The Nineteenth Century Southwest: Conquest and Dispossession PDF

CHAPTER 2 The Nineteenth Century, Part I: Conquestand Dispossession Westward the course of Empire wends its Way....

CHAPTER 2 The Nineteenth Century, Part I: Conquestand Dispossession Westward the course of Empire wends its Way. -slogan favored by William Blackmore, British land speculator in the Southwest IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY the area that is now the Southwest was incor- porated into the United States through a war of conquest. With the Southwest came a population of former Mexican citizens who were now granted Ameri- can citizenship by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. These were the original Chicanos. During the remainder of the century a social and economic struc- ture crystallized in the Southwest in which Chicanos and other racial minorities were established in a subordinate status. It is into this structure that succeeding generations of Chicanos have been fitted during the twentieth century, with some modifications. There were certain key developments affecting the Chicano's social and economic status in the nineteenth century. The first of these was the Mexican American War. In considering this topic, my main concern has been with the identification of the interests that motivated that war, since such an analysis has an important bearing on subsequent developments. The second key factor was the displacement of Chicanos from the land in the various areas of the Southwest. The third was the emergence of a labor system in which Chicanos and other minorities constituted a clearly subordinate segment, which I call a colonial labor force. It is my contention that the processes affecting the land and labor showed important continuities with the interests underlying the Mexican American War. A consideration of all three developments reveals an intricate interplay between class and race factors in the Southwest. This chapter deals with the first two of these three topics, the war and the land. The next chapter outlines the development of the colonial labor system. 7 Barrera, Mario. Race and Class In the Southwest: A Theory of Racial Inequality. E-book, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb40077.0001.001. Downloaded on behalf of California State University, San Marcos  8 RACE AND CLASS IN THE SOUTHWEST EVENTS UP TO 1848 The Spanish settlements in the area that is now the Southwest date from the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The earliest settlements were in the area now known as New Mexico, where Santa Fe was founded in 1609. Over the next 200 years there were additional settlements, and by the early nineteenth century there were three main areas of concentration: the New Mexico territory, southern and southeastern Texas, and the California coast. With the independence of Mexico in 1821, these areas became part of the new Mexican republic. These territories were thinly populated and rela- tively isolated from each other and from the major centers of Mexican popula- tion. The bulk of the population was mestiw, a mixture of Mexican Indian, European, and African stocks, and the predominant economic activities were mining, ranching, and agriculture. Vast areas of the Southwest were still controlled by various Native American groups, such as the Apaches, Pueblos, Navajos and Comanches. It was during the first half of the nin :teenth century that regular contacts were made between merchants and trade. , of the United States and the people of northern Mexico. Regular trade bet ,een St. Louis and northern New Mexico was initiated with the blazing of the Santa Fe Trail in 1822, leading to a lively trade in furs, silver, and other goods. One result was the weakening of the economic ties between northern New Mexico and the rest of Mexico, as the area came more into the orbit of the Missouri merchants (Lamar, 1970, p. 48). By the 1840s there was a sizable number of American businessmen in the cities of Taos and Santa Fe, whose economic activities were paralleled by their efforts to increase their political influence. In addition to trading, Anglos in New Mexico engaged in land speculation. In California, Yankee maritime traders had established a presence going back to the late eighteenth century, built around their interests in sea-otter furs and whaling. During the 1820s an important trade developed around the exchange of California cattle products (the hide-and-tallow trade) for manu- factured goods from New England (Billington, 1974, p. 474). In 1830 an overland route was established from Santa Fe to California which became known as the Old Spanish Trail. In addition to the exchange of California primary products for American processed goods, the trail served as a conduit for commodities brought to the California coast from Asia. In a recent paper, Almaguer has emphasized the manner in which these developments linked California to the United States and the broader world-economy (Almaguer, 1977). The penetration of Texas by settlers from the United States was more thorough than in the other areas of northern Mexico. Here the Spanish and later the Mexican governments had made vigorous attempts to populate the Barrera, Mario. Race and Class In the Southwest: A Theory of Racial Inequality. E-book, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb40077.0001.001. Downloaded on behalf of California State University, San Marcos  Conquest and Dispossession 9 area through a series of land grants, some of which had gone to Anglo colonizers. The most famous of these was the Austin Colony, but there were others. While the Mexican government realized to some extent the dangers of settling the area with non-Mexicans, there was considerable danger in allow- ing this territory to remain very thinly populated. In any case, by the 1830s only the area around and south of San Antonio could be said to be distinctly Mexican in character (Meinig, 1969, pp. 35ff.). The main economic activities in the Texas area were subsistence ag- riculture and cattle raising, although, starting in the 