a Brief History of Lynching Against Mexicans in the US

The Tuskegee Institure’s definition of lynching is as follows: There must be legal evidence that a person was killed. That person must have met death illegally. A group of three or more persons must have participated in the killing. The group must have acted under the pretext of service to justice, race or tradition. Following that, the amount of lynchings against Mexicans in the US from 1848 to 1928 is at least 548. 

In this episode, Cristina tells Carmen about the history of lynchings against Mexicans in the US. This is part one of a mini series discussing this dark chapter in US history. Listen with care. In the next episode, Cristina will discuss the lynching of Josefa in California. 

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Music Credit: Hustlin (Instrumental) by Neffex

This episode was edited by Bex Carlos & Alex Rogpe

Sources

https://southernspaces.org/2018/review-lynching-mexicans-texas-borderlands/
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-texas-rangers-good-guys-no-more/
Lynching in the West: 1850-1935 (a John Hope Franklin Center Book)by Ken Gonzales-Day
The Injustice Never Leaves You: Anti-Mexican Violence in Texas by Monica Munoz Martinez
Unspeakable Violence: Remapping U.S. and Mexican National Imaginaries (Latin America Otherwise)
Forgotten Dead: Mob Violence against Mexicans in the United States, 1848-1928
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greaser_Act#:~:text=The%20original%20title%20of%20the,potential%20avenues%20of%20employment%20for
https://bajaarizonahistory.org/filibuster-on-the-sonoita/

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hi, everyone. This is Carmen and Christina and this is
The Studas Unknown, a podcast where we talk about Latin
American history. Sometimes it's horrible and it deals with heavy
topics like racism, corruption, at genocide. But more than that,
it's also by resistance, power and community. Christina, what are
we talking about today today? Is depressing? It's very depressing. Wow,

(00:30):
And there is no nothing uplifting about this episode. So really,
I don't think so. After I finished my notes, I
don't think so strength based. I'll try to find something. Okay,
I'm probably gonna forget that I said that, but yeah,
go on. So we didn't learn this in school, and
this is a line that we say a little too much.
We should have put that in the Bengo card. Yeah,

(00:51):
you're right, because yeah, it comes up a little too much.
And I can speak to our experience in Modesto Modesta,
California High school history class. Right, they didn't talk about
what I'm going to talk about today when it pertains
to Mexicans, but they did talk about it when it
pertains to black people. Because there's just some things that
cannot simply be ignored, Like they cannot not talk about

(01:12):
the enslavement of black people in history. They can't skip
Jim Crow even though they try, and we get like
the MENI version of it, right, and then also like
mom violence and lynchings of black people, right, it's not
taught in detail, but we know it happened. Yeah, maybe
some places is not taught anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
I don't know what the situation. I was gonna say.
In some places they're teaching that enslaved people like being enslaved,
so right, So if that's the case, they're probably skipping
over lynchings. But we you and I, we did learn
about lynchings, especially because you learn about it in the
frame of fiction through To Kill a Mockingbird. Yeah, because
that's a book everyone has to read. I think fiction

(01:51):
is important though, because yeah, we do learn a lot
of things about well historical fiction through do that. And
just because it's fiction doesn't mean that it didn't happened
or things like that didn't happen. I mean not In
some places you only learn the fiction version of it
without learning yeah, this really did happen to people. And
also because the ticular Mockybird to me also is very
like white savior point of view.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
From the Lawyer.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
That's true, but I think it's still important book to teach, right,
we still need Yeah, that that part is true in
English classes, especially like the way they frame it and
the discussions you have when you read and the essays
you write, Yeah about it. It's not just like reading it,
you know. I think there's like a lot to learn
from there. It'd be nice to also address it. And

(02:37):
this is too asking too much, but to also address
it in a history class at the same time. Yeah,
that you're reading, but that's too much. That's too much.
And that's really the extent of learning about lynching in
the United States unless you go to higher education, write,
or you seek it out yourself later. Yeah, right, like
where we did for this episode. Yeah, the subject of

(02:58):
lynching in the un is only discussed in the concept
of black people, black Americans. But we don't need to
say that. The amount of lyncians they face is obscene, like, right,
it's insane and horrible and horrific. Almost everything relating to
race is taught in a black and white like, right,
and everyone else is it kind of ignored? That's very true, right, Yeah,

(03:21):
And that applies to lynchings too, because in the United States.
Indigenous people, Mexicans, Asians, and even Irish people until they
were considered considered white were all lynched for different reasons.
But the group most targeted after black people with lynchings
were Mexicans or just people with Hispanic lassings because during

(03:44):
this time period, even though it wasn't just Mexicans, everyone
was considered to Mexican. Right, even now they still try
to do that, so, right, they still do that. Yeah,
And that's what today's topic is, the history of lynchings
of Mexicans in the US. And over the next two
or three episodes, well, the next one I want to
go into specific cases of lynchings, and then the one

(04:04):
after that, I want to focus on Texas specifically because
that place was an insane Yeah, I mean even the
whole creation of Texas a state in itself, right, like
I think that it, yeah, lends itself to not lend
itself it It makes sense that the most lynchings of
Mexicans happened there to me, right, and so yeah, in
this episode, I want to set up the context of

(04:27):
how Mexicans the situation they were living in in California,
and I guess not just California, but mostly California, and
the context in which these lynchings were happening, Like what
was going on in that lit up to this, the
history of you know, this timeframe. I am skipping over though,
the violence of the Spanish towards indigenous people. That's another

(04:47):
topic right now, Like it's Mexicans facing this violence from
Anglo settlers, but we know there was a lot of
violence also from the Spanish toward indigenous people, but that
were not you know, going over that today, focusing on that. Yeah, today,
mostly California, though I'm talking a little bit about other places.
Texas is going to have its own episode because I

