April 2, 2025 • 24 mins
The final episode confronts the most controversial aspects of Ranger history, particularly their role in border conflicts and treatment of ethnic Mexicans. It examines the darkest period of Ranger history during the Mexican Revolution (1915-1919), when some Rangers conducted extrajudicial killings along the border during the "Hora de Sangre." The episode traces how legislative investigation led to significant reforms, the Rangers' sometimes difficult adaptation to civil rights-era challenges, and their gradual transformation into a modern, diverse law enforcement agency. Through interviews with current and former Rangers and descendants of those affected by historical abuses, the narrative explores how the institution has recently begun to acknowledge its troubled history while maintaining its core identity. The series concludes with reflections on the Rangers' dual existence as both a real law enforcement agency and a powerful cultural symbol in American mythology.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The old man's hands trembled slightly as he pulled the
faded photograph from a worn leather wallet. This was my grandfather,
he told me, pointing to a solemn faced Mexican farmer
standing beside a weathered wooden fence. They took him from
our family ranch in nineteen fifteen. Said he was helping bandits.
He wasn't. The man's voice caught. They found his body
(00:23):
two days later. They were Texas Rangers, part of a
dark chapter in the force's history known as the Hora
de Sangre or Hour of Blood, when some Rangers conducted
extra judicial killings of ethnic Mexicans along the border during
the Mexican Revolution. It's a period many official Ranger history's
(00:45):
gloss over, but one that remains vivid in the memories
of border families more than a century later. I'm Jack Maddox,
and you're listening to true tales of the Texas Rangers.
Today we're exploring the most complex and controver urcial aspects
of Ranger history, the blood soaked border conflicts, the periods
(01:05):
of abuse and reform, and the evolution of the legendary
frontier force into the elite investigative unit. It is today.
This isn't the sanitized version you'll find in tourist brochures
or Hollywood westerns. This is the complicated, sometimes troubling reality
of an institution that's been both celebrated and condemned, often
(01:29):
with good reason for both. To understand the ranger's role
in border conflicts, we need to step back and look
at the broader historical context. The border between Texas and
Mexico has never been just a line on a map.
It's been a fluid zone where cultures, economies, and political
forces collide, sometimes violently. Many families had lived in the
(01:52):
region since Spanish colonial times, suddenly finding themselves on one
side or another of a border that moved around them
as empires and nations expanded and contracted. After Texas won
independence from Mexico in eighteen thirty six, and especially after
it joined the United States in eighteen forty five, tensions
(02:15):
along this border were inevitable. The rangers, originally created to
protect settlers from Comanche raids, increasingly found themselves policing this
contentious boundary. During the Mexican American War of eighteen forty
six to eighteen forty eight, rangers served as scouts and
irregular cavalry for US forces. Their effectiveness was undeniable. Their
(02:39):
methods were often brutal. Mexican civilians referred to them as
Los Diablostejanos the Texas Devils, and told stories of rangers
burning villages, executing prisoners, and terrorizing populations. Were these stories
exaggerated almost certainly Somewhere were they entirely fabricated? Historical evidence
(03:02):
suggests not. Even American military officers sometimes complained about ranger
excesses During the conflict. General Winfield Scott reportedly refused to
have rangers under his command, precisely because of their reputation
for brutality. The complex relationship between rangers and ethnic Mexicans,
(03:26):
both Mexican nationals and Mexican Americans, continued after the war.
Some rangers viewed all persons of Mexican descent as potential
enemies or criminals. Others developed close relationships with Mexican American
communities and relied on them for intelligence and support. I've
(03:46):
spent time in South Texas border communities where these contradictory
legacies live side by side. In the same small town,
you'll find Mexican American families with stories of Ranger persecution
and Mexican American families with stories of Ranger protection. Both
can be true simultaneously, different Rangers, different times, different circumstances.
(04:12):
This complicated dynamic reached its most tragic phase during the
Mexican Revolution, which began in nineteen ten and spilled over
into the Texas borderlands. As Mexico descended into factional warfare,
violence inevitably crossed the Rio Grande. Raids on Texas ranches
and settlements increased. Some were conducted by genuine revolutionaries raising
(04:37):
funds for their cause. Others were simple banditry, using political
unrest as cover. Texas responded by dramatically expanding the Rangers,
adding hundreds of new members with minimal vetting or training.
Many were simply armed civilians with badges. Historian Benjamin Johnson
(04:58):
described it as a recipe for disaster, combining frightened border communities,
hastily deputized gunmen, racial tensions, and genuine threats into a
volatile mix. What followed was the darkest period in Ranger history.