1820s, cotton became increasingly important. Eastern Texas in particular had very close economic ties with Louisiana and looked much more to the United States than to Mexico as far as trade was concerned. It was in Texas, of course, that the first major political development took place that foreshadowed the incorporation of northern Mexico into the United States. There was a history of unrest and tension between the Anglo settlers in Texas and the Mexican government, as exemplified in the short- lived Fredonia Revolt in 1826. There was also a long-standing effort by the United States to purchase the Texas area from Mexico. As presidents, both John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson made offers to the Mexican gov- ernment for the acquisition of Texas, and these overtures made Mexico suspi- cious of American intentions toward the area. Mexican anxieties had also been aggravated by the continued influx of Anglo settlers (many of them "illegal aliens"), which resulted by 1830 in a ratio of some 25,000 Anglos to 4,000 Spanish-speaking Mexicans in that area (Meier and Rivera, 1972, p. 58). As a result, there had been sporadic attempts by Mexico to curb Anglo-American influence in Texas. In 1830, for example, the Mexican government passed a Colonization Law which prohibited the importation of more slaves into Texas and also attempted to cut off further Anglo settlement. Texas at this time was part of the state of Coahuila-Texas. The law was ineffective and was repealed in 1833, but it indicates the concern of Mexican officials over the situation. Specific economic interests were clearly involved in the conflict. On the one hand, many of the Anglo settlers were interested in cotton cultivation and desired the free importation of slaves to work in the cotton fields. Mexico had abolished slavery, and its policy toward the movement of slaves into Texas was ambivalent but obviously negative. In addition, Anglos with commercial interests wanted to engage in free trade with the United States, and resented Mexican efforts to enforce the national customs laws (Meier and Rivera, 1972, p. 59). The decisive revolt for an independent Texas came about during a period of considerable internal conflict within Mexico. Federalists and Cen- tralists were contesting for national power, with the Centralists, led by Santa Barrera, Mario. Race and Class In the Southwest: A Theory of Racial Inequality. E-book, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb40077.0001.001. Downloaded on behalf of California State University, San Marcos  10 RACE AND CLASS IN THE SOUTHWEST Anna, gaining the upper hand. Resistance to the Centralist regime broke out in several provinces, and it was in this context that the conflict in Texas was converted into a revolt among the Anglo settlers against any form of Mexican authority over the area. With the success of the revolt, the Republic of Texas was established in 1836. During the course of the armed conflict the official position of the United States was neutrality, but considerable support for the separatist cause flowed into Texas unofficially. The new authorities in Texas promptly sought to be annexed to the United States, but annexation was rejected by the United States because of complications over the issue of slavery. Texas would have come in as slave territory, and the entire issue thus became embroiled in the American sec- tional conflict as well as in the competition between the two major parties, the Democrats and the Whigs. Texas thus remained a republic until 1845, during which time the Anglo population greatly increased through immigration. The subject of the annexation of Texas came up again in 1844, and when annexation was rejected by the Congress the issue became important in the presidential campaign of 1844. In this campaign the Democratic candi- date, James K. Polk, ran on a strongly annexationist platform and defeated the more ambivalent Whig nominee, Henry Clay. With the results of the election known, the outgoing president, Tyler, managed to get a joint resolution through Congress providing for the addition of Texas to the union. This act led Mexico, which had never formally recognized the independence of Texas, to break off diplomatic relations with the United States. In this charged atmosphere it became increasingly clear that Polk had broader territorial ambi- tions. Shortly after the annexation of Texas, an American emissary, Slidell, was sent to Mexico to settle the Texas matter, but also to attempt to purchase the areas of New Mexico and California. With the failure of the Slidell Mission, the stage was set for the outbreak of hostilities. Polk had ordered American troops into Texas, and these had advanced to the Rio Grande, although the southern area between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande had always been a contested area between Texas and Mexico, in which there were no Texas settlements. In April 1846 the United States blockaded the mouth of the Rio Grande, which historian Glenn Price points out constituted an act of war even if the river had been the agreed-upon international boundary (Price, 1967, p. 153). In that same month an armed clash between Mexico and American troops along the river provided the incident which quickly led the United States to declare war against Mexico. Polk's war message to Congress was based on the claim that Mexican troops had invaded the territory of the United States and attacked American forces. But Price argues that Polk had concluded that his territorial aims could not be achieved peacefully, and that Barrera, Mario. Race and Class In the Southwest: A Theory of Racial Inequality. E-book, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb40077.0001.001. Downloaded on behalf of California State University, San Marcos  Conquest and Dispossession 11 he had thus engaged in a series of actions designed to provoke an incident that could be used to stir up popular support for war. The Mexican American War which resulted from these events lasted from 1846 to 1848, and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed in the latter year, added a vast territory to the United States. Mexico lost one-third of its territory and the United States gained an area that was to become the states of California, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and part of Colorado, as well as all of Texas. The former citizens of Mexico who remained in this area became American citizens and constituted the original Chicanos. In light of the preceding discussion, their incorporation into the United States must be seen as the product of an imperial war. The interests that underlay the conquest of the Southwest have been a subject of considerable debate among historians, and a number of motivations have been put forth which need to be reviewed and assessed. One interpreta- tion that has enjoyed considerable popularity is that Southern slaveowners were instrumental in instigating the conflict. According to this argument, they stood to gain in that the Southwest would provide room for expansion of cotton agriculture. Also, the addition of more slave states would aid the Southern planters in their conflict with Northern industrialists for control of the government (see Rhodes, 1907, p. 79). That political considerations led many in the South to push for the annexation of Texas is admitted even by those who play down the Southern conspiracy thesis (for example, see Boucher, 1921, p. 22). The economic argument also makes sense, in that cotton agriculture, as it was practiced at the time, tended to exhaust the land rapidly, and there was a continuous move westward from the old cotton states in search of more land suitable for plantations. The fact that most Southern planters were Democrats and that the national administration was Democratic also seems to add weight to this thesis. However, the limitations of the argument need to be carefully noted. In the first place, there seems to be a consensus among historians that Polk did not act as a sectional president, in spite of his Southern origins. Rather, his thinking seems to have run primarily along national lines. In addition, it was already clear at the time of the Mexican American War that most of the Southwest was not suitable for cotton agriculture. Southerners, clearly, had little to gain from seeing more free territory enter the Union, and it was this consideration that led them to oppose the trend toward the annexation of all of Mexico that developed once the Mexican American War was under way (Fuller, 1969). Thus, while it seems clear that Southerners were active in pushing the demand for Texas, their interests do not explain the acquisition by the United States of the rest of the Southwest as well. A second explanation for the expansion of the United States into the Barrera, Mario. Race and Class In the Southwest: A Theory of Racial Inequality. E-book, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb40077.0001.001. Downloaded on behalf of California State University, San Marcos  12 RACE AND CLASS IN THE SOUTHWEST Southwest has been couched in terms of Manifest Destiny. This explanation is the most widely held among historians, including Mexican American histo- rians. According to this explanation, Anglo-Americans were possessed of a vision of history in which they were divinely chosen to populate the North American continent and to bring the blessings of democracy and progress to this area. Their expansion into the Southwest was simply an expression of this conviction. While it is true that there was strong popular support for expansionism in the United States, especially in the West and in some portions of the Northeast, various considerations severely limit the usefulness of Manifest Destiny as a fundamental motive for expansion into the Southwest. It may be more accurate to say that the fervor behind the idea of Manifest Destiny was the product of a campaign of ideological manipulation. Such a hypothesis is reinforced by the timing of the phenomenon: The date at which the doctrine emerged as a force to be reckoned with in politics is important to ascertain.... It can be ascertained only approx- imately, for many facets were present in this complex phenomenon and some of them came into prominence sooner than others. Some editorial voices proclaiming the full doctrine were heard already during the cam- paign of 1844. They were voices crying in the wilderness. The date when the full chorus proclaimed the doctrine came after the election, as late even as the closing months of the Ty !er administration. It came after the annexation of Texas had emerged as a good prospect in politics. [Merk, 1963, p. 41) The suddenness with which the doctrine emerged and spread inevitably arouses suspicions, as does the fact that the annexation of Texas was a con- tested political issue and that one of the major parties, the Democratic party, was strongly identified with the issue. As Merk points out, "In party affilia- tion, journals of Manifest Destiny views were Democratic. Organs of the Polk administration were strongly represented among them" (Merk, 1963, p. 35). From Merk 's account, there was a large-scale selling effort by many news- papers for the doctrine. A second major objection to Manifest Destiny as a fundamental expla- nation is that the doctrine was too vague and diffuse to serve as an adequate explanation of the expansion. It does not explain why certain areas were taken over and others were not. As Merk points out, "In some minds it meant expansion over the region to the Pacific; in others, over the North American continent; in others, over the hemisphere" (Merk, 1963, p. 24). Historian Norman Graebner puts it this way: Manifest destiny persists as a popular term in American historical litera- ture to explain the expansion of the United States to continent-wide Barrera, Mario. Race and Class In the Southwest: A Theory of Racial Inequality. E-book, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb40077.0001.001. Downloaded on behalf of California State University, San Marcos  Conquest and Dispossession 13 dimensions in the 1840's. Like most broad generalizations, it