 Another there was. There's another story of a Ranger being given his ranger badge after he let go someone he was protecting from a Lynchin. Of course, that doesn't surprise me at all. Yeah, those kind of things were not okay anymore, and they got more strict about like how many people were in the Texas Rangers. Their numbers decreased, like that band was never the company, b was never reformed. Yeah, that's all that happened. Really. Jesus Canalis did not run for office again, as he received threat after threat after threat, and he would later say that the investigation nearly cost him his life. He thought he was going to die. I believe it. Yeah, I did want to add though.

52:59 Although he didn't run again, he would go on to write the constitution for LULAC and LULAC is the League of United Latin American Citizens still an organization that doesn't important work. Wow. Yeah. And as far as Portvani, the Rangers, the Texas Rangers, the State of Texas have yet to apologize or take accountability for the massacre. Again, it's on their curriculum. They literally just added five sentences to that website, the Texas Rangers official website. You want to read You want me to read those five sentences? Yeah, all right? Here it is the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame Historic timeline. Now I'm scurolling. Okay, some of these entries have like three paragraphs. Okay, the paragraph or the entry for the Battle of the Alamo literally so long. But let me scroll to nineteen eighteen. Five sentences. In January of nineteen eighteen, Texas Ranger from Texas Rangers from Company B, soldiers from the eighth US Cavalry and ranchers search the settlement of borvened for evidence of property stolen from the Bright Ranch.

54:04 Accounts are conflicting, but it is certain that fifteen residents were executed without due process on the premise of being quote bandits. The act is condemned on both sides of the border. Oh wow, that's eve. There's a typo. The act is condemned on both side of the border. The captain of Company B is fired and the Rangers are dismissed. Justifiably, Stronger action is not taken in the inflammatory climate of the planet. The San Diego The Simmerman Telegram and the VR raids in nineteen nineteen. Hearings and investigations lead to reforms of the Texas Rangers. A memorial to the massacre and those killed is erected in twenty eighteen outside Marfa.

54:47 That's the five sentences on that. And it's still barely like like doesn't say outright, like the Rangers killed fifteen people. It's like passive, yeah, like always like they said something about like how accounts vary, but fifteen men did die, not the Rangers did kill fifteen men. It's biased, it's not telling really the truth, because the truth is that this company of Rangers, whatever the hell it's called Company B whatever killed unjustly killed fifteen men and bothe armed men and boys. Now like, oh they went there and then these boys died. Men and boys died. Like that's not accurate. It's just like how they tell they report news whenever they you know what I mean, like a police shooting, shots fired one civilian instead no the police, one civilians alien. Yeah. Yeah, some thing's never change, right, And you had mentioned that they don't teach this in Texas, and that made me think of I sent you this post earlier. Oh but I really like what it's said, and it specifically talked about Texans. Oh well, while you look for that, I'm going to read those last bit.

56:08 In twenty eighteen, after years of advocating by Erlinda Valencia, descendant of Loqino Flores, and with the help of doctor Monica Mugnos Martinez, who is the author of my main source, The int Justice Never Leaves You, there is a plaque dedicated to the massacre in Marfa, Texas. And the plaque has more sentences, O my god, than the fucking website the Official Texas Ranger Museum in Winco, Waco. I think I said, wink, my bad bunch of Waco. I think that's what I was thinking. Let me read what the plaque says really quick, and I could. I couldn't include everything.

56:50 There's still so much that's in the book that I simply just ran out of time to include. But I highly recommend if you're not going to read all the books I have listed in my sources, then definitely read this. The Injustice Never Leaves You. But that plaque, it says, and again, it's in Marfa, Texas. Nothing is in Portvenide anymore. It's a very dangerous area to be around these days as well. On top of the climate that it's in, there's heavily militarized. Oh I'm militarized anyway. The plaque reads Borvenied Massacre. Borvanid was a community in remote northwest Presido County on the Rio Grande, in the midst of military conflicts and raids across and along the international border and in the immediate area during the Mexican Revolution. The small farming and ranching settlement was the site of a notorious tragedy in nineteen eighteen. A group of Texas Rangers from Company B and Marfa, US Army, soldiers from Troop G of the eighth Cavalry, and local ranchers riots at Borvned in the early morning hours of January twenty eighth, nineteen eighteen.

57:49 They came to the ranch of Manuel Morales and separated fifteen able bodied men and boys from the women, children, and other men. Though initial accounts denied any irangdoing, later testimony confirmed that these fifteen victims were shot and killed. Family members crossed the Rio Grande into Mexico to Berry Antonio Castagneda, Donquino Flores, Pedro Herrera Vivian Herrera, Severiano Herrera, Manuel Morales, Altemio Gonzalez and Rosso, Or Nandez, Alberto Garcia, Tiburziojakees, Roman, Nievez Sera, Pio Jimenez, Pedro Jimenez, Juan Jimenez, and Macedonio Ertas. In June nineteen eighteen, Governor William P. Hobby and the Ajant General James a hardly disbanded company b dismissed five rangers for their actions at Porvinid and forced Captain J. M.

58:34 Fox's resignation. State Representative J. T. Canales filed charges with the Texas Legislature against the Texas Rangers for the oppression and the murder of hundreds of ethnic Mexicans along the Rio Grande. At an investigation beginning January thirty first, nineteen nineteen, legislators heard and received testimony regarding several incidents, including Borvenid. As a result, the Texas Rangers were reorganized and reduced in size. In the aftermath of the attack, approximately one hundred and forty remaining residents of Port Wenita abandoned the community and you can find out a marker in Marfa, Texas, and that's inaccurate telling of what happened, and that's exactly how yeah, it tells you. It doesn't have any passive comments like, oh, they went to this to inspect and somehow fifteen fifteen men died, like who knows how, but they died. But yeah, it's not mentioned in the history books.