Between nineteen fifteen and nineteen nineteen, hundreds of ethnic Mexicans
(05:21):
in the borderlands were killed in extra judicial executions. Some
were indeed bandits caught in the act. Many others were
innocent civilians or suspected sympathizers, killed without trial or sometimes
even without evidence. I've walked the grounds of Porvenir, a
small farming community in Presidio County where one of the
(05:44):
worst incidents occurred. On January twenty eighth, nineteen eighteen, Rangers
and local ranchers took fifteen Mexican American men and boys
from their homes in the middle of the night and
executed them. None had been charged with any crime. The
official justification that they were bandit sympathizers was never substantiated.
(06:08):
Standing there in the remote river valley where these men died,
it's hard not to feel the weight of this history.
The community of Porvenir was abandoned after the massacre, its
remaining residents fleeing to Mexico. For decades, the incident was
barely mentioned in official Texas histories. These were not isolated incidents.
(06:29):
Internal correspondence from the time shows that some ranger companies
operated under what amounted to a shoot first policy when
it came to suspected Mexican bandits. Ranger Captain J. M.
Fox wrote in nineteen fifteen. We have been getting them
Mexicans at a pretty good rate. I don't know how
(06:49):
many we have got since I have been here, but
is around thirty or forty. The abuses became so flagrant
that the Texas legislature launched an investigation in nineteen nineteen.
The resulting Canally's Investigation, named after State Representative Josse Tomascanales,
one of the first Mexican American legislators in Texas, documented
(07:13):
numerous cases of ranger misconduct, from unjustified killings to torture
of prisoners. As a result, the legislature dramatically reformed the rangers,
reducing their numbers from hundreds back to a few dozen,
establishing clearer oversight, and implementing stricter standards for who could
wear the badge. It was a necessary correction, but it
(07:36):
came too late for the victims of what some border
historians have called a reign of terror. I want to
be clear here, not all rangers participated in these abuses.
Some actively opposed them. Captain John R. Hughes, for instance,
enforced discipline in his company and insisted on proper treatment
(07:57):
of all civilians, regardless of ethnicity. But the institution as
a whole failed during this period to uphold the principles
of justice it claimed to represent. This history isn't comfortable,
It doesn't fit neatly into heroic narratives about frontier lawman,
(08:17):
but it's essential to understand if we want to comprehend
the Rangers as a real historical institution rather than a
mythologized symbol. The reformed Rangers that emerged in the nineteen
twenties were a smaller, more professional force under the leadership
of captains like Frank Hamer and Manuel Gonzolaz, whom we
(08:38):
discussed in our last episode. They began the transition from
frontier militia to modern law enforcement agency. This transition accelerated
in nineteen thirty five when the Texas legislature created the
Department of Public Safety, placing the Rangers under its authority.
For the first time, Rangers had standardized training requirements, formal
(09:01):
oversight structures, and clear operational protocols. The days of Rangers
as semi autonomous frontier enforcers were officially over, but old
habits die hard, and the Ranger's evolution into a modern
professional force wasn't always smooth. Throughout the mid twentieth century,
(09:22):
they sometimes found themselves on the wrong side of social change,
particularly during the Civil rights era and labor disputes during
the nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies. Rangers were often called
in to deal with civil rights demonstrations, farm worker strikes,
and other protests. Their traditional approach, projecting overwhelming authority and
(09:46):
using force when deemed necessary, clashed with changing social expectations
and legal protections for protesters. In the Rio Grande Valley,
rangers developed a particularly troubled relationship with the farm worker movement,
led by figures like Antonio Orundan. When agricultural workers, mostly Hispanic,
(10:07):
organized for better wages and conditions, they often found rangers
standing with growers and against laborers. This wasn't simply a
matter of racism, though that certainly played a role in
some cases. It reflected the ranger's institutional culture, which prioritized
order and property rights and viewed labor activism with suspicion.
(10:30):
Many rangers came from rural conservative backgrounds and genuinely believed
they were protecting communities from dangerous radicalism. I interviewed a
retired ranger who had been involved in some of these
labor disputes. We saw ourselves as keeping the peace, he
told me, But looking back, I can see how farm
(10:51):
workers viewed us as just another tool of the powerful
against the powerless. He paused, then added, the badge doesn't
make you right, just gives you responsibility. The retired ranger
who had been involved in some of these labor disputes.
We saw ourselves as keeping the peace, he told me,
(11:12):
But looking back, I can see how farm workers viewed
us as just another tool of the powerful against the powerless.