does not bear close scrutiny.... The concept of manifest destiny, as a demo- cratic expression, represented an expanding, not a confining or limiting, force. As an ideal, it was not easily defined in terms of precise territorial limits.... Some suggested that American laws be extended to include the downtrodden peons of South America.... In their enthusiasm to extend the 'area of freedom,'' many even looked beyond the continen- tal limits to Cuba, the Sandwich Islands, the far-flung regions of the Pacific, and even to the Old World itself. This was a magnificent vision for a democratic purpose, but it hardly explains the sweep of the United States across the continent. [Graebner, 1955, pp. 217~18] As others have pointed out, the concept of Manifest Destiny fit in very well with the All-of-Mexico movement, but all of Mexico was not taken. Another objection to this type of explanation can be raised in terms of a general theory of history. Materialist theories in particular argue (and I would agree) that political movements are motivated fundamentally by interests rather than disembodied ideas. Ideas and concepts which "catch on" enter into political debate largely as expressions or justifications of specific inter- ests, rather than as free-floating concepts and doctrines. In the case at hand, elites in the form of politicians and journalists played a major part in popularizing the doctrine, and the role of interests does not appear to be too difficult to identify. In summary, then, Manifest Destiny was essentially a manipulated ap- peal and an attempt to secure broad popular support for an expansionist policy of particular benefit to certain political and economic interests. The specific nature of those interests will become clearer as we examine other expla- nations. Some writers have argued that the incorporation of the Southwest into the United States should be understood in terms of economic and commercial interests of various types. To assess this argument we have to look at the three major areas of the Southwest: Texas, California, and New Mexico (which at that time included what is now Arizona). In the case of Texas (described above) there was clearly a desire on the part of cotton-growing interests in expanding into that area. California, however, appears to be the key to under- standing commercial interests in expansion. The interest in California was particularly keen among the merchant and manufacturing interests of the American Northeast, generally represented in the Whig party. According to Robert Cleland, A second reason for the belief that the annexation of California was not a slavery measure is the fact that the movement found its strongest popular favor in the north. Most of the contemporary newspaper and magazine articles which advocated the acquisition of this portion of Barrera, Mario. Race and Class In the Southwest: A Theory of Racial Inequality. E-book, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb40077.0001.001. Downloaded on behalf of California State University, San Marcos  14 RACE AND CLASS IN THE SOUTHWEST Mexican territory first appeared in New York or New England. [Cle- land, 1914-15, p. 250] Cleland also notes an 1846 article in the American Review ("Text Book of the Whig Party'') detailing the rich resources of California and urging its immediate annexation, provided it could be done peacefully. He goes on to state: Yet the interest with which the commercial states of the north regarded the future of California was unquestionably greater than that of any other section of the country, with the possible exception of the extreme west. For it was natural that those who had important trade relations not merely with California, but with India, China, and the Sandwich Is- lands, beside extensive whale fisheries, should of all others desire most eagerly a harbor and territory on the Pacific. [Cleland, 1914-51, p. 251] The thesis that ports on the Pacific were the most important factor in explaining the conquest of the Southwest has been extensively developed by Norman Graebner. According to him, The essential fact [is] that the expansion of the United States was a unified, purposeful, precise movement that was ever limited to specific maritime objectives. It was the Pacific Ocean that determined the ter- ritorial goals of all American presidents from John Quincy Adams to Polk. From the beginning, travelers, traders, and officials who con- cerned themselves with the coastal regions had their eyes trained on ports. The goal of American policy was to control the great harbors of San Francisco, San Diego, and Juan de Fuca Strait. With their acquisi- tion, expansion on the coastline ceased. [Graebner, 1955, pp. v-vi] Two of these three Pacific ports were in the California territory. The other was in the Oregon territory, which the United States acquired at about the same time after a contest with Great Britain. San Diego at that time was the center of the hide trade. San Francisco was also involved in that trade, and was seen as a major future trade link with Asia. In his message to Congress in December 1847, Polk declared that the California ports ''would afford shelter for our navy, for our numerous whale ships, and other merchant vessels em- ployed in the Pacific ocean, [and] would in a short period become the marts of an extensive and profitable commerce with China, and other countries of the East" (quoted in Graebner, 1955, p. 225). American interest in New Mexico can also be interpreted in economic terms. For one thing, the New Mexico area served as an overland route between California on the one hand and Texas and the American Midwest on the other. Significant trade routes crossed this territory and had been in exis- tence for some time. Santa Fe served as the overland link between California and St. Louis in a trade route that followed the Old Spanish Trail. Over this Barrera, Mario. Race and Class In the Southwest: A Theory of Racial Inequality. E-book, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb40077.0001.001. Downloaded on behalf of California State University, San Marcos  