(05:09):
can't talk about lynchings in Texas without talking about a
group responsible for hundreds of lynchings in Texas that were
then considered legal lynchings and weren't counted as lynchings, the
Texas Rangers. I was going to guess, and yeah, that's
going to be its own episode. But the number of
lynchings on Mexicans in the US is contested. One of
the books I read for research Forgotten Dead mob violence

(05:31):
against Mexicans in the United States offers the following numbers
for the years eighteen forty eight to nineteen twenty eight,
five hundred forty eight lynchings. Wow, eighteen forty eight to
when eighteen forty eight to nineteen twenty eight eighty years. Yeah,
When you expand the definition of vigilante justice to include
like what would have been legal lynchings like those by

(05:54):
the Texas Rangers Bush were considered legal, that number five
hundred forty eight goes up to several thousands, because that's
how many Mexicans the Texas Rangers were killing legally, and
they're trying to bring that back, y'all. One could argue
that police shootings are modern day lynchings of black people

(06:14):
and Mexicans or Latino people, and one would be correct
in saying that. So besides these modern day you know, lynchings,
they're also trying to bring back like vigilante justice or whatever. Like, right,
didn't they just some state passed like a thing where
they're adding on like militia groups to act as border patrol. Yeah,
I forgot which state, but yeah, pro Texes is probably

(06:37):
Texas and Arizona probably both. Yeah, And when you lump
in indigenous people with Mexicans, that number grows even more
because that happened too, especially during the Yaqui Wars, which
the Yaqui people face state violence by both the US
government and the Mexican government. Man, and they're here today,
and that is resistance. Yes, thank you. But the Yaki Wars,

(07:00):
that's going to be a topic for another day. I
already added it to our list and one of the
books I use it. All of the sources are listed
in the show notes. But one of the books I
use does have a toll chapter on the Yankey Wars,
and we did talk a little bit about them in
the Terre Saura episode as well. Okay, but before talking
about the mass lynchings of Mexicans in the US, I

(07:21):
need to set up some context.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
First.

Speaker 1 (07:26):
Let's define lynching by using the Tuskegee Institute's definition, because
it's the most accepted one. So there must be legal
evidence that a person was killed. That person must have
met death illegally. A group of three or more persons
must have participated in the killing. The group must have
acted under the pretext of service to justice, race, or tradition.
That part is the most like essential partner. There So,

(07:49):
the first documented use of the term lynching in the
US was known as Lynch's Law, which happened in seventeen
eighty in Virginia. General Charles Lynch and his commanders used
Lynch Law to put an end to the Tory conspiracy,
which I didn't know this was the thing. Tories were
British sympathizers during the American Revolution. Oh you knew that. Yeah,

(08:10):
I don't remember how, but yeah, they rolled through Chestnut
Hill Gathering imprisoning the British sympathizers, the Tories, and one
of the more outspoken British sympathizers, John Griffith. John wentn'
shut up about Britain and loving them. He wasn't lynched
in the sense of like being hung up to die,
but in the sense of a public lashing where people
came out to watch. And that's what a Lynch Law was, like,

(08:34):
punishing someone in public like that. Okay, but then this
was expanded to me just the use of military law
by non military personnel, so regular ass people taking justice
into their own hands. And when we think of lynching,
because of the US education system, the South is the
thing that comes to mind for people because yeah, it
was absolutely brutal for black people. There's no denying that.

(08:57):
From eighteen eighty two to nineteen sixty eight. They do,
documented number of lynchings towards black people in the US
is four seven hundred forty three wow, according to the
n double ACP, while the Equal Justice Initiative reports four
eighty four and just twelve Southern states from eighteen seventy
seven to nineteen fifty. Well, that's already more. But historians

(09:20):
all agree, will like credible historians all agree that this
number is like low balling it, yeah, because that's what's documented, right,
and the real number is probably way higher. Those are
all lynchings, all lynchings in the US. And then seventy
five percent of that number is all black victims of lynching. Wow, lynchings.
And when it came to trying to find the number

(09:41):
of Mexican victims of lynching, that's a little trickier because
in some places they only documented black and white people. Again,
like that black and white thing where they don't know
nobody else mattered in between. In these years, other times
Mexicans were counted as white because legally, by law, Mexicans
were white. This was since the age and forty a

(10:02):
Treaty of Guago, the Mexicans who were supposed to count
as white, they were supposed to receive citizenship, but that
didn't matter to the Anglos killing them because they were Mexican, right, Like,
that didn't matter. So that was a little difficult, you know,
keeping track of the Mexicans who were lynched, because sometimes
they weren't counted as Mexican. Some people were just listed
as other. The people who were most well documented after

(10:25):
black people were probably Chinese people because they were the
easiest to identify for the people doing the lynchings. Just
because the treaty said, you know, Mexicans in these states
are US citizens that are considered white, it didn't mean
anything to the Anglos, the Anglo settlers, which is insane
to me because like I don't I feel like I
don't need to say this, but I'm going to any way.
Like they were the people moving to these places where

(10:48):
people were already living California, Texas, to Mexico, Arizona, and
they they arrived at these places and like just talked
matt shit about everyone who was already there. You know,
they got to places like Texas immediately were like, eh,
who are these dirty greasers who were here? They don't
deserve with the same rights we do. It's like, bitch,
who are you?

Speaker 2 (11:08):
Exactly?

Speaker 1 (11:09):
And then like in Texas they created a version of
Jim Crow informally known as Huan Crow. Wow, I didn't
know that me neither. From eighteen ninety three to nineteen
oh five, Texas passed English only laws that segregated Mexicans
from public places like school, stores and pools, which I
did know that well that yeah, I didn't know. They

(11:30):
informally called it quan kuan pro. I had no idiculous
How long have they been using a kuan as a
dumb ass fucking little like insul for everything since they
fucking got to you know what? This shows how unfunny
they are. They've been using the same fucking joke since
what eighteen hundred, We'll see, yeah they late eighteen hundreds. Dumb, unoriginal, bitch,

(11:51):
unoriginal and unfunny. And yeah, this wasn't only in Texas.
Everywhere they were arriving as manifestors of destiny or whatever
the fun They brought this system of beliefs with them
And yeah, manifest destiny and the gold Rush is what
was bringing white people west. They like truly truly believed
it was a god given right, Yeah, they go west.