He paused, then added, the badge doesn't make you right,
just gives you responsibility. We were sitting on his porch
in the hill country, the kind of place where you
can watch a thunderstorm roll in from thirty miles away.
(11:35):
He'd been quiet for most of our conversation, answering my
questions with the measured economy of someone used to weighing
his words carefully. But when we got to the labor disputes,
something shifted. I could see him wrestling with memories that
had grown more complicated with time. You know what haunts me,
he finally said, Not the gun fights or the man hunts.
(11:58):
It's the faces of those farms workers. Looking at us
like we were the enemy. They weren't criminals, they were
just poor folks wanting fair treatment. He looked out toward
the distant hills. A man should be able to look
back on his life's work and feel clean about it.
That part doesn't feel clean. A significant moment came in
nineteen eighty eight when the Rangers appointed their first female officer,
(12:22):
Corporal Cheryl Steadman. Her appointment came one hundred sixty five
years after Stephen F. Austen formed the first Ranger Company,
a reminder of how long traditions can persist in an
institution with such deep historical roots. Five years later, in
nineteen ninety three, another barrier fell when the Rangers appointed
(12:45):
their first black chief, Bruce Casteele. The force that had
once been exclusively white and male, was, albeit slowly, beginning
to reflect the diversity of the state it served. These
changes weren't just symbolic. They represented a broader transformation in
how the Rangers operated and understood their mission. The modern
(13:09):
Ranger force emphasizes investigative skill over gunfighting, prowess, collaborative relationships
with communities over intimidation, and adherents to legal procedure over
frontier expediency. Today's rangers, fewer than two hundred men and
women for a state of twenty nine million people, are
(13:31):
elite criminal investigators who handle the most complex and sensitive
cases In Texas. They're called in for public corruption investigations,
unsolved murders, officer involved shootings, and major crimesprees that cross
jurisdictional boundaries. In twenty nineteen, I spent several days shadowing
(13:52):
a ranger working a cold case murder in West Texas.
What struck me wasn't just his methodical approach to evidence
and interviews, though that was impressive, but his deep connection
to the community he served. Everyone knew him, trusted him.
When he said he was going to find out what happened,
(14:13):
they believed him. I remember sitting in a small town
diner with this ranger, let's call him Jim, watching as
he worked the room, not in a politician's glad handing way,
but with the quiet authority of someone who'd earned his
place at the table. An elderly Hispanic woman stopped to
talk about her grandson. A white rancher asked about progress
(14:35):
on a cattle theft case. A young black deputy sheriff
sought advice on evidence collection relationships. Jim told me later,
as we drove down a lonely stretch of highway toward
another interview. That's what this job is really about now.
Time was Rangers relied on intimidation. These days we get
a lot further with trust. He nodded, toward the vast
(14:56):
landscape rolling past our windows out here. Your reputation is
your most valuable tool. Takes years to build, seconds to lose.
That trust is hard earned and reflects decades of improved
relations between the Rangers and the diverse communities of modern Texas,
but it's not universal, particularly in border communities with long
(15:19):
memories of historical abuses. The Ranger's complicated legacy continues to
shape how different Texans view the iconic force. This brings
us to an important point about the Rangers that applies
to their entire history. They've always been both a real
law enforcement agency and a powerful cultural symbol, and the
(15:40):
tension between these two identities has shaped their development in
profound ways. As a symbol, the Rangers represent a mythologized
version of Texas itself, independent, tough, resilient, unwilling to back down.
The Ranger of popular culture portrayed in books, films, and
television shows, from The Lone Ranger to Walker Texas Ranger
(16:04):
is a straightforward hero, a guardian of civilization against barbarism
and crime. This mythologized Ranger has been enormously influential in
American culture. He's shaped our ideas about frontier justice, heroic individualism,
and the settling of the West. He's also, like most myths,
(16:25):
a simplification that obscures far more complex historical realities. The
real Rangers were neither the perfect heroes of popular entertainment
nor the uniformly brutal oppressors portrayed by their harshest critics.
They were humans operating in difficult, often violent circumstances, making
(16:45):
choices that reflected both their individual character and the cultural
context of their times. Some were genuinely heroic, men like
Samuel Walker, who died leading a charge at the Battle
of Huamantla during the Mexican American War, or Tom Rife,
who was killed in nineteen twenty two trying to protect
(17:06):
a black prisoner from a lynch mob. Others were deeply flawed,
men like Bass Outlaw, who died in a drunken shootout
after killing another lawman or the Rangers involved in atrocities
like Porvenir. Most fell somewhere in between, ordinary men doing
an extraordinary job, sometimes rising to the occasion, sometimes falling
(17:29):
short of their own ideals. What makes the ranger so
fascinating as a historical subject is precisely this tension between
myth and reality. They've never been just one thing. They've
been a frontier militia, a mounted combat force, a border patrol,
a state police agency, and now an elite investigative unit.