Conquest and Dispossession 15 route passed manufactured goods, silver, livestock, and commodities from Asia (Billington, 1974, p. 477). Howard Lamar, in speaking of the New Mexico conquest, puts the matter this way: It was not an expression of land hunger or slavery extension; and it was only partly prompted by that vaguer expansionist sentiment called Man- ifest Destiny. Rather, American conquest meant regularizing and secur- ing rich trade and safe transportation routes for a previously erratic, uncertain enterprise. lt was, in short, a conquest of merchants who worried little about extending the glories of free government to their captive customers. [Lamar, 1970, p. 63] The evidence thus seems clearly to support the argument that the American intrusion into the Southwest was motivated by several important economic considerations, perhaps most importantly in California. One objec- tion that has been raised to this thesis has to do with the role of the Whigs in the national debate with regard to American expansionism during that period. While both Whigs and Democrats represented commercial interests, the Whigs were preeminently the party of Northeastern merchants and manufac- turers, and they were for the most part vociferous critics of Polk and the conduct of the Mexican American War. From this fact some critics have argued against the kind of emphasis Graebner and Cleland have given to California and its ports as a motivation for the war. According to these critics, if that thesis was correct the Whigs should have been enthusiastic supporters of the war, since they represented economic interests that stood to benefit from it (see Zwelling, 1970). There are several answers to this criticism. Whigs were not opposed to the acquisition of California, but they apparently felt that it could be done without necessarily resorting to war (Merk, 1963, p. 39). Whigs. were also critical of the war for other reasons. They were not enthusiastic about the acquisition of Texas because of the slavery question and their fears of creating splits within their party and within the nation (ibid., p. 153). It should also be kept in mind that the war provided an issue which the Whigs were trying to tum to partisan advantage (Graebner, 1955, pp. 171-72, 188). At any rate, as Graebner has pointed out, Whig congressmen continued to vote financial support for the war while trying to make political hay by criticizing Polk's conduct of it. That this was a sound political strategy was indicated by their political gains in the elections of 1848. Another interpretation of the Mexican American War that is sometimes found in the historical literature has to do with the pioneer movement. Accord- ing to this view, the Anglo pioneers who had moved into the northern prov- inces of Mexico constituted an important force behind the American annexa- tion of this area, acting as a kind of latter-day Trojan Horse. In assessing this Barrera, Mario. Race and Class In the Southwest: A Theory of Racial Inequality. E-book, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb40077.0001.001. Downloaded on behalf of California State University, San Marcos  16 RACE AND CLASS IN THE SOUTHWEST argument, it seems fair to say that Anglo settlers played an important role in Texas, but were not a major force elsewhere. These settlers had of course been the prime movers behind the splitting of Texas from Mexico and the establishment of the Texas Republic, and this paved the way for the incorpora- tion of Texas into the United States. However, there was only a sprinkling of Anglo settlers in California and the New Mexico area, and they did not play a central role in the Mexican American War. Yet another factor that entered into the American move into the South- west was the role played by foreign countries, especially England. England, seeing the United States as a potentially formidable competitor economically and politically, was doing what it could to limit American influence on the North American continent and to increase its own. While contesting the Oregon territory with the United States, England was attempting to prevent the annexation of Texas and was supporting the Mexican government in its efforts to hold on to the rest of its northern provinces. England apparently considered that an independent Texas would constitute a receptive market for British goods, as well as an ally in limiting American growth and power. At the same time, England was interested in exercising as much control as possible over the Pacific coast and its ports, although it was in no position to think of taking over California. The maneuvers and ambitions of Britain were well known in Washington, and were undoubtedly a source of anxiety to national policymakers. In attempting to assess the role this factor played, however, it may be best to quote a historian's opinion: The degree to which Polk's moves to acquire California were influenced by concern over British designs can be-and have been-easily exag- gerated, for he was wise enough to realize that the jingoistic ambitions of a few English empire-builders did not constitute official policy. He was also aware, however, that those ambitions provided him an effec- tive tool to manipulate American opinion toward favoring peaceful an- nexation, and Polk used that tool well. [Billington, 1974, p. 485] Another dimension to American expansion into the Southwest is curi- ously missing or seriously underemphasized by historians. In the various interpretations that have been written there is rarely a discussion of the dynamics and level of development of the American economy as a whole during this period. It may be that a closer examination of this dimension will further clarify the motivations behind the Mexican American War. The American economy during the first half of the nineteenth century was marked by a distinct regional pattern. The South, which had been a diversified agricultural area, was becoming more and more specialized as a cotton-growing region. The West was primarily a grower of foodstuffs. The Northeast, an area of incipient