(12:12):
And the insane part is that we, like again, in
the US school system, we learn about manifest destiny and
how amazing it was supposedly. Dude, I was just gonna say,
we spent so much fucking time learning about fucking manifest destiny,
as if it didn't destroy the environment, as if it
wasn't the enacting or I don't know how you would say,
but as if it wasn't the primary leading cause of genocide,

(12:35):
like this is ridiculous, like and they didn't at all,
as if manifest destiny wasn't what killed all of the buffalos, right,
destroying nature, destroying everything in its path for what gold capitalism, yeap, domination, yeah, colonialism. Yeah,
they brought themselves to these lands that were already someone else's,

(12:58):
and they brought their views with them, also their views
of justice, which was very different than everyone else's, very uh, punitive,
backwards ass bullshit and violent violent h and yeah, I
mean it's the tradition of violence that they've always had,
that they from the inception of this fucking country, the
right to conquer blah blah blah, so on and on.

(13:20):
So they headed west, and yeah, for some reason, They
thought by them heading west, that Natives and Mexicans would
vanish once they arrived. They thought that the world was
theirs and nobody was there, and if they were, they
were akin to animals, you know, in their view, Yes, exactly,
because that brings me to my next literally my next
point in my notes. Okay, go on. When they arrived,

(13:41):
they were like, who are these half breeds, these mongrel Mexicans,
these savage Indians, these half civilized black men. That's how
they refer to Spanish people, half civilized, Like not even
the Spanish would properly picked.

Speaker 2 (13:54):
Not even the Spanish. Europeans were spared.

Speaker 1 (13:57):
They're worse than the Spiolis. Yeah. Yeah, They literally wrote,
the Indian and white races in California must fade away.
With the secession of the former Mexican states during the
Mexican or after the Mexican American War, the you know
that came with the Treaty of Guadalupealgo and the states
these states now belonged to the US. They that belief

(14:19):
that it was a god given right to head to
these new states. It grew and massively, especially when gold
was discovered, and they were like, oh, these are barren
wastelands free for the taking, like no, bitch, They weren't. No.
They were shocked to see natives like indigenous people, Mexicans
and also Chilenos, Peruanos and Chinese people. They were all

(14:43):
they were already there. And it's no surprise that as
more Anglos were arriving, violence towards the other groups only
grew and grew and grew and grew. The most violent
years for Mexicans in these areas were eighteen fifty, which
coincides with the gold Rush eighteen seventy, and nineteen ten
nineteen ten coincidence with the Mexican Revolution eighteen seventy and

(15:04):
monestly not sure about you, who knows what that coincides
with it. We're probably gonna find out when we're doing
research or something else. You're gonna be like, oh, that
was that, Oh that's what? Yeah, for real. And as
they started arriving in California, they didn't understand the local language,
which was Spanish. They only got more violent because they
didn't know what was going on. And then they also
didn't believe that the current justice system that the Spanish

(15:27):
had set up Spanish law, it didn't apply to them
like course everywhere they go. Their answer that Anglo's answer
to crime was death, any crime, death, you steal something dead,
you look at that woman dead like they literally that's
their answer to everything, straight to death, exactly. And this
is why to this day they're so pro death penalty.
Oh yeah. White Evangelicals are the group of people that

(15:50):
believe the most in death penalty, while back in their
ancestral land of England, they didn't even kill people over
theft anymore. They left England but kept all the conservative,
puritan violent ways. Yeah, yeah, but that's.

Speaker 2 (16:06):
Why they left.

Speaker 1 (16:07):
No, you're right, because it was impurison enough and you know, yeah,
and then they came over here with that shit and
I were and we're still suffering, yeah seriously. And yeah,
the Anglos justified hanging people for stealing horses, cattle, anything, anything.
And they claimed that the current just a system was

(16:28):
not efficient and that's why they had to kill people
by hanging them on trees for fun. And they want
to still do that now, oh yeah. And you know,
part of that was a little true because of how
many Anglos were arriving, the existing court system was too
small for the amount of people arriving I see, it
was made for the people who were already there, So
it was their fault in whatever way you look at it,

(16:50):
it was their fault. Yes, it wasn't ready for the
hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of Anglos arriving during the
gold Rush. And yeah, they also believed. The Anglo believed
that these existing courts were favoral to Mexicans and let
them get away with too much. And that's why they
had to take matters into their own hands. Always, always
with their little victim mentality. Yeah, they accused other people

(17:11):
of having but every accusation is a what is that word? Confession? Yes,
but guess what what records of the time show that
existing courts were more likely to punish Quricans than severely
punish them severely when compared to the Anglos. Of course,
of course, Yeah, like that's not surprising at all. Please
you always they want to make up their little persecution. Yeah,

(17:33):
it's all fake always, Oh my god, I'm so matter
ready you.

Speaker 2 (17:36):
Even sat up.