(17:51):
They've been heroes to some communities and villains to others,
sometimes simultaneously. This complexity extends to how we should judge
the Rangers Historically. It's both unfair and ahistorical to hold
frontier lawman to twenty first century ethical and legal standards.
It's equally wrong to excuse documented abuses of power as
(18:15):
merely products of their time. The most thoughtful approach is
to understand these men in their historical context, while acknowledging
that even by the standards of their own era, some
Ranger actions were considered excessive or unjustified. The historian Walter
Prescott Webb, who wrote what many consider the definitive early
(18:36):
history of The Rangers acknowledged this duality. In their best days,
me wrote the Rangers were a force that could ride anywhere,
face any odds. In their worst, they could be lawless,
enforcers of someone else's idea of order. That assessment still
rings true. The Rangers at their best represented the highest
(18:58):
ideals of courage, medication, and service. At their worst, they
embodied the darkest impulses of frontier justice, racism, vigilantism, and brutality,
justified as necessary for security. What's remarkable is how the
institution has survived this complicated legacy. Many similar frontier organizations
(19:22):
faded away as the conditions that created them changed. The
Rangers endured by adapting, sometimes reluctantly, sometimes proactively, to the
evolving needs of Texas. Today's Rangers still wear the iconic
silver Star badge that their predecessors pinned on in the
eighteen thirties, but they operate in a world those early
(19:43):
Rangers could scarcely have imagined. They used DNA analysis, digital forensics,
and behavioral profiling instead of tracking skills and six shooters.
They work within a complex legal system that requires search warrants,
miranda rights, and rules of evidence. Yet certain qualities remain consistent.
(20:05):
The independence that allows Rangers to pursue investigations wherever they lead,
the persistence that keeps them on cases long after others
would have given up, and the quiet authority that still
makes the arrival of a Ranger at a crime scene
a significant event. I've spent years studying the Rangers, talking
(20:26):
with current and former members of the force, and traveling
to the places where their history unfolded. I've come to
believe that the most valuable thing we can do with
this complex legacy isn't to simplify it into either uncritical
celebration or wholesale condemnation, but to understand it in all
its messy human complexity. The Ranger's story tells us something
(20:51):
important about American history, about how order was established, sometimes unjustly,
on the frontier, about the complex raci dynamics of the borderlands,
about how institutions can both perpetuate historical wrongs and eventually
work to write them. It also tells us something about
(21:11):
ourselves and our need for heroes. The mythologized Ranger, the
lone figure standing against chaos with nothing but courage, determination,
and a silver star, remains a powerful image precisely because
it speaks to our desire for moral clarity in a
(21:31):
world that rarely provides it. The real Rangers, flawed men
and now women doing difficult work in changing times, offer
a more complicated, but ultimately more valuable example. They remind
us that justice is never as simple as white hats
versus black hats, that institutions can be both necessary and problematic,
(21:56):
and that history is always more complex than the story
worries we tell about it. In the spring of twenty twenty,
a remarkable ceremony took place near the site of the
Porvenir massacre we discussed earlier. Texas Historical Commission officials, Ranger representatives,
and descendants of the massacred men gathered to dedicate a
(22:20):
historical marker acknowledging what happened there in nineteen eighteen, after
more than a century of official silence or denial, the
state of Texas formerly recognized one of the darkest moments
in Ranger history. During the ceremony, a current Ranger captain
(22:40):
addressed the descendants of the victims. I would like to
extend an apology to the survivors and the descendants, he said.
The Texas Rangers are not perfect. We've made mistakes, and
this is one we should have never made. It was
a small gesture, coming far too late for those directly affected,
(23:01):
but it represented something important, an institution willing to honestly
confront its past rather than hide behind comfortable myths. In
acknowledging their failures, Today's Rangers honor their successes more authentically
than any whitewashed history ever could. As we conclude this
(23:23):
exploration of Ranger history from their origins as Stephen F.
Austin's frontier militia to their current role as elite investigators,
I'm reminded of something a retired Ranger told me as
we stood on the bluff overlooking the Rio Grande, where
so much of their story unfolded. The badge doesn't make
(23:46):
the ranger, he said, squinting against the harsh border sun.
