Los Pinches Rinches

POSTED BY: CARDENAS.AE@GMAIL.COM FEBRUARY 4, 2019

(This past week, the Bullock Texas State History Museum in Austin hosted a two-day conference, underwritten by the National Endowment for the Humanities, commemorating “The Centennial of the 1919 Canales Investigation.” Entitled “Reverberations of Memory, Violence, and History,” the conference reviewed the courageous undertaking by J.T. Canales, the only Mexican American Texas legislator at that time, who took on the Anglo society’s venerated Texas Rangers. I was able to attend the first day’s sessions and it was a truly inspiring event, featuring a number of noted historians of Texas history. Below, I share a portion of my Master’s thesis that dealt with the Texas Rangers’ involvement in Duval County.)

Texas Rangers stationed in Duval County.

With their political success, Mexican Americans invited special scrutiny. To some in the halls of power in Austin and other power centers in South Texas, Mexican Americans in Duval County may have seemed a tad “uppity.” This situation no doubt was a matter for the Texas Rangers to investigate. The “pinches rinches,” as the Mexican American community knew the Rangers, did not enjoy much respect in Duval County.

The Rangers had caused consternation for years, in cases large and small. Mexicans were exposed to Ranger atrocities as early as 1840 when Rangers from San Patricio raided, plundered, and assassinated traders along the Laredo-Corpus Christi Road. In 1880, a Company of nine Texas Rangers under the command of Thomas L. Oglesby had a camp in San Diego. Three years later, former Ranger Paulino Coy, who had been under Oglesby’s command in San Diego, accompanied by two other Rangers, killed Esquivel De Los Santos while executing a warrant. Four months later Coy, again accompanied by two Rangers, killed Cristóbal Salinas who allegedly had shot at one of the Rangers at a rancho near Concepción.

In November 1886, during the political battles between the Botas and Huaraches, Rangers were sent to Duval County to keep order on Election Day. In 1888, the Rangers arrested Catarino Garza in Realitos on a charge of libel. Garza had made a name for himself in South Texas, from Eagle Pass to Corpus Christi, with his intense opposition to Mexican President Porfirio Diaz as well as his defense of the rights of Mexican Americans. A large crowd gathered, and Rangers chained Garza to prevent the rangers from killing him trying to escape and being charged with murder as had been in a case from Rio Grande City heard in Duval County. The Rangers were very active in Duval County during Catarino Garza’s revolutionary efforts.

Catarino Garza

As the new century dawned, the Rangers’ activities in Duval County did not wane. In 1901, Texas Rangers shot and killed Pablo Flores, a suspected bootlegger, at his home. An inquest concluded that Flores had fired at the Rangers first, thus clearing the Rangers of wrongdoing. The Rangers were also called to investigate and assist local law enforcement on two highly charged assassinations in San Diego. In 1907, Rangers assisted the local sheriff in the investigation of the murder of John Cleary, the longtime Democratic Tax Assessor involved in a hotly contested reelection race. In 1912, the Rangers were again sent to Duval County by the governor to help with the investigation of the assassination of three Mexican American leaders by three Anglo Americans. The following year the governor asked Texas Rangers to go to Duval County to investigate “flouting of liquor laws in San Diego.”

The Rangers next played a role in tampering down the 1915 irredentist plot concocted in San Diego, which called for Mexicans to rise in revolt and retake the land lost by Mexico in the Mexican American War and create a new nation in the American Southwest. The Plan of San Diego was signed in San Diego by a group of Mexican expatriates living in exile in San Diego. Several had connections to San Diego. Ironically, none of the violence that sprung from attempts to implement the Plan of San Diego took place in the town that bore its name. The Rangers most likely played a role in the arrest of two San Diego men, Manuel Flores and Anatolio González whose names were the same as two of the signers of the Plan. The two were released after authorities realized they had the wrong men. The Texas Rangers were said to have executed as many as 100 and perhaps as many as 300 Mexican “bandits” throughout South Texas because of the Plan of San Diego.

Archie Parr and the Rangers were not on friendly terms. While ordinarily, the Rangers supported the power structure, in Parr’s case they supported the landowners trying to depose him. Parr had no need for the Rangers, who had a poor record in dealing with his Mexican American constituents.

Archie Parr

Despite the Plan of San Diego origins, Mexican Americans in San Diego and Duval County appeared content with their station in life. Anglo Americans, however, were fleeing to Corpus Christi. In 1915, the Corpus Christi Caller reported that only thirteen Anglo Americans remained in San Diego. “Mexicans” in San Diego were said to be “armed and buying ammunition in large quantities.” The Army headquartered in Brownsville ordered five soldiers to San Diego, and the Ranger captain stationed in Alice claimed that he had a request for Rangers in San Diego. Duval political boss Parr, however, asked the Army to remove its detachment from San Diego and opposed the governor’s appointment of a Texas Ranger in Duval County. Parr said there was no need for Rangers in Duval County; that his political opponents wanted the Rangers there to harass “our people.” And Parr may have been on to something as complaints reached the governor “that Rangers were not needed to cover elections in ‘white communities’ like Corpus Christi but should be sent to Mexican towns like San Diego.” Indeed in 1915 Rangers spent three weeks in San Diego giving cover to Anglo Americans seeking an investigation into the financial records of Duval County.