Speaker 1 (17:37):
Yeah, And before the gold Rush, California was not insanely
super populated, like there was the indigenous people there, right,
but Spanish colonization was brutal and the number of indigenous
people decreased by the thousands over the years, and Mexicans
arriving to California, well Spanish, they were not Mexican, they
were Spanish. It wasn't a lot, It wasn't a huge migration.
When word of gold spread though, Mexicans they were the

(17:59):
first to rite for the gold rush, not white people,
which is what we learned when we learn about this
kind of shit in California history, when we learn about
the forty nine ers, right, like they tell us that
white people were the first till arrived, but no Mexicans
were because many of them already had family in the area. Right.
In fact, the biggest group to migrate from Mexico was
people from Sonora, really m and they even had like

(18:21):
you know, chinatowns. They had Sonora towns, that's what they
call the Mexican part of California, So noa towns. And
sometimes when people were lynched and documented like what race
quote unquote race, they were instead of saying Mexican, it
says Sonorian. Oh wow. Yeah. Also a lot of these
people were also just called Californios. Okay, yeah, that I knew, Yeah,
Californios Sonorians. And then I legistrat out of Mexican and

(18:45):
so between eighteen forty eight and eighteen fifty two, twenty
five thousand Mexicans arrived. Along with them, there was people
from Chile and Peru. They were the first miners Mexicans, Chilenos,
and Peruvians. Actually, I think I read about this somewhere,
better remember where or listened to something about. I forgot
if I did. And yeah, these three groups and Chinese
people as well, they had way more experience mining for

(19:08):
gold than the white people when they arrived, and the
superior skills of these Latino men made the whites very angry.
They were so jealous, they were so mad, they were
rabbit at the mouth of their jealousy.

Speaker 2 (19:22):
Literally.

Speaker 1 (19:24):
One Chilean gold miner named Ramon Hill Navarro and his
journal wrote that they got red with anger because these
Latino miners were way better than them. The whites had
to use mob violence to drive them out and keep
all the minds to themselves because it was a skill issue,
of course, yeah, of course, but it wasn't just mob violence.
They also used laws to make this happen. Akin to now,

(19:48):
with their little outbursts, emotional outbursts about DEI and being
discriminated against quote for being white. Yeah, there's the same,
the same as the A three hundreds. Oh my god,
they haven't changed. They've always been. Little bitch is dis
emotional and jealous read with a good violent. The Foreign

(20:12):
Miners Tax was passed on April thirteenth, eighteen fifty and
this made non American born miners and made them pay
twenty dollars a month to remain in the gold field
or gold mines. But the more, like the dumbest fucking
part to me is that legally Mexicans were citizens. Yeah,

(20:32):
but because they weren't American born, they had to pay.
And they were they had been in these places way
longer than these people and they quote American born. Yeah,
but they had to pay twenty dollars a month, which
was a lot. That's what I'm saying, Like even now,
like they want to not just now, but they've always
like wanted to depoor Mexicans and Latinos from the United States.

(20:53):
Yet Latinos are basically indigenous to the Americas and they
are from Europe, right, Yeah, It's like what the fuck, dude,
And then they're not even the original colonizers of these lands.
It's the Spinyard. They were the second or third. Shut
the fuck up first for the French, then the Spaniards
in different areas, So yeah, shut the fuck up, and yeah,

(21:16):
this foreign miners tax was purposely designed to drive Mexicans.
And I say Mexicans, but this included the Chilenos Peruanos.
They were all lumped in US Mexican so it was
purposely designed to drive them out. And it's not a
coincidence that the person who introduced the bill, Thomas Jefferson Green,
hated Mexicans. He was known to say things like quote,

(21:37):
I can maintain a better stomach at the killing of
a Mexican than at the crushing of a body lice.

Speaker 2 (21:43):
But the fuck and this bitch.

Speaker 1 (21:45):
Was one who made this law. Oh my god. By
October of the same year that the foreign tax law
was passed, Mexicans and Chilean's they left the mines. They
were all gone by October, either because of the tax
itself or at the violence faced when the whites came
to collect that tax. In totally town, a Mexican was

(22:05):
shot by tax collectors when he resisted paying the monthly fee.
And this was common. This was a common thing, and
this tax legally gave Anglos a reason to justify the
lynching of Mexicans. Oh, they're not paying their tax, that
means we can kill them. And this coincides with the
rise of lynchings in eighteen fifty as well, along with
just the all the people arriving for gold. When that

(22:28):
tax wasn't enough to drive the foreign miners away, they
simply just started kicking them out of mining towns. They
would put up signs saying Chilean's Signorians, Peruvians, and Mexicans
don't have rights to work in the mines, and they
would give them a twenty four hour notice to leave,
and anyone who didn't leave in that twenty four hour
notice would then be driven away by the force of arms.

(22:50):
In a town called sorry, the name of this town
is fucking insane. In a town called Haying Town. Oh
my god, if we were recording the waymen mouth's just drump.

Speaker 2 (22:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:00):
In a town called Placerville, California, they put up signs Plasterville.
Oh that's how you say that, Okay, Hangtown is now Plasterville, California. Wow.
And they're still so racist there. Whereas Plasterville Plasterville is okay,
so the central valley and then when you go right
north is the bury and right but then like when
you go usually you know it's bad directions, but like

(23:23):
it's like west or east. It's on the sides. Mountain
towns that are on the sides, oh sides, And yeah,
all of those are like gold rush towns and a
lot of them still have like their historic buildings and stuff,
and they're still so racist. Yeah, and there's a reason. Wow,
I can't believe Plasterville. I'm gonna next time I go
to work with the kids. You guys know that Pasterville
used to be called Hangtown. Wow, I am shocked. I

(23:44):
did not know that. Yeah I saw that. I was like,
what the fuck? What the wow? I'm sure like Orville
probably is hell of crazy, has crazy lunching history as well.
It's like with those like little mountain towns, all the
the mining towns. Yeah, my god, Hangtown. Now Plasterville, California.
They signs that any non citizen that refused to leave
within twenty four hours would be met with violins. And

(24:05):
Antonio Coronell who would go back and forth. He was
born in Mexico City, but he became a naturalized citizen
in eighteen thirty four. He arrived in Hayingtown as this
was being enforced. He normally stayed in La and he
would just go, you know, He's like, oh, maybe I'll
go get some gold, and he would go and come
back make money. Right. He was used to this, And
so as he was arriving in Hayktown, a Spanish man

