Jan. 28, 1918, in the early morning hours armed men entered
the homes of the farmers in small border town of Porvenir and took 15 men aged
14 to 72 out to the edge of town and shot them to death, riddling their bodies
with bullets and then rode away.
These were Texas Rangers, and they had a taken it upon
themselves to be judge, jury and execution of these men because there were
rumors they had been part of bandit raid on the Brite Ranch a few miles to the
south. Both Porvenir and the ranch were on the Texas side of the Rio Grande
River which acts as the border between the two countries. While the killings
and raid were in Texas, the victims of the massacre had family and friends on
the Mexico side and that is where the other residents of Porvenir ran when
leaving the town behind.
Over the next few days, they came back and collected their
dead, buried them and gathered anything they owned that was left behind on the
night of the raid. They also began talking and spreading the story of what
happened.
The Rangers tried to cover up the massacre with reports that
the men killed ere bandits hiding in the brush and they had been fired on from
the dark. They also described the residents of Porvenir as “thieves, informers,
spies, and murderers.” They tried to connect the dead to the former border
raider Poncho Villa, who had moved to a hacienda in the southern part of the Chihuahua
state and who was trying to negotiate a peace settlement and amnesty with Mexican
interim President Adolfo de la Huerta. There was no evidence of Villa’s involvement
in the Brite Ranch raid or any other recent border incursions.
The Mexican government initiated an investigation of their own
into the incident in early February. The Mexican government made an official
protest of the incident to the United States Department. The Eighth U.S.
Cavalry Regiment also started an investigation as they rode with the rangers
that night but had not been involved in the search of the town or the shooting.
However they retuned to the town a few days later and burned it to the ground.
The school master of the tiny village Harry Warren wrote an
account of the massacre, summarized the events in great detail, one of his
students had went to him in the early morning for assistance. It was Warren who
recorded the names of the victims.
Congressional Representative José T. Canales of Brownsville
demanded a legislative investigation into the conduct of the Ranger forces and
called for a reorganization of the force. All of these investigations also
showed there was no evidence implicating the Porvenir villagers in the
cattle raids.
Face with mounting pressure and conclusive evidence. The villagers
were innocent Texas Governor William Pettus Hobby disbanded Company B
of the Texas Rangers, firing 5 rangers and transferring another 5. The
commander of the company Captain Monroe Fox reacted badly to this writing letters
justifying what his men had done and restating that only bandits had been
killed in Porvenir. Fox accused the governor of giving in to pressure from the
Mexican government and accused Hobby of playing politics to secure the Mexican
vote in future elections.
Relations between Mexico and the United States were in a
period of flux and Secretary of State Robert Lansing was working hard to open
relations and trade to a larger degree so he was in full support Hobby’s actions.
Fox resigned his commission with the Rangers in June after the
Governor attempted to transfer him to a desk job in Austin. The legislature followed
Hobby’s lead and more reforms, including a reduction of the Ranger force to four
companies, and higher wages to attract and retain good men. Fox’s career with
the Rangers was not over, but he never again saw Ranger duty along the border
again either.
No criminal charges were ever filed against the Rangers
involved in the Porvenir massacre but there were civil lawsuits in the following
years. In June 1926, eight years after the event, Mexican attorneys filed
twelve separate claims against the United States regarding the Porvenir
massacre. Which resulted in treaty where victims of state violence filed
claims through the U.S.–Mexico General Claims Commission. The Mexican and U.S.
governments bilaterally created the commission to settle many claims of both
Mexican and U.S. nationals arising between July 4, 1868, and the start of the
commission.
Survivors and their descendants kept the story alive in their
families until 2009 when they started working towards getting a memorial, which
was placed by the state on the 100th anniversary in 2018.
Sources:
https://www.porvenirmassacre.org/
https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/porvenir-massacre
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