manufacturing, also provided important ser- Barrera, Mario. Race and Class In the Southwest: A Theory of Racial Inequality. E-book, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb40077.0001.001. Downloaded on behalf of California State University, San Marcos  Conquest and Dispossession 17 vices in shipping and trade. According to the classic account by Douglass C. North (North, 1966), prior to the 1830s it was not clear that the United States would be able to develop into a major industrial country. The internal market was not highly developed, and the export sector was less than dynamic. The urban areas were relatively small, and the West was relatively isolated from the Northeast by natural geographic barriers. Starting around 1830, however, there was a major expansion in the value of the goods the United States was able to export. The earnings derived from exports then became the key factor in the economic development of the country, and particularly in manufactur- ing and regional integration. Of the various components that went into the export trade, cotton was by far the leading element. The effects of this growth in exporting were many and interrelated. With growth in the demand for cotton, more land in the South was devoted to that crop, and the search for land suitable for cotton cultivation was inten- sified. However, a great deal of the cotton earnings flowed to the Northeast, since that region provided the services to finance, transport, and market the South's cotton. Some of these resources went into the establishment of a textile industry in the Northeast, and this in tum led to the development of an industry that produced machinery, first for the textile industry and then more generally. With the growth of urban industrial centers, the demand for Western-grown foods increased, and this stimulated the economy of the West and accelerated the development of transportation links between the Northeast and the West. As North notes, "it was industrialization in the Northeast and the opening up of the West and Far West which was primarily responsible for the growth of the 1840's and 1850's" (North, 1966, p. 71). From this perspective, some of the interests and motivations reviewed above take on added significance. The boom in the demand for cotton and the key role this played in the economy of the entire country help explain the strong interest in Texas. The interest of the Southern ruling class in that area was also stimulated by the economic and population gains being made in the Northeast and West, since this tended to undercut their relative power at the national level. The booming economy of that period also heightened the interest of Northeastern commercial elites in California, with its ports and its potential role in future trade with Asia. The New Mexico territory, with its natural resources and its trade routes, also took on added significance. At the same time, the fact that the United States was more and more becoming an economic competitor helps explain England's concern with limiting American territorial growth, and made the United States even more eager to establish the base for its future role as a major world power. The other side of the coin is that the economic and technological growth of the period made it possible for the United States to act on its ambitions. As Frederick Merk puts it, Barrera, Mario. Race and Class In the Southwest: A Theory of Racial Inequality. E-book, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb40077.0001.001. Downloaded on behalf of California State University, San Marcos  18 RACE AND CLASS IN THE SOUTHWEST The steam engine had come into its own in river, ocean, and land travel. From distant territories to the center of government travel time by water had been sensationally reduced. On land railroads had proved them- selves practical. But even more remarkable than the actual achieve- ments of these agencies in contracting space was the stimulus given to the expansion of thought. In the mid-1840's projects to build transconti- nental railroads to the Pacific by northern, central, and southern routes were on the lips of all. [Merk, 1963, pp. 51-521 In summary, then, a variety of interests can be seen to have played a role in the American penetration into the Southwest, some of major impor- tance and some distinctly secondary. But at the heart of the phenomenon were a number of economic interests closely tied to the dynamic expansion of American capitalism from the 1830s on. These interests included those of Southern agricultural capitalists, based on the plantation system, but more importantly those of the Northern industrialists and men of commerce who were on the ascendance nationally. THE LAND With the termination of the Mexican American War, a process of trans- ferring Southwestern land from Mexican American to Anglo hands was set in motion-in spite of provisions in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo guarantee- ing the new citizens the security of their property. The pace of dispossession varied from area to area because of a variety of factors, but the general trend was everywhere consistent. Still, it would be an oversimplification to deal with this topic in strictly ethnic or racial terms. Class factors strongly influ- enced the process, as I emphasize in the following account. Given the uneven pace of land transfer, it is necessary to look at developments by geographic area. California In 1851 the U.S. Congress passed a Land Law that established a com- mission to review the validity of claims to the land in California based on grants made during the Spanish and Mexican periods. Attention has usually focused on the resulting adversary process, and the conflict over the land has been perceived as pitting the native Spanish-speaking Californios, as the land-grant claimants, against Anglo settlers who were often squatters on the land. While this was an important part of what was going on, several com- plicating factors need to be added to the picture. On the Californio side, account needs to be taken of the fact that land- ownership in