Texas Ranger History Out of Context
I’m about to serve you up a big slice of historical context that’s omitted by activist scholars. And I want you to understand what’s exceptional about this context before we get on with it.
Whenever I call out sloppy or dishonest scholarship, the scholars seldom defend their work. They don’t refute the points I make. Instead, I get what I saw from this week from Dr. Benjamin Johnson of Chicago’s Loyola University. To paraphrase Dr. Johnson: “Who is more reliable? Us or you? Our scholarship has been good enough for Yale, Harvard, Brown, U.T. etc. ” (Credentialism at its finest, folks!)
That it’s “good” enough to be rubber stamped by other like-minded professors doesn’t make it solid.
Dr. Johnson further informed me that their scholarship is good enough for the entities that give them grant money. Texas History Trust doesn’t have the support of huge grant-making institutions that cater exclusively to the Ph.D. crowd. We don’t have the multi-billion dollar endowments of the Ivy League or U.T. to prop us up, either.
Understand that the context we provide is fueled 100% by your support. This context is our context. Without you, there would be no pushback against any of this. No research. No writing. No video production. No other viewpoint.
That really hits home for me when someone sneers down at me from the Ivory Tower to remind me of how well-funded the shoddy scholarship he represents is.
This time, you’ve helped us to dig into the anti-Ranger scholarship that’s being pushed by the Texas media and our universities. A group of scholars—some historians, some English professors—who call themselves Refusing to Forget have a narrow scope of study that is figuring into the Texas Ranger Bicentennial year. They focus on the killing of Mexicans/Mexican-Americans by Texas Rangers during the Mexican Revolution. They tie this to current events at the border and to modern police brutality cases.
Yes, some Texas Rangers did kill some innocent Mexicans during that turbulent time. Nobody denies that. There was a guerilla war raging on the border and innocent people were killed on both sides.
How do these scholars present their case? Do they have evidence to make solid claims? We break down the claims they make on their website, piece by piece. Let’s get into it!
CLAIM: A quote from a 1915 newspaper article is evidence that mass executions by the Texas Rangers and others were rampant.
CLAIM: A 1916 petition by frightened citizens of Kingsville is proof of the same.
CLAIM: A quote from another 1915 newspaper article is evidence that violence was celebrated and welcomed at the highest levels of society and government.
CLAIM: Prominent politicians of the day proposed putting people of Mexican descent into concentration camps and killing those who wouldn’t go.
CLAIM: 100 to 5,000 innocent people of Mexican descent were killed by the Rangers.
CLAIM: An influx of oppressive Anglo farmers to the Rio Grande Valley kicked off the violence in the border region.
CLAIM: The Plan of San Diego gave Anglos an excuse to repress and kill people of Mexican descent, and “only a handful” of Anglos were killed under the Plan.
CLAIM: The Tandy Station train attack was just a “dramatic train derailment” that prompted Texas Rangers to kill eight Mexicans.
CLAIM: Ranger Captain Henry Ransom casually shot two Hispanic men as they simply rode past the site where a raid had occurred.
CLAIM: Gen. Funston was so alarmed by the extralegal violence, he threatened to put South Texas under martial law to restrain the Rangers and local law enforcement.
CLAIM: Two men were disappeared by Rangers in May 1916 after being arrested in Kingsville.
CLAIM: When the U.S. entered WWI, more Rangers were called into service, causing more repression of Mexican Americans.
CLAIM: In 1918, the Rangers “participated in an unprecedented assault on Mexican-American voting rights.”
CLAIM: One victim of Ranger violence was hanged by the neck…twice.
CLAIM: Ranger historian, Walter Prescott Webb, only gave five words of acknowledgement to this violent period.
CLAIM: The Texas media, in 1910, was decrying racial violence committed by the Texas Rangers.
CLAIM: The Plan of San Diego was a triumph of the Mexican-American spirit.
CONCLUSION: Here are the takeaways from analysis of this public history presented by well-funded folks with degrees from Yale, Harvard, Stanford, and U.T., who are championed by the Texas media.
As always, I leave it to you to research, explore and decide where you stand on these events once you’ve seen them in their full context. And, as always, I join my Board of Directors in thanking you for making it possible for us to get context into the public eye so that everyone may decide.
