The Secret War In El Paso

Winner of the 2010 Spur Award for Best Contemporary Nonfiction from Western Writers of America The Mexican Revolution could not have succeeded without the use of American territory as a secret base of operations, a source of munitions, money, and volunteers, a refuge for personnel, an arena for propaganda, and a market for revolutionary loot. El Paso, the largest and most important American city on the Mexican border during this time, was the scene of many clandestine operations as American businesses and the U.S. federal government sought to maintain their influences in Mexico and protect national interest while keeping an eye on key Revolutionary figures. In addition, the city served as refuge to a cast of characters that included revolutionists, adventurers, smugglers, gunrunners, counterfeiters, propagandists, secret agents, double agents, criminals, and confidence men. Using 80,000 pages of previously classified FBI documents on the Mexican Revolution and hundreds of Mexican secret agent reports from El Paso and Ciudad Juarez in the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Relations archive, Charles Harris and Louis Sadler examine the mechanics of rebellion in a town where factional loyalty was fragile and treachery was elevated to an art form. As a case study, this slice of El Paso's, and America's, history adds new dimensions to what is known about the Mexican Revolution.

The El Paso Salt War of 1877 has gone down in history as the spontaneous action of a mindless rabble, but as author Paul Cool deftly demonstrates, the episode was actually an insurgency, the product of a deliberate, community-based decision squarely in the tradition of the American nation s original fight for self-government. The Pasenos (local Mexican Americans) had held common ownership of the immense salt lakes at the base of the Guadalupe Mountains since the time of Spanish rule. They believed their title was confirmed in the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo. However, to the American businessmen who saw in the white expanse a cash crop that could make them rich in the years following the American Civil War, ownership appeared up for grabs. After years of struggle among Anglo politicians and speculators eager to seize the lakes, an Austin banker staked a legal claim in 1877, and his son-in-law, Charles Howard, started to enforce it. Cool chronicles the ensuing popular uprising that disrupted established governmental authority in El Paso for twelve weeks. Unique features of this pioneering book include the author s employment of previously untapped sources and the first thorough and systematic use of familiar ones, notably the government report El Paso Troubles in Texas, to create this detailed study of the war. First-person accounts from reports and newspaper items create a landmark day-by-day account of the San Elizario battle, including the location of the Texas Ranger positions. This fast-paced account not only corrects the record of this historical episode but will also resonate in the context of today s racial and ethnic tensions along the U.S.-Mexico border."

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On June 18, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson called up virtually the entire army National Guard, some 150,000 men, to meet an armed threat to the United States: border raids covertly sponsored by a Mexican government in the throes of revolution. The Great Call-Up tells for the first time the complete story of this unprecedented deployment and its significance in the history of the National Guard, World War I, and U.S.-Mexico relations. Often confused with the regular-army operation against Pancho Villa and overshadowed by the U.S. entry into World War I, the great call-up is finally given due treatment here by two premier authorities on the history of the Southwest border. Marshaling evidence drawn from newspapers, state archives, reports to Congress, and War Department documents, Charles H. Harris III and Louis R. Sadler trace the call-up’s state-based deployment from San Antonio and Corpus Christi, along the Texas and Arizona borders, to California. Along the way, they tell the story of this mass mobilization by examining each unit as it was called up by state, considering its composition, missions, and internal politics. Through this period of intensive training, the Guard became a truly cohesive national, then international, force. Some units would even go directly from U.S. border service to the battlefields of World War I France, remaining overseas until 1919. Balancing sweeping change over time with a keen eye for detail, The Great Call-Up unveils a little-known yet vital chapter in American military history.

Gregorio Montoya does not want to become involved but when the Mexicans challenge Charlie Howard's authority to place a tariff on the pure white crystals of salt that nature has deposited in the dry lakes at the foot of Guadalupe Peak, he cannot help himself. He risks everything, including his future with Maria. Even the infamous Billy the Kid tries to keep Gregorio out of trouble, but it is to no avail. Although acceptable under American law, the Mexicans feel that no one person should own a mineral deposit that is supposed to be for everyone. It should stay as it was under Spanish law—the commodity was placed there by God and is free to whoever wants to haul it to market. For generations, it is the way Mexican peasants obtain cash when the Rio Grande River washes out their crops or the locusts come. Whenever their harvests fail, they travel the seventy miles for cart loads of the crystals. A newly organized Texas Ranger detachment tries to stop the onrush of battle, but, for the first and only time in Texas history, the commander surrenders to the enemy, and Judge Charles Howard, along with two of his confederates, is executed by the mob. The three executions end the skirmish and send Gregorio and Maria fleeing into Mexico.

This report was most important for the opening of travel and settlement in West Texas and New Mexico. By these explorations a supply and potential railroad route was surveyed across West Texas, and this became the main passageway for soldiers, settlers and gold seekers. The surveyors were pleased with what they saw, pointing out the large population which could be supported in the Rio Grande Valley, as well as the strategic importance of El Paso. The Simpson report is one of the first thorough surveys in New Mexico. Related to it are the many handsome plates, as well as one of the maps. The other map shows the routes across Texas. The plates with the Simpson report make it an important American color plate book.