(24:28):
was being arrested for supposedly for stealing but who knows
if that's even true, probably not for stealing a tiny
amount of gold. Antonio Coronell offered to pay more than
what this man stole for him to be free, for
them to let him go. But the group was like no,
because it wasn't about the money. They just wanted to
kill him. They had blood on there. Yeah, they were bloodthirsty,

(24:49):
fucking monsters. I couldn't think of how to finished that.
Sid It was like, oh, Christian, I'll figure it out.
So the group refused, and they announced that anyone who
intervened would be killed. They put the Spanish man in
a cart, took an over to an oak tree where
they hung him. Oh my god. And they seen this
made Antonio, who was used to going back and forth
took mine gold. He was like, nope, not anymore. He

(25:12):
went back to La, stayed in La. He quit mining
for gold after that, and that's what they wanted. Wow.
And things like that occurrence in Hangtown aka Plasterville were
so common that there's even a famous poem of the time,
and it's called the Great Greaser Extermination Meeting. It was
a satirical poem. But these things, okay, that was my question.

(25:34):
I'm like, okay, who was this ram by? What was
their meaning? But these things were happening. Okay, yeah, I
see okay, and so Nora, oh sorry, this this is
the poem in Sonora one hot and sold tree day.
Many people had gathered together. They were bound to drive
the greasers away, and they cared not a damn for
the weather. And I hope coming Folds will take warning
and choose if they would, their property saved some American

(25:56):
place to be born in. Wow. Yeah, sorry, why did
there me?

Speaker 2 (26:00):
That poem?

Speaker 1 (26:01):
Even though it's satire, reminds me of the current stupid
christy bitch asz gnoam commercials or propaganda. If you come here,
we will find you. Like doesn't it sound like that?

Speaker 2 (26:13):
It does? It?

Speaker 1 (26:13):
Does. And you know that's the fucking infuriating, sad part
of all this. These times are precedented, and like the
fuck what you say? These are presidented times, these are
the beginning times. We've come full circle. We were always there, actually,
we never left. It's always an infinity loop with them.
As long as we're here, yeah, in the US and
they're here, it's going to be this infinite loop of

(26:34):
like xenophobic racist shit always. Yeah. I don't know what
it's going to take to change. And I know that's
like very depressing to say. And that's not all white people,
right have shot gon all white people of course, and
that goes without saying obviously, But the ones that we're
talking about, they're still here. They pass on these beliefs. Yeah,
and it takes a lot to break that cycle. I'm
still stuck on Haying Town, yeah, being Plasterville today. Yeah,

(26:57):
that's fucking crazy. So in Mariposida, after growing tensions between
Mexicans and Anglos increased, they was growing and it grew
and grew. Right eighteen fifty two, a mob of two
hundred white men formed and when they were done with
their shit, with their violent shit, forty Mexicans were killed.

(27:19):
Oh my god, they were remaining Mexicans. They all left
after this. This type of violence on the part of
anglos so common. It was completely normal and valid to
punish all Mexicans for the crime of one. And this
could never be the other way around Mexicans. They weren't
even allowed to testifying court against the white person. And

(27:39):
that's even if their claim went to court in the
first place. And again, Mexicans were legally white. Yeah, so
Ranchetia was a mostly Spanish speaking mining town, at least
until all the whites started arriving. This Dranchedia no longer exists,
but it is two miles away, or it was two
miles away from dry Town in I'mador County today, so

(28:02):
same areas and bandits were super common. I'm not discounting
that they were a thing. They weren't always Mexican either,
but like the term Mexican bandit is the one that
stuck the most. And so a group of bandits that
did happen to be mostly Mexican this time, or so
they say, I don't know, I don't know anymore. But
on August sixth, nineteen fifty five, a group of six

(28:23):
to ten Mexican men, one Anglo man and one black
man rolled through Dranchittia. They robbed the town store and hotel.
And by the time they were done, they had killed
six people in the process of this robbery.

Speaker 2 (28:35):
Then they left.

Speaker 1 (28:36):
They were on their way when the next town over, Jackson,
heard what happened at Ranchetia. They stormed the small town
with a group of one five hundred angry allows. They
rounded up thirty six Mexicans in a makeshift prison, and
they wanted to hang all of them. But then they
formed some sort of committee, a Lynchin committee, if you will.
They came to the conclusion, not only three of these

(28:59):
thirty six men should be hanged, hung whatever lynched only
how many of them? Three out of the thirty six, okay,
And how are they going to pick these three men? Well,
let me tell you that one of them was convicted
on the alleged testimony of a man named Jim Johnson,
who heard this man say Viva Mexico during the robbery.

Speaker 2 (29:17):
Why would he say Mexico during a robbery?

Speaker 1 (29:20):
And then he was like doing the little Mexican yell.
Oh my god. They were stereotyping. I'm not gonna do it.
I can't channeling my inner Speedy Gonzalesce.

Speaker 2 (29:32):
That's why I have a.

Speaker 1 (29:33):
Problem with Speedy Gonzalace. No exactly, we're thinking of I
just I just said that's why I have a problem
with him.

Speaker 2 (29:41):
No.

Speaker 1 (29:41):
Actually I loved him as a kid, but I think
as an adult. You can see now knowing this shit
that we're talking about today, there isn't You can see
that there really is an issue. And it's not that
we're being cry babies. It's like, no, but understand where
it comes from. Right. So, yeah, but I didn't like him.
I'm not gonna lie, who's your favorite Lettunes character? No,
Hans was my favorite. He was my second favorite. Yeah,

(30:02):
it was your second favorite. So they hung these three men,
but the mob was still not happy. Oh my god, No,
they weren't happy. That wasn't enough. So I was gonna ask,
didn't you say that the bandits left town?

Speaker 2 (30:16):
This is none of these men are the bandits.