Never has. It's what the ranger brings to the badge
that matters. Always been that way, always will be. I'm
Jack Maddox, and this has been true tales of the
Texas Rangers. Remember, history is rarely as simple as the
stories we tell about it. The most important parts often
(24:08):
lie in the spaces between the legends and the facts.
In the complex contradictory reality of human beings trying, sometimes failing,
and occasionally succeeding in bringing justice to a world that
desperately needs it. This has been a Quiet Please production.
Head over to Quiet Please dot ai to hear what matters.
The old man's hands trembled slightly as he pulled the
faded photograph from a worn leather wallet. This was my grandfather,
he told me, pointing to a solemn faced Mexican farmer
standing beside a weathered wooden fence. They took him from
our family ranch in nineteen fifteen. Said he was helping bandits.
He wasn't. The man's voice caught. They found his body
(00:23):
two days later. They were Texas Rangers, part of a
dark chapter in the force's history known as the Hora
de Sangre or Hour of Blood, when some Rangers conducted
extra judicial killings of ethnic Mexicans along the border during
the Mexican Revolution. It's a period many official Ranger history's
(00:45):
gloss over, but one that remains vivid in the memories
of border families more than a century later. I'm Jack Maddox,
and you're listening to true tales of the Texas Rangers.
Today we're exploring the most complex and controver urcial aspects
of Ranger history, the blood soaked border conflicts, the periods
(01:05):
of abuse and reform, and the evolution of the legendary
frontier force into the elite investigative unit. It is today.
This isn't the sanitized version you'll find in tourist brochures
or Hollywood westerns. This is the complicated, sometimes troubling reality
of an institution that's been both celebrated and condemned, often
(01:29):
with good reason for both. To understand the ranger's role
in border conflicts, we need to step back and look
at the broader historical context. The border between Texas and
Mexico has never been just a line on a map.
It's been a fluid zone where cultures, economies, and political
forces collide, sometimes violently. Many families had lived in the
(01:52):
region since Spanish colonial times, suddenly finding themselves on one
side or another of a border that moved around them
as empires and nations expanded and contracted. After Texas won
independence from Mexico in eighteen thirty six, and especially after
it joined the United States in eighteen forty five, tensions
(02:15):
along this border were inevitable. The rangers, originally created to
protect settlers from Comanche raids, increasingly found themselves policing this
contentious boundary. During the Mexican American War of eighteen forty
six to eighteen forty eight, rangers served as scouts and
irregular cavalry for US forces. Their effectiveness was undeniable. Their
(02:39):
methods were often brutal. Mexican civilians referred to them as
Los Diablostejanos the Texas Devils, and told stories of rangers
burning villages, executing prisoners, and terrorizing populations. Were these stories
exaggerated almost certainly Somewhere were they entirely fabricated? Historical evidence
(03:02):
suggests not. Even American military officers sometimes complained about ranger
excesses During the conflict. General Winfield Scott reportedly refused to
have rangers under his command, precisely because of their reputation
for brutality. The complex relationship between rangers and ethnic Mexicans,
(03:26):
both Mexican nationals and Mexican Americans, continued after the war.
Some rangers viewed all persons of Mexican descent as potential
enemies or criminals. Others developed close relationships with Mexican American
communities and relied on them for intelligence and support. I've
(03:46):
spent time in South Texas border communities where these contradictory
legacies live side by side. In the same small town,
you'll find Mexican American families with stories of Ranger persecution
and Mexican American families with stories of Ranger protection. Both
can be true simultaneously, different Rangers, different times, different circumstances.
(04:12):
This complicated dynamic reached its most tragic phase during the
Mexican Revolution, which began in nineteen ten and spilled over
into the Texas borderlands. As Mexico descended into factional warfare,
violence inevitably crossed the Rio Grande. Raids on Texas ranches
and settlements increased. Some were conducted by genuine revolutionaries raising
(04:37):
funds for their cause. Others were simple banditry, using political
unrest as cover. Texas responded by dramatically expanding the Rangers,
adding hundreds of new members with minimal vetting or training.
Many were simply armed civilians with badges. Historian Benjamin Johnson
(04:58):
described it as a recipe for disaster, combining frightened border communities,
hastily deputized gunmen, racial tensions, and genuine threats into a
volatile mix. What followed was the darkest period in Ranger history.
Between nineteen fifteen and nineteen nineteen, hundreds of ethnic Mexicans
(05:21):
in the borderlands were killed in extra judicial executions. Some
were indeed bandits caught in the act. Many others were
innocent civilians or suspected sympathizers, killed without trial or sometimes
even without evidence. I've walked the grounds of Porvenir, a
small farming community in Presidio County where one of the
(05:44):
worst incidents occurred. On January twenty eighth, nineteen eighteen, Rangers
and local ranchers took fifteen Mexican American men and boys
from their homes in the middle of the night and
executed them. None had been charged with any crime. The
official justification that they were bandit sympathizers was never substantiated.
