Murder and Intrigue on the Mexican Border: Governor Colquitt, President Wilson and the Vergara Affair by John Adams Jr (review)

In February 1914, Clemente Vergara, a South Texas rancher, was found murdered, hanging from a tree outside of Hidalgo, Mexico. A few days earlier, Vergara had crossed the border to confront Mexican soldiers over the theft of his horses. The soldiers, loyal to Mexican president Victoriano Huerta, kidnapped and beat Vergara before killing him. Vergara’s death, though tragic, was not uncommon, as an estimated five hundred Americans were murdered in Mexico during the revolution. In Murder and Intrigue on the Mexican Border, John Adams Jr. takes this historically forgotten murder and argues for its importance as “an international incident” that “would take the United States and Texas to the brink of hostile actions with Mexico” (96).

While previous deaths of United States citizens in Mexico had raised concerns within the U.S. government, it was the timing and circumstances of Vergara’s death that caused President Woodrow Wilson’s administration to react. Adams states, “Unlike those that were killed prior to him, the Vergara kidnapping and murder was no accident or routine affair” (98). Since the assassination of Mexican president Francisco Madero in 1913, the Wilson administration had struggled to determine which revolutionary faction it should support to best protect U.S. and British economic interests in Mexico—those of Federalist military dictator Huerta, who organized the coup against Madero, or the Constitutionalist forces of Venustiano Carranza. Adams brings to light how these conflicting choices surfaced in the Vergara Affair. There is strong evidence to suggest that Vergara was involved in border smuggling and spying to help the Constitutionalists from his Webb County ranch, while Laredo sheriff and Webb County political boss, Amador Sánchez, was a known supporter of the Federalists. This dichotomy between Vergara and Sánchez created a quandary for Texas Governor Oscar Colquitt, who wanted to use Vergara’s death to bolster his calls for U.S. intervention in Mexico even though he had ties to Sánchez’s South Texas political machine.

In the end, Vergara’s murderers were never brought to justice, and two months after his death, the U.S. military began its occupation of Veracruz. Adams places Vergara’s murder in the context of the tense period of U.S.–Mexico relations leading to U.S. intervention. However, Adams’s own evidence suggests that Vergara’s death only received the attention that it did because it occurred a week before the killing of British rancher William Benton by Pancho Villa and his men. As Adams states, “The Wilson administration seemed to be more concerned with the William S. Benton murder and the relationship with the British than with the Vergara murder near Laredo” (115). Though the book’s title implies that it is mainly about the Vergara Affair, the affair itself is not fully discussed until nearly three-fourths of the way through this short study (140 pages).

Although the Vergara Affair itself is something of a red herring, Adams does a masterful job of summarizing the complex web of international financial and political intrigue in Mexico during the revolution. He draws out the conflicts between American, European, and Japanese interests in Mexico. Adams also highlights the deep economic investments maintained by Texas political and economic elites in Mexico that are often ignored or skimmed over in similar studies. During this period, Adams argues, Wilson had a difficult time balancing these competing interests at a time when his health was declining. Adams’s valuable research would be better served by a reframing of the book’s main subject along these lines. Readers of Texas and borderlands history will find much of interest in this book, however, which is suitable for use in undergraduate courses on Texas history.