Speaker 1 (30:18):
No, So once these three men were again, they weren't
even the ones who did the robbery, but three men
were lynched. The mob was still unhappy. They ordered all
Mexicans and Ranchedia to leave before seven pm that same night.
Whoever didn't leave, they just went burning every Mexican house
in Rancheria. Then they murdered Mexicans that were still running away,

(30:40):
who were still trying to flee. My god, so they
said to lay by seven pm. Then they killed them
as they ran away. Then the next nearby town felt
inspired and proceeded to do the same thing. They ordered
all Mexicans to leave, and whoever didn't leave they killed.
Soon Sutter Creek, Dry Town, Sonora, a Mexican called Salvada

(31:01):
all did the same. They went to these places, ordered
Mexicans to leave, burn destroyed every Mexican house that was there.
And over the next several weeks after Ranchetia, Mexicans all
over this area were being killed. Wow, that is so disgusting.
And we didn't even know this shit happened, like until
I looked it up reading all this, this is what

(31:23):
the Yeah, the forty nine ers, the gold miners, right,
that's what they call themselves.

Speaker 2 (31:27):
That's what this is who they were.

Speaker 1 (31:29):
The San Francisco newspaper Alta, California even put out a
headline that read the work of revenge going on Mexicans
and Chileans being shot down like coyotes. Another newspaper wrote
that it was a war of extermination against Mexicans, and
yes it was. There has never been an official number
provided for the number of Mexicans killed after the nineteen

(31:49):
fifty five Ranchetia raid, but it was probably a lot,
I'm sure. And then newspapers were printed with the headlines
defending the vigilantes. Of course, yeah, the media to standardize. Yeah,
the visually defend the outright cold blooded murder of Mexicans
and Chileans. Wow. Wow. And they said that this group

(32:11):
had their right to take law into their own hands
and a duty to defend themselves, defend themselves from people
just doing their doing nothing, defend themselves from a place
they went into attack, defend themselves from what that is ridiculous.
That is so fucking ridiculous. Oh, my fucking god. And
this again a very very common occurrence, and we don't
even have official numbers of how many people were killed

(32:32):
during this. Wow. And Anglo miners resented and hated Mexican miners,
and they used mob violence and laws to drive them out.
Like you know, we talked about the foreign Minor tax
law and all you know the things they just mentioned.
But another law, paired up with the Foreign Minor Tax Law,
was also used to drive Mexicans out of places again,
places that they had been in longer than these newly
arrived white miners. Again, I'm sick of this. I'm so

(32:54):
sick of this. And this was the Anti Vagrancy Act
of eighteen fifty five. This is hwang cro No, just kidding, No,
it is do you know what the other name for this,
the Greaser Act? This is the Greaser Act? Oh, I
wonder Okay, A long time ago I bought this book
and I never finished it, and I've been meaning to

(33:14):
finish it. It's called something greaser. They call this greasers
or something like that. That has been on my list
to read. And I want to say what I think
Maybe this is where I read all of this and
why I kind of know it. This is what one hundred
percent makes so much sense if that's where you read it. Yeah, yeah,
I think so so the first purpose of the greeceer
Act was to punish vagrants, vagabonds, and dangerous and suspicious persons,

(33:37):
and a similar law targeting indigenous people was passed in
eighteen fifty This one was called an Act for the
Government and Protection of Indians. And when you hear it
it sounds like a good thing, But no, these never
are my God, of course not so. This first line
eighteen fifty was used to facilitate the removal of Natives
from their lands and indentury native Native children to whites.

(34:02):
The Act for the Government and Protection of Indians was
used to facilitate the removal of Natives from their lands
and indenturing Native children to whites.

Speaker 2 (34:13):
Like what the fuck?

Speaker 1 (34:14):
And the Anti Vagrancy Act eighteen fifty five aka the
Greaser Act was like an extension of this first eighteen
fifty Act, but to be applied to Mexicans. And it
created a protocol for disarming greasers, that's what they said.
It created severe consequences for second convictions. It laid out
potential avenues of employment for vagrants, meaning forcing them to work.

(34:37):
It defined a vagrant as all those who don't have employment,
including sex workers and drunkards, and it called for incarcerating
them for up to ninety days. And this ninety day
sentence included hard labor and Section two identified who. This
applied to vagrant, vagabond whatever, all persons who are commonly

(34:58):
known as greasers or the issue of Spanish and Indian
blood who go armed and are not peaceable or quiet
persons so allowed and rowdy. Mexican like my god, and
I have used this term twice, but I haven't like
really defined it. I feel like some of us know,
but maybe not all of us, but greecer. Greecer was
a derogatory term to refer to Mexican and Mexican Americans.

(35:20):
They didn't separate Mexican and Mexicans and Americans back then.
They were one and the same. But it was also
really for all Latin Americans because again I've said people
from Chilean but were all also in this area at
the time, but all of them were greasers. Everyone was
Mexican to them. And use of the word greaser is
recorded as early as eighteen forty six and as late
as the nineteen seventies, and back when it was first around,

(35:43):
it was equal to the N word for Mexicans. That's
what this book talks about, and actually one of the
chapters straight up as the N word. I don't know
so did my book actually me see it's a chapter
chapter two.

Speaker 2 (35:54):
N word are word?

Speaker 1 (35:56):
Sorry, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (35:58):
I don't want to make you say it. Huh.

Speaker 1 (35:59):
Red skins well like red because that's a slur as well.
Although it was a name for a sports team. This
says n word redskins and Greaser's they kind of mixed
bloods and a white racial stain. Okay, I remember I
read this chapter and they compare like a cast, so
that makes sense we should read that. Yeah, well me,
I haven't. The origins of Greaser are unknown. There's different theories.