(06:08):
Standing there in the remote river valley where these men died,
it's hard not to feel the weight of this history.
The community of Porvenir was abandoned after the massacre, its
remaining residents fleeing to Mexico. For decades, the incident was
barely mentioned in official Texas histories. These were not isolated incidents.
(06:29):
Internal correspondence from the time shows that some ranger companies
operated under what amounted to a shoot first policy when
it came to suspected Mexican bandits. Ranger Captain J. M.
Fox wrote in nineteen fifteen. We have been getting them
Mexicans at a pretty good rate. I don't know how
(06:49):
many we have got since I have been here, but
is around thirty or forty. The abuses became so flagrant
that the Texas legislature launched an investigation in nineteen nineteen.
The resulting Canally's Investigation, named after State Representative Josse Tomascanales,
one of the first Mexican American legislators in Texas, documented
(07:13):
numerous cases of ranger misconduct, from unjustified killings to torture
of prisoners. As a result, the legislature dramatically reformed the rangers,
reducing their numbers from hundreds back to a few dozen,
establishing clearer oversight, and implementing stricter standards for who could
wear the badge. It was a necessary correction, but it
(07:36):
came too late for the victims of what some border
historians have called a reign of terror. I want to
be clear here, not all rangers participated in these abuses.
Some actively opposed them. Captain John R. Hughes, for instance,
enforced discipline in his company and insisted on proper treatment
(07:57):
of all civilians, regardless of ethnicity. But the institution as
a whole failed during this period to uphold the principles
of justice it claimed to represent. This history isn't comfortable,
It doesn't fit neatly into heroic narratives about frontier lawman,
(08:17):
but it's essential to understand if we want to comprehend
the Rangers as a real historical institution rather than a
mythologized symbol. The reformed Rangers that emerged in the nineteen
twenties were a smaller, more professional force under the leadership
of captains like Frank Hamer and Manuel Gonzolaz, whom we
(08:38):
discussed in our last episode. They began the transition from
frontier militia to modern law enforcement agency. This transition accelerated
in nineteen thirty five when the Texas legislature created the
Department of Public Safety, placing the Rangers under its authority.
For the first time, Rangers had standardized training requirements, formal
(09:01):
oversight structures, and clear operational protocols. The days of Rangers
as semi autonomous frontier enforcers were officially over, but old
habits die hard, and the Ranger's evolution into a modern
professional force wasn't always smooth. Throughout the mid twentieth century,
(09:22):
they sometimes found themselves on the wrong side of social change,
particularly during the Civil rights era and labor disputes during
the nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies. Rangers were often called
in to deal with civil rights demonstrations, farm worker strikes,
and other protests. Their traditional approach, projecting overwhelming authority and
(09:46):
using force when deemed necessary, clashed with changing social expectations
and legal protections for protesters. In the Rio Grande Valley,
rangers developed a particularly troubled relationship with the farm worker movement,
led by figures like Antonio Orundan. When agricultural workers, mostly Hispanic,
(10:07):
organized for better wages and conditions, they often found rangers
standing with growers and against laborers. This wasn't simply a
matter of racism, though that certainly played a role in
some cases. It reflected the ranger's institutional culture, which prioritized
order and property rights and viewed labor activism with suspicion.
(10:30):
Many rangers came from rural conservative backgrounds and genuinely believed
they were protecting communities from dangerous radicalism. I interviewed a
retired ranger who had been involved in some of these
labor disputes. We saw ourselves as keeping the peace, he
told me, But looking back, I can see how farm
(10:51):
workers viewed us as just another tool of the powerful
against the powerless. He paused, then added, the badge doesn't
make you right, just gives you responsibility. The retired ranger
who had been involved in some of these labor disputes.
We saw ourselves as keeping the peace, he told me,
(11:12):
But looking back, I can see how farm workers viewed
us as just another tool of the powerful against the powerless.
He paused, then added, the badge doesn't make you right,
just gives you responsibility. We were sitting on his porch
in the hill country, the kind of place where you
can watch a thunderstorm roll in from thirty miles away.
(11:35):
He'd been quiet for most of our conversation, answering my
questions with the measured economy of someone used to weighing
his words carefully. But when we got to the labor disputes,
something shifted. I could see him wrestling with memories that
had grown more complicated with time. You know what haunts me,
he finally said, Not the gun fights or the man hunts.
