Tracking the Texas Rangers: The Twentieth Century

2. Cowboys and Bandidos: Authority and Race in West Texas, 1913-1918

50 ★ 2 ★ Cowboys and Bandidos: Authority and Race in West Texas, 1913–1918 Miguel A. Levario I n the shadow of the Mexican Revolution a separate battle was raging along the Texas-Mexican borderlands. The Texas Rangers , rancher vigilantes, and Mexican residents along the border were violently engaged in a regionally based struggle that was individualistic and highly racialized. Bandit gangs and posses comprised of mostly civilian ranchers and law enforcement officials engaged in a complex cycle of vengeance, distrust, and pride that wounded each side and resulted in a divided community.1 Much of the current scholarship regarding banditry along the border during the Revolution places the narrative within the larger context of the conflict and the political agendas of state and federal governments on both sides of the boundary.2 However, as this study will show, many of the ranch raids and violent encounters between ­ bandidos and state and local law enforcement addressed local wrongs and sought specific retributive acts that later transcended into fullfledged racial warfare. By utilizing a regional scope an explanation of banditry and the execution of justice along the border, a clearer understanding of social relations will be revealed. Cowboys and Bandidos: Authority and Race in West Texas, 1913–1918 ★ 51 In West Texas the violent relationship between Texas Ranger Joe Sitters and so-called bandit Chico Cano symbolized the overall conflict evident throughout the Texas-Mexican border. Joe Sitters worked as a Texas Ranger in the Big Bend region, and had come to know Chico Cano. Because of his intense hatred for Cano, Sitters accused the Mexican of every ranch raid or wrong doing that occurred in the area. Cano fought a number of skirmishes with the Rangers, sheriffs, and ranchmen along the border partly as a result of his reputation as a bandit that Sitters promoted.3 The personal feud climaxed when Chico Cano killed Joe Sitters and blood oaths were taken by the Texas Rangers in avenging the death of their comrade. However, the reprisal of Sitters’ death was compounded by violent ranch raids and complicated relations between Anglos and Mexicans as the Texas Rangers became the state’s principal law enforcement body on the border at the turn of the twentieth century. Moreover, Ranger battles with Mexican bandit gangs transcended into full fledged racialized conflict and disrupted the law and order shared by both Anglo and Mexican residents. This study discusses the historical context of social relations between the Texas Rangers and the Mexican community in West Texas during the Mexican Revolution. Specific attention is given to the retributive acts between bandits, the Texas Rangers, and rancher vigilantes that resulted in the racialized grouping of Mexicans as the enemy “other.” A closer review of retaliatory acts committed by both Anglos and Mexicans in West Texas will not only provide a better understanding of social relations in the shadow of the Mexican Revolution , but underscore vengeance as a catalyst to the bitter battle between so-called Mexican bandits and Anglo authority figures. Lastly, a closer look at the role of vigilantism in the region will demonstrate that violence in West Texas assumed a regional character by focusing on local wrongs that forced the direct and indirect participation of innocent civilians. Moreover, the cycle of violence transcended the inner sanctum of law enforcement officers and suspected bandits and incorporated civilian posses and innocent victims. The grouping of Mexicans as the common foreign enemy by law enforcement offi- 52 ★ Tracking the Texas Rangers: The Twentieth Century cials and vigilante ranchers further alienated the community from the main fabric of society. The story of authority in West Texas at the turn of the twentieth century is intimately tied to the development of social relations between the United States and Mexico and, more specifically Anglos and Mexicans. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the cultural and social structure of the West Texas-Mexico borderlands experienced an intrusion of outside forces, including the Texas Rangers, the U.S. military, and Anglo entrepreneurs, that would complicate social relations within the state and, more specifically, between Anglos and Mexicans from both sides of the international line.4 Compounded with the social and political ideals of the Mexican Revolution and a legacy of injustices committed by Anglos on Mexican residents in Texas, vengeance for specific wrongs emerged as the catalyst to the violence between Anglos and Mexicans.5 These often personal vendettas transcended into racialized...