(36:22):
Some say it came from the cool, shiny skin and
hair of the darkest Mexicans. Others say it came from
greasy Mexican food, which doesn't make sense because the foods
eaten by Mexicans and the Frontier were really just Dorthias
beans and roasted meat, which is not greasy, right. And
if it's from the shiny hair, they're just jealous. They
are they are, I mean shiny skin like, yeah, because

(36:43):
we glow in the sun. Jealous jealous yeah. Others say
that it's from the practice of Mexican laborers in the
Southwest greasing their bags to make it easier to load
and unload their cargo. I hadn't heard that one. I
don't think I like said. Remember, I hadn't heard that
one either of the other two I had. The following
is a quote from The Atlantic Monthly from eighteen ninety nine.

(37:04):
It's gonna piss me off, isn't it?

Speaker 2 (37:05):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (37:06):
Yeah? Sorry? No, actually quote The Mestiso the Greaser is
the half blood offspring of the marriage of antiquity with modernity.
Time cannot take from him the unmistakable impress of old Spain,
but his Spanish appearance is not his dominant characteristic. His
skin has been sun brown for centuries. His nose and

(37:27):
cheeks are broad, his lips are thick, his brows are heavy.
What is wrong with these people? He has sheltering eyes, sobbed, passionate, hot, unscrutable,
anomalist as he is, he is one of the distinct
types international life whose origin is fully known to us.
End quote like a fucking animal, because I get there. Yes,

(37:48):
that's how I'm like, what the hell's wrong with them? Seriously,
they really just because we're cute.

Speaker 2 (37:53):
They always hated us because we're cuterer than them.

Speaker 1 (37:55):
No, truly, they really just thought this applied to all Mexicans.

Speaker 2 (37:59):
But then all, oh God, look.

Speaker 1 (38:00):
At his eyes and oldery eyes, so big, so brown,
those beautiful eyebrows, the way they frame history, the shining
dark hair, glowing hair they've been glowing their skin, and
the sun bronze. It's like an insane stupid Wow. I
fucking can't.

Speaker 2 (38:20):
This was not.

Speaker 1 (38:21):
Infuriating in the way that it's it's not gross like
the gross things that they have said about us. It's
just like they're framing Mexicans that this exotic, random thing.
This is where the Latin lovers stereotype started.

Speaker 2 (38:35):
Yeah, and also like a man wrote that it wasn't
a woman.

Speaker 1 (38:37):
Well, I guess that they were letting women write back then,
So yeah, that is where the Latin lover comes from. Honestly. Wow. Yeah,
they really thought Mexicans were all the same, dark haired,
brown eyed people that don't deserve rights.

Speaker 2 (38:51):
Cuties. Although cute, they don't deserve rights. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (38:55):
And I know I've been talking a lot about California,
but again, this happened all over the West in Colorado.
In Colorado from eighteen sixty to eighteen eighty four, twenty
three Mexicans were lynched. Wow. In eighteen fifty nine, Anglos
in Arizona did the same things that happened in eighteen
fifty five at Ranchetia, California. Greenberry Bird that was his name.

(39:16):
Greenberry Bird, a white man, stupid name, was sleeping in
his room when two Mexican ranch hands snook in and
killed him. He was found the next day at three pm,
and the Arizonian described Greenberry Bird as quite a good natured,
respectable young man who treated his men kindly. Others said
he was like he led a gang of thugs and

(39:36):
didn't pay his migrant employees and often beat them. That's
why they killed them. I mean, either way, white men
felt the need to avenge his murder. So John Page,
Bill aik Achy, I don't know, ake, Alfred Scott Achi,
I'm just kinnnauky. That sounds even more wrong words. Yeah,
Alfred Scott, Sam Anderson, Jack Pennington, and two men who

(39:59):
were only known as Round and Bolt. I don't know,
and don't ask me. They went along the Gila River
kicking out all the Mexicans they saw. They went from
ranch to ranch, camp to camp, chasing Mexicans and as
they ran away, killing them. Wow. They also killed indigenous
Yankee workers because they looked Mexican to them. Wow. Even
back then they couldn't tell, and the number of those

(40:20):
killed during this is unknown. This became known as the
Sonoita massacre, and no one knows how many were killed.
But because of the killings, because of the massacre, migrant
workers at mines and farms all left, which shut down
operations immediately and devastated the seasons the crop of that season. Wow.
And never mind that the murderers were not workers in

(40:43):
these mines or farms. They weren't in these ranches or
camps that they went to after. They were this man's
own workers who were probably just tired of the abuse
and of not being paid. Yeah. And unlike other white
men who participated in lyncheans, these four who enacted these
that massacre were arrested and tried because once they saw
all the Mexicans leave, all their nice, cheap labor leave,

(41:07):
officials in Arizona wanted to make it clear that Mexicans
were welcome. But just like in other places, these white
people in Arizona meant only some Mexicans are welcome, only
the quote docile ones end quote, so that they could
control them and use them for their labor. Wow. Of course, Yeah,
this kind of reminds me of Esuspiata's episode where they're

(41:28):
fine with using us for our cheap labor. Yeah, but
once we're inconvenient to them, they're fine with killing us
or kicking us out. And that applies to today. And
it's again precedented.

Speaker 2 (41:39):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (41:43):
I've been, you know, focusing on you know, California the most,
but yeah, again, it happened everywhere anywhere there was white
settlers in an area that was predominantly Mexican slash indigenous before.
Right in eighteen fifty four, a vigilante committee in Austin,
Texas expelled every quote landless Mexican who's not vouched for
by respectable citizens end quote, oh my god. And the

(42:07):
Mexicans that owned land before in this time period were
the white Spanish Mexicans. They weren't even right like, they
weren't the brown Mexicans. And if they had to be
vouched for by respectable citizens, these were all the white
people who are now techanos who've been in Texas for
so long who hate immigrants, like, right, it's all connected. Yes,

(42:28):
I feel like that mean you know of Charlie, Yeah, yeah,
or have I heard this system of vouching before that
sounds so familiar.

Speaker 2 (42:37):
It's not.

Speaker 1 (42:37):
I'm not going to remember.