(11:58):
It's the faces of those farms workers. Looking at us
like we were the enemy. They weren't criminals, they were
just poor folks wanting fair treatment. He looked out toward
the distant hills. A man should be able to look
back on his life's work and feel clean about it.
That part doesn't feel clean. A significant moment came in
nineteen eighty eight when the Rangers appointed their first female officer,
(12:22):
Corporal Cheryl Steadman. Her appointment came one hundred sixty five
years after Stephen F. Austen formed the first Ranger Company,
a reminder of how long traditions can persist in an
institution with such deep historical roots. Five years later, in
nineteen ninety three, another barrier fell when the Rangers appointed
(12:45):
their first black chief, Bruce Casteele. The force that had
once been exclusively white and male, was, albeit slowly, beginning
to reflect the diversity of the state it served. These
changes weren't just symbolic. They represented a broader transformation in
how the Rangers operated and understood their mission. The modern
(13:09):
Ranger force emphasizes investigative skill over gunfighting, prowess, collaborative relationships
with communities over intimidation, and adherents to legal procedure over
frontier expediency. Today's rangers, fewer than two hundred men and
women for a state of twenty nine million people, are
(13:31):
elite criminal investigators who handle the most complex and sensitive
cases In Texas. They're called in for public corruption investigations,
unsolved murders, officer involved shootings, and major crimesprees that cross
jurisdictional boundaries. In twenty nineteen, I spent several days shadowing
(13:52):
a ranger working a cold case murder in West Texas.
What struck me wasn't just his methodical approach to evidence
and interviews, though that was impressive, but his deep connection
to the community he served. Everyone knew him, trusted him.
When he said he was going to find out what happened,
(14:13):
they believed him. I remember sitting in a small town
diner with this ranger, let's call him Jim, watching as
he worked the room, not in a politician's glad handing way,
but with the quiet authority of someone who'd earned his
place at the table. An elderly Hispanic woman stopped to
talk about her grandson. A white rancher asked about progress
(14:35):
on a cattle theft case. A young black deputy sheriff
sought advice on evidence collection relationships. Jim told me later,
as we drove down a lonely stretch of highway toward
another interview. That's what this job is really about now.
Time was Rangers relied on intimidation. These days we get
a lot further with trust. He nodded, toward the vast
(14:56):
landscape rolling past our windows out here. Your reputation is
your most valuable tool. Takes years to build, seconds to lose.
That trust is hard earned and reflects decades of improved
relations between the Rangers and the diverse communities of modern Texas,
but it's not universal, particularly in border communities with long
(15:19):
memories of historical abuses. The Ranger's complicated legacy continues to
shape how different Texans view the iconic force. This brings
us to an important point about the Rangers that applies
to their entire history. They've always been both a real
law enforcement agency and a powerful cultural symbol, and the
(15:40):
tension between these two identities has shaped their development in
profound ways. As a symbol, the Rangers represent a mythologized
version of Texas itself, independent, tough, resilient, unwilling to back down.
The Ranger of popular culture portrayed in books, films, and
television shows, from The Lone Ranger to Walker Texas Ranger
(16:04):
is a straightforward hero, a guardian of civilization against barbarism
and crime. This mythologized Ranger has been enormously influential in
American culture. He's shaped our ideas about frontier justice, heroic individualism,
and the settling of the West. He's also, like most myths,
(16:25):
a simplification that obscures far more complex historical realities. The
real Rangers were neither the perfect heroes of popular entertainment
nor the uniformly brutal oppressors portrayed by their harshest critics.
They were humans operating in difficult, often violent circumstances, making
(16:45):
choices that reflected both their individual character and the cultural
context of their times. Some were genuinely heroic, men like
Samuel Walker, who died leading a charge at the Battle
of Huamantla during the Mexican American War, or Tom Rife,
who was killed in nineteen twenty two trying to protect
(17:06):
a black prisoner from a lynch mob. Others were deeply flawed,
men like Bass Outlaw, who died in a drunken shootout
after killing another lawman or the Rangers involved in atrocities
like Porvenir. Most fell somewhere in between, ordinary men doing
an extraordinary job, sometimes rising to the occasion, sometimes falling
(17:29):
short of their own ideals. What makes the ranger so
fascinating as a historical subject is precisely this tension between
myth and reality. They've never been just one thing. They've
been a frontier militia, a mounted combat force, a border patrol,
a state police agency, and now an elite investigative unit.