California had been highly unequal. Much of the desirable California land was held in the form of land grants that had been made by the Barrera, Mario. Race and Class In the Southwest: A Theory of Racial Inequality. E-book, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb40077.0001.001. Downloaded on behalf of California State University, San Marcos  Conquest and Dispossession 19 Spanish and Mexican governments. Among the Californios was a small class of large landowners and a much larger group of people who lived on a more modest scale. Among these were agricultural laborers, small farmers, ser- vants, artisans, and small merchants. Laborers were the majority and were very poor. Thus all Californios did not have the same immediate stake in the question of who should control the land. According to Leonard Pitt, reports in 1849 showed that 200 California families owned 14 million acres (Pitt, 1970, p. 86). There are complications as well on the Anglo side. In the first place, not all of the land grants had been made to Californios. There was a group of Anglos who had been recipients of grants prior to the Mexican American War. Among them were such well-known figures as Abel Stearns and John C. Fremont. Many of the Anglo landholders of this period were in the central valley of California, but several of the most important were in southern California (Robinson, 1948, pp. 63-64). Many of these men blended into Californio culture and had intermarried with Californios. Another complicating factor arises from the fact of land transference through mechanisms that had little to do with the Land Commission. Accord- ing to Paul Gates, ''before 1851, 42 percent of the claims were in the hands of non-Mexicans and in the years thereafter an increasing number were lost to the hard-driving, better-financed Americans who began to develop their grants" (Gates, 1975, p. 159). Richard Morefield comments on this situation as follows: The process [of land transfer] had begun as soon as the first foreigner had set foot in California.... A breakdown of the figures gives an idea of how much of the land had already passed from [Californio] control. Of the 813 cases presented to the Commission, 521 were confirmed by the time the Commission adjourned in 1856; this number was raised to 604 by successful appeals to the courts. Of these 604 cases only 330 were confirmed to Californians of Mexican descent. [Morefield, 1971, p. 26] This transfer was not being made to small Anglo settlers, as Gates makes clear: When sales were made, it was to new men with financial backing who were able to develop some portions of their purchases, even to lay out towns and cities on them. Thus, the early non-Mexican owners of great ranchos such as Thomas 0. Larkin, John Bidwell, William A. Dana, Nicholas Den, W. E. P. Hartness, and Abel Stearns were joined by a group of new millionaires whose wealth had been or was being made in banking, shipping, the cattle trade, mining, and railroads. This new group became owners of numerous ranchos or parts of ranchos running into hundreds of thousands of acres. [Gates, 1975, p. 159] Barrera, Mario. Race and Class In the Southwest: A Theory of Racial Inequality. E-book, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb40077.0001.001. Downloaded on behalf of California State University, San Marcos  20 RACE AND CLASS IN THE SOUTHWEST Thus while it was true that Califomios were being displaced from the land, many Califomios owned no land from which to be displaced. While it was true that Anglos were taking over the land, some had been there earlier, and the new masters of the land were increasingly likely to be men of means rather than the average Anglo newcomer. The process of displacing the Californios from the land was more rapid in northern than in southern California. The reason for this is that the Gold Rush in northern California attracted large numbers of Anglos into that area during and after 1848. With the influx of Anglos, land values in northern California skyrocketed (Gates, 1962, p. 100). Pitt and others have discussed various factors that facilitated the transfer of land. One was that the require- ments for proof of ownership under American law were different and more stringent than under Mexican law. The Land Law of 1851 put the burden of proof squarely on the shoulders of the land-grant claimants. In addition, unfamiliarity with American law and the English language put many of the claimants at the mercy of Anglo laywers, many of whom had designs on the land (Pitt, 1970, pp. 91, 97; Cleland, 1951, p. 39). Gates notes that "a fairly common practice was for lawyers prosecuting claims to charge a contingent fee of one quarter of the land if successful" (Gates, 1958, p. 235). The shortage of capital often forced the claimants to pay their lawyers entirely in land. The high legal fees and other costs led many landowners to borrow money at high interest rates, so that even if they won their case they frequently had to sell their land to meet their debts (Pitt, 1970, p. 1001; Cleland, 1951, p. 40; Robinson, 1948, p. 106). In addition, land claimants in northern California were faced with a particularly strong surge of squatters on their land. These settlers formed associations to exert political pressure on behalf of their interests. Not infrequently, they exercised intimidation and coercion on the grant claimants (Pitt, 1970, pp. 95ff.). In the north of California... the basis of landownership had changed drastically by 1856. Through armed struggle, legislation, litigation, financial manipulation, outright purchase, and innumerable other tac- tics, Yankees had obtained a good deal of interest in the land. The transfer of property destroyed the irenic vision provided by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which guaranteed the Californios the "free enjoy- ment of their liberty and property"-an obligation that did not worry many Yankees. [Ibid., p. 103] The process operated at a slower pace in southern California, largely because the northern area was more dynamic economically in the first two decades