59:28 The website I mentioned, Portwneda massacred dot org run by a descendant of Vlonquino Flores. She runs this website, and in this website there's history plans for teachers who are willing to teach about this event, as well as she talks more in depth about Harry Warren about his Susca Nales. There's so much that website is, honestly like a wealth of information. I hope that it's backed up in the way back machine because who knows in this, you know, But yeah, she runs it. She advocates for this. She was in a documentary by PBS that I think is just titled Bovineed Massacre. It came out and I want to say twenty nineteen, and that episode that I just mentioned as well. But yeah, she's out here doing the work, and the least we can do is listen to this episode and share this episode with friends so that they too can be angry at this instance of injustice because to this day, how can I mean no, I think we've said enough about that ready, but like, how can And it's not like, Okay, some historians are calling for renaming things that are the Texas Rangers. I don't know if that's as necessary, but what is necessary is to say that Texas Rangers are not heroes. They have done bad things too. Or they can be heroes, but they can also be perpetators of violence, which they have been in the past. And that's the issue with like the way they're portrayed today, and then people like the descendant of a survivor the massacre, can even fathom that they

1:01:00 would do this because they seem like amazing good guys who were only there to protect you and just really quick because they know you had to put the kids to them. Yeah, because you're a mama. I wanted to mention this post from j C. Fiance and to me, it just shows the importance of not all Latinos, I mean all Latinos, but especially Texan Mexicans because a lot of them, you know, just like there's a lot of Mexicans in California who have been here for generations. But they're not as crazy as the sum not obviously, not all. Yeah, Texan Mexicans who forgot their history, and they think that by aligning themselves with whiteness and with whites premacy, that they'll be safe. And if this time, if this massacre, you know, this killing of fifteen Mexicans, you know, doesn't show you that. I no, you're not safe, because it's not about how long you've been here. It's not about if your family was here before Texas was United States territory, you know what I mean. It's about the way you look.

1:02:23 That's what it boils down to. So it doesn't matter if you don't speak Spanish, it doesn't matter. If you don't align yourself with the immigrant struggle. It doesn't matter if you think your parents or grandparents at the right way. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter. And we don't share these things to demonize white people or hey, look they've done this. It's like, how can you reckon with the past. How can you move on with a better future, a future that is right for everyone, not just one group of people. How can you do that? When you haven't acknowledged the past, you can't. And that's why to this day, so upholding white supremacy. Right, and again, when we say whiteness, that's what we're talking about. We're talking about a system of white suppressed supremacy. Yeah, but really correct. This post says, why does so many Latinos forget where they come from? I see family members, our own loved ones, forget the struggles of those who came before them as Latinos, whether first, second, or third generation, we do not get to forget. We're here because someone struggled, sacrifice and endured. And again, some of that struggle is people were here and got their land taken away, were killed.

1:03:30 Yeah maybe in Namatanza, you know. So why do some forget? Let's talk about one big reason, a lack of cultural connection. And this makes me think of but the daughter who kept writing the memoir of her dad. Oh my gosh, yes, Linda, Linda Davis. Yeah, that's not a cultural connection, but it's keeping his memory alive and telling his story and sharing the what happened the reality of what happened. Somewhere along the way they were taught that assimilating equal safety. That's speaking Spanish, being too ethnic, or asking questions would hold them back from the American dream in places like Texas.

1:04:12 This wasn't accidental. Decades of cultural erasure shaped generations, kids punished for speaking Spanish, accents, mocked, history rewritten, or raised entirely. And yes, that's kind of what we're talking about today, right. If it wasn't for the people who fought to keep this piece of history alive, we wouldn't know anything about it. Yep, we weren't taught the real history of Texas. We were fed a sanitized version. They erased the lynchings of Mexicans, the Jim cro laws that targeted us to and the land grabs that stole for Mexican farmers. They skipped over the bassetto program used and war discarded after they hid the Mexican showers at the border where people were sprayed with gasoline and cyclone B. We were taught to forget because forgetting keeps us quiet. But now we know, and silence is no longer survival. Forgetting isn't always portrayal, sometimes it's protection. But let's be clear, we cannot move forward together if we're disconnected from our roots. It's time to relearn, reclaim, and remember, because when we know our history, we speak with purpose. We organize this courty. We don't shame others, we show up differently, we give grace and we build community.

1:05:25 Isn't that beautiful? I wish I could speak like this or think of words like this. I know, and we say we sound so dumb, but that's it's true, insane but way dumber. But that's why we find, you know, people who say it better and then we share when we read it, Yes, exactly, and so you know what, if that speaks to you, then like send this episode and the past I don't know six episodes that we've done on this to you know, a friend, someone that needs this. It's it's been rough, but I'm I'm done for now with yeah, with the lind Gene and that's a great history. For now. There's always more, you know, I'm tired, Okay, Yeah, this brings us to the end of the episode and we hope this was one less Yestordia Unknown for you. Bye bye. Estoria Unknown is produced by Carmen and Christina, researched by Carmen and Christina, edited by Christina. You can find sources for every episode at Estoria's 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 you Studio as an own podcast