In the 1918 Senatorial election Rangers ostensibly came to Duval County to help Parr’s opponent. In the process, the Rangers “told Hispanic voters that they would go to jail if they were illiterate and tried to vote.” Parr won the Democratic Primary, but his opponent ran a write-in campaign in November, during which Rangers “supervised the voting in Hispanic precincts in Duval, Cameron, Hidalgo, Nueces, and Starr counties.” After the election, two Rangers reportedly got drunk and threatened the life of a Duval County Constable. Another San Diego resident, Virginia Yaeger complained to the House-Senate committee investigating the Rangers that Rangers were a “lawless breed of highwayman” who had abused her and had abused Mexican Americans.

At the start of World War I when many Mexicans and some Mexican Americans returned to Mexico to avoid the draft, Rangers played free and loose with the law. Jesus Villareal of Duval County told investigators looking into Ranger malfeasance that Rangers tortured him because they wanted him to confess to transporting draft dodgers across the border. Villareal who was the elected Constable for Duval County Precinct 7 said the Rangers tortured him by suffocation and pistol-whipped him.

16 COMMENTSON "LOS PINCHES RINCHES"

Graciela | May 28, 2019 at 8:55 am | Reply
I hope you DO publish your thesis! I’d be very interested in purchasing it.

cardenas.ae@gmail.com | May 28, 2019 at 1:05 pm | Reply
Thank you, Graciela. I will keep this under consideration but right now I’m focused on finishing a project long in the making. I am writing a nineteenth-century history of Duval County. That has to remain my focus for a while. Thanks again.

Mauricio Gonzalez | February 6, 2019 at 6:45 pm | Reply
Insightful! According to a family legend, my grandfather’s grandfather, Tomás Rodríguez Benavides, shot a Texas Ranger in Zapata County, defending a relative’s property. As a result, he lived in exile in Ciudad Guerrero, Tamaulipas until his mysterious death about 1901. I researched the legend and wrote about it in my book My Grandfather’s Grandfather: Tomás Rodríguez Benavides.

cardenas.ae@gmail.com | February 12, 2019 at 12:16 pm | Reply
Thank you, Mauricio. Sounds like an interesting story. Going to have to make time to read your book.

Ester Salinas Flores | February 5, 2019 at 11:45 pm | Reply
My father Ramiro Villarreal Salinas was born in Concepcion Texas to Gabino and Ester Salinas, In 1925. I’m wondering if Cristibol Salinas was related.

cardenas.ae@gmail.com | February 6, 2019 at 1:32 pm | Reply
Thank you, Ester. Don’t know if they are related.

Johnny O. Limon | February 5, 2019 at 9:22 am | Reply
Very interesting. This history is probably one of the reasons why the State Board Of Education didn’t want Mexican American History taught in our schools in Texas. FINALLY, 2018, THANKS TO OUR SCHOLARS who have continued the fight to include it,it can be taught but only in school districts that “want to” . Hmmm.

cardenas.ae@gmail.com | February 5, 2019 at 10:00 am | Reply
Thank you, Johnny. I will continue to do what I can to fill in the huge holes of our untold history.

Delilah Salinas | February 5, 2019 at 9:04 am | Reply
I hope you DO publish your thesis! Excellent!

cardenas.ae@gmail.com | February 5, 2019 at 9:58 am | Reply
Thank you, Delilah. I will make note of how many people want to see my Master’s Thesis published and decide what to do later.

Juan R. Gutierrez Rivera | February 5, 2019 at 2:03 am | Reply
Good info. Growing up in San Diego, my grand Father by the name Of Eugenio Gutierrez circa. 1915-16 had his pic. Taken with a revolver on his hip, I don’t know if that pic means any thing in terms of his involvement with the law enforcement or just someone who was looking over his family and safety! A close family of His was a Pedro Saezns who was killed after some one was running for a county office was murdered! Along your research do these names come to your memory would love to know! Thanks

cardenas.ae@gmail.com | February 5, 2019 at 9:57 am | Reply
Thank you, Juan. I do not have any information on Eugenio Gutierrez. As for Saenz, his name was Candelario–Pedro was his son, see the first paragraph in this blog: https://www.soydeduval.com/2016/11/politics-dominated-courthouse-activities/
This story is a major piece of Duval County’s history that hopefully someday soon I will treat it with more detail.

Bob Tamplet | February 4, 2019 at 2:27 pm | Reply
It’s always great to learn something new about Duval County, the residents and the socio-political climate and events at the time. Very good read, Sir.

cardenas.ae@gmail.com | February 5, 2019 at 9:52 am | Reply
Thank you, Bob. Glad you enjoyed it.

Juan Alejandro | February 4, 2019 at 11:40 am | Reply
Greetings,
I would love to read your Thesis!! Do you plan to publish it for us to read in its entirety?