following the Mexican American War. In the south there were few newcomers to speed the transfer of land. Other factors, however, intervened. The Gold Rush and population increase in the north stimulated the cattle Barrera, Mario. Race and Class In the Southwest: A Theory of Racial Inequality. E-book, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb40077.0001.001. Downloaded on behalf of California State University, San Marcos  Conquest and Dispossession 21 industry of the south, which boomed in the early 1850s. But the boom was short-lived. By 1856 the cattle industry had peaked and started to decline (Cleland, 1951, p. 110). Overexpansion and poor investment practices had undermined the stability of the cattle ranches, and a severe drought in the 1860s brought about the downfall of many Californio rancheros (ibid., pp. 130ff.). Before the catastrophe, practically all land parcels worth more than $10,000 had still been in the hands of old families; by 1870, these families held barely one-quarter. A mean and brassy sky thus did in the south of California what lawyers and squatters had accomplished in the north-the forced breakup of baronial holdings, their transfer to new owners, and the rise of a way of life other than ranching. [Pitt, 1970, p. 248) The finishing touches were added by the events associated with the coming of the railroads of southern California in the late 1870s and early l 880s. With the railroads came a monumental land boom that largely com- pleted the erosion of the California-held lands. The immigration of large numbers of Anglos reduced the Californios in the southern part of the state to a small minority, as it had earlier in the north. Combined with the other factors cited above, the economic expansion of the 1880s reduced the Califor- nios' holdings to a small fraction of their former possessions. The situation of the Californios in San Diego County has been described by Garcia (1975a) and Hughes (1975). Hughes stresses the role of legal fees and associated court costs in eroding the financial position of San Diego landowners. Land taxes also pliiyed an important role here, as in other parts of southern California. Since state laws exempted much of the northern mining industry, the brunt of the property tax fell on the large property owners of southern California who were primarily Californios. Most of the state's popula- tion resided in the North and worked in the mines or in related occupa- tions. Their representatives dominated state government and attempted to use taxation to break up the large land holdings. [Hughes, 1975, p. 18] In the Santa Barbara area, important changes in landownership took place during the 1860s, according to a study by Camarillo (1975a, 1975b). The downturn in the fortunes of the pastoral economy seems to have played an important role here as well. A comparison of censuses taken in 1860 and 1870 shows a dramatic decline in the number of Spanish-surname rancheros and farmers in the Santa Barbara area during that period (Camarillo, 1975a, p. 6). In summary, a number of factors had gone into the process that resulted in dispossession from the land of the Califomio elite and some small farmers. Barrera, Mario. Race and Class In the Southwest: A Theory of Racial Inequality. E-book, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb40077.0001.001. Downloaded on behalf of California State University, San Marcos  22 RACE AND CLASS IN THE SOUTHWEST Among these were: Imposition of a different legal system with different standards of proof of ownership Placing the burden of proof on the land-grant claimant to demonstrate that the claim was legitimate Legal chicanery by Anglo lawyers dealing with culturally different clients Manipulations of the tax system on land High legal fees and court costs, combined with a shortage of capital and the necessity to borrow money at high interest rates (see Cleland, 1951, p. 114; Pitt, 1970, p. 100) Coercion and intimidation (e.g., on the part of squatters) Anti-Californio biases by elected and appointed government officials Natural calamities, such as drought Overextension of the cattle industry following the boom of the 1850s All this is not to say that legitimate transfers of land through proper sales at fair prices did not take place. Nevertheless, a distinct discriminatory aspect was present, not only in the attitudes of individuals but in the effects of the institutional mechanisms that were set up to deal with the problem. While "institutional racism" is a relatively recent concept, it should be applied to the situation in California with respect to the land in the nineteenth century. At the same time, the conflict between the interests of the Californio landowners and the Anglo newcomers should not obscure the fact that racial divisions were only part of the story. As mentioned earlier, Anglos found themselves on both sides of the conflicts over land, as many land-grant claim- ants were Anglos. In addition, there appears to have been a considerable amount of intra-Anglo class conflict over the land. Paul Gates has documented the process from 1860 to 1900 through which agricultural capitalists accumulated large holdings at the expense of small settlers. Statistics of the number of new farms being created in California be- tween 1860 and 1900-55,826-offer little support for the notion that the great ranchos were being subdivided into many small farms. During this period 147,000 homestead and preemption applications were filed. These might have led to small farms but did not for, as is seen later, many were filed by men acting as dummies for large engrossers.... Prom- inent Californians seemed determined to bring about the greatest pos- sible concentration of land in large ownerships and bent their energies to shape state and federal legislation to contribute to that end while paying lip service to the small-family-farm concept. From the election of John C. Fremont as its first senator in 1850... the state was repre- sented in Washington by men closely identified with the great land- owners and railroad tycoons.... Barrera