(17:51):
They've been heroes to some communities and villains to others,
sometimes simultaneously. This complexity extends to how we should judge
the Rangers Historically. It's both unfair and ahistorical to hold
frontier lawman to twenty first century ethical and legal standards.
It's equally wrong to excuse documented abuses of power as
(18:15):
merely products of their time. The most thoughtful approach is
to understand these men in their historical context, while acknowledging
that even by the standards of their own era, some
Ranger actions were considered excessive or unjustified. The historian Walter
Prescott Webb, who wrote what many consider the definitive early
(18:36):
history of The Rangers acknowledged this duality. In their best days,
me wrote the Rangers were a force that could ride anywhere,
face any odds. In their worst, they could be lawless,
enforcers of someone else's idea of order. That assessment still
rings true. The Rangers at their best represented the highest
(18:58):
ideals of courage, medication, and service. At their worst, they
embodied the darkest impulses of frontier justice, racism, vigilantism, and brutality,
justified as necessary for security. What's remarkable is how the
institution has survived this complicated legacy. Many similar frontier organizations
(19:22):
faded away as the conditions that created them changed. The
Rangers endured by adapting, sometimes reluctantly, sometimes proactively, to the
evolving needs of Texas. Today's Rangers still wear the iconic
silver Star badge that their predecessors pinned on in the
eighteen thirties, but they operate in a world those early
(19:43):
Rangers could scarcely have imagined. They used DNA analysis, digital forensics,
and behavioral profiling instead of tracking skills and six shooters.
They work within a complex legal system that requires search warrants,
miranda rights, and rules of evidence. Yet certain qualities remain consistent.
(20:05):
The independence that allows Rangers to pursue investigations wherever they lead,
the persistence that keeps them on cases long after others
would have given up, and the quiet authority that still
makes the arrival of a Ranger at a crime scene
a significant event. I've spent years studying the Rangers, talking
(20:26):
with current and former members of the force, and traveling
to the places where their history unfolded. I've come to
believe that the most valuable thing we can do with
this complex legacy isn't to simplify it into either uncritical
celebration or wholesale condemnation, but to understand it in all
its messy human complexity. The Ranger's story tells us something
(20:51):
important about American history, about how order was established, sometimes unjustly,
on the frontier, about the complex raci dynamics of the borderlands,
about how institutions can both perpetuate historical wrongs and eventually
work to write them. It also tells us something about
(21:11):
ourselves and our need for heroes. The mythologized Ranger, the
lone figure standing against chaos with nothing but courage, determination,
and a silver star, remains a powerful image precisely because
it speaks to our desire for moral clarity in a
(21:31):
world that rarely provides it. The real Rangers, flawed men
and now women doing difficult work in changing times, offer
a more complicated, but ultimately more valuable example. They remind
us that justice is never as simple as white hats
versus black hats, that institutions can be both necessary and problematic,
(21:56):
and that history is always more complex than the story
worries we tell about it. In the spring of twenty twenty,
a remarkable ceremony took place near the site of the
Porvenir massacre we discussed earlier. Texas Historical Commission officials, Ranger representatives,
and descendants of the massacred men gathered to dedicate a
(22:20):
historical marker acknowledging what happened there in nineteen eighteen, after
more than a century of official silence or denial, the
state of Texas formerly recognized one of the darkest moments
in Ranger history. During the ceremony, a current Ranger captain
(22:40):
addressed the descendants of the victims. I would like to
extend an apology to the survivors and the descendants, he said.
The Texas Rangers are not perfect. We've made mistakes, and
this is one we should have never made. It was
a small gesture, coming far too late for those directly affected,
(23:01):
but it represented something important, an institution willing to honestly
confront its past rather than hide behind comfortable myths. In
acknowledging their failures, Today's Rangers honor their successes more authentically
than any whitewashed history ever could. As we conclude this
(23:23):
exploration of Ranger history from their origins as Stephen F.
Austin's frontier militia to their current role as elite investigators,
I'm reminded of something a retired Ranger told me as
we stood on the bluff overlooking the Rio Grande, where
so much of their story unfolded. The badge doesn't make
(23:46):
the ranger, he said, squinting against the harsh border sun.
Never has. It's what the ranger brings to the badge
that matters. Always been that way, always will be. I'm
Jack Maddox, and this has been true tales of the
Texas Rangers. Remember, history is rarely as simple as the
stories we tell about it. The most important parts often
(24:08):
lie in the spaces between the legends and the facts.
In the complex contradictory reality of human beings trying, sometimes failing,
and occasionally succeeding in bringing justice to a world that
desperately needs it. This has been a Quiet Please production.
Head over to Quiet Please dot ai to hear what matters.
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