The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 57, July 1953 - April, 1954 Page: 286
585 p. : ill., maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
Internal strife in Mexico had brought near-chaos to the border
areas between 1910o and 1915. Francisco Madero, who had over-
thrown the dictatorial Porfirio Diaz regime in 1911, had been
violently displaced by Victoriano Huerta in 1913; Huerta in turn
was soon confronted with a major revolution led by Venustiano
Carranza and supported by Francisco Villa and Emiliano Zapata.
The Carranza-led Constitutionalists forced Huerta to abandon
his government and flee in mid-1914, but the victors soon fell to
quarrelling among themselves, and by late 1914 the country was
in the midst of a devastating struggle. Carranza's forces, main-
taining a tenuous control over that part of Mexico opposite the
Lower Rio Grande Valley as far north as Del Rio, were unable
to police the area effectively; and Villa, presumably in control of
the remainder of the Mexican border region fronting on Texas
and New Mexico, was only slightly more successful than his enemy
in the task of preventing breaches of the peace. The absence of
effective law enforcement encouraged lawbreakers; all along the
border, in late 1914 and early 1915, highly profitable gun-running
was so well established that it occasioned little comment, while
raiding across the river into Texas territory increased significantly.
But the absence of law and order in Mexico was not the only
stimulus for raids and other depredations along the Texas border.
The Mexican Revolution itself was essentially a movement of the
masses for equality and recognition; as such it encouraged people
of Mexican extraction everywhere to assert their rights and to
demand respect. The Mexican nationals living in Texas, added
to the Texans of Mexican origins, constituted a majority of the
total population of the border area but were the victims of preju-
dice and contempt on the part of their Anglo-American neigh-
bors. Guided by the apparently egalitarian movements led by
Madero, Carranza, and Villa, the people of Latin origins became
restive under the discrimination practiced by private individuals
and by state and local officials. Furthermore, a strong anti-Amer-
ican feeling, fostered by the nationalistic flavor of the revolution
and by the intemperate actions of some Americans in Mexico,2
'Weekly reports by the Commanding General, Southern Department, to the
Adjutant General of the Army attest to these conditions. These reports are in the
National Archives.
2Including Henry Lane Wilson, who had been the Ambassador to Mexico until
recalled by President Woodrow Wilson in 1913.286
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 57, July 1953 - April, 1954, periodical, 1954; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101152/m1/365/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.