Speaker 2 (42:38):
Maybe maybe Vampires.

Speaker 1 (42:40):
Of the North maybe, oh, maybebe it's set in this
time period. Yeah. In eighteen fifty six in Colorado County, Texas,
Mexicans were ordered to leave because the Anglo suspect their
Spanish speakers of helping enslaved black people escape into Mexico.
And they were, they were, they were, they were, Yeah,
they were because they're not insane. Also, a lot of

(43:03):
the Mexicans knew that, you know, they were tired of
the treatment of Anglos towards them in these areas, and
they knew that by helping inside black people escape, it
was a way to undermine Anglo power in the area.
And that's resistance right there. That's community.

Speaker 2 (43:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (43:19):
I've been wanting to do an episode on the underground
railroad from Texas to Mexico, but I just haven't gotten
to it. That would be interesting. Why did to the list? Yeah,
if it's not already there, I remember seeing it. Okay.
One of the most deadly summers for Mexicans in Texas
took place in eighteen fifty seven, and it's known now

(43:39):
as the cart Wars, which I didn't know either. Cart
wars cart Forty masked men attacked a group of Mexicans
leading a train of seventeen train carts heading towards San Antonio.
And this was common. There was a way to get
it was a job leading this merchandise into you know,
the US. Many of the men leading the train managed

(44:00):
to escape this attack, except for fifty seven year old
Antonio Delgado, who was shot fourteen times by these men.
These anglos. These anglos worked in transporting goods and they
would attack their Mexican competition. They would then destroy their property,
steal it and kill Mexicans. Wow. And many of the
Mexicans who were killed during this time period, this summer,

(44:21):
it was literally just the summer. Their bodies were never
found and many of these killings were done by hanging
them on a tree. And I don't know how. I'm
not sure I'm pronouncing this right, but goldiad Texas or gliad,
I don't know. It's go lad, I don't know either.
And this where the highest number of lynchings took place

(44:41):
in this summer because it was right in the middle
of the coast of Texas, heading towards San Antonio, where
all this merchandise, was heading all these goods, and because
the Mexicans were better at this job, the Anglos who
were doing the same job were killing them. That tree
is marked today by a plaque that talks about the
cart Wars, and this tree is known as the Cartwar oak.

(45:03):
Also the tree most used for lyn cheens in California,
the oak tree, because it was the strongest tree and
it's old. And so one of the books I read
is a journalist who went and took pictures of all
these trees that are still there, and the pictures are
on the book of these trees, and yeah, are they're
still there? Oak trees live a long time. Yeah. Anyway,

(45:26):
so back to the cart Wars. The Mexican government filed
several complaints with Texas and the US government about these killings.
When Texas finally responded to these complaints, they did so
by trying to send a militia to defend Mexicans. But
it was pointless because by then Mexican workers had already
found a different route. They're like, we're not going that
way anymore. They need to do anything, And the Mexican

(45:47):
government didn't investigate this, and they found that at least
seventy five Mexicans were killed during this one summer. Wow,
in this one route in Texas. Oh my god. That's
a lot for that timeframe, like short amount of time summer,
one summer. And this is a on the low end
of estimates because some remains were never found. Wow. And

(46:09):
these are just some examples of violence Mexicans face and
the environment in which these lynchings were taking place towards
Mexicans in the US. That's part one. That was only
part one? Were those part one? You were not kidding
about it being depressing. It's very depressing. And it's like this,
this is the history. This is the attitude that these

(46:31):
people passed on. I feel like that's what is the
most hurtful about it. That besides, like there's there's no actual,
like physical act of lynching now, but there's this mentality
and racism and noophobia against Latinos Latinez remains, and we're
talking about like from the eighteen hundreds, And I'm like,

(46:53):
how have these people not changed?

Speaker 2 (46:55):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (46:56):
Right from the moment they set foot into these lands
that were never there, they were doing this right, and
today they are doing this right. I did I think
it's ridiculous when you know, whenever there's always talk about
immigration and land back and stuff like that, they're like, well,
how far back do you have to go? And I'm like,
far enough, so you go back to Europe, bitch, that's

(47:19):
how far we have to go? Fin enough so you
go back to England. Yeah, And it's it's it's wild
that like this treatment of Mexicans isn't even a brief
sentence in textbooks, and even we find not obviously not
elementary schools, not middle schools, but high schools. Please. Yeah,
like eleventh graders in US history can learn about this.

(47:40):
This is US history, this is yeah history of violence, Yeah,
and racism. In part two, I will be sharing specific
cases of lynchings, including the only documented lynching of a
Mexican women in California that I've heard about. You have
heard about it, okay, And then the next part is
where I'm hoping to dive into Texas specifically and the

(48:02):
Texas Rangers. But man, it's so much to read, And
then I had to keep scoring, like I don't have
my books with me. But if I show you, I
can imagine I'll send you a picture. I will send
you a picture she posted on our story I will,
I will, but man, yeah that is yeah, that is
part one. Wow. Shout out to our Patreon members Sarah Bred, Marilyn, Desiree, Mariah, Michelle,

(48:31):
and Chata, thank you so much for supporting us in
making this podcast again. Like we say at the end
of the episode, now, it's a lot of work, Yes,
it really is. I enjoy it, like I enjoy reading
about everything we and talking about everything we learn, but
it is hard to keep up with it is, especially
the just the research aspect. Man, how many books I'm

(48:53):
reading for this, like three or four? Oranger four? Yeah,
four different books. So we'll be back next week with
part two and other than that, we hope this was
one last Historia known for you. Bye bye. Astoria Unknown
is produced by Carmen and Christina, researched by Carmen and Christina,
edited by Christina. You can find sources for every episode

(49:16):
at estorias Unknown dot com and in our show notes.
Creating the podcast has a lot of work, so if
you want to help us out financially, you can do
so by supporting us on Patreon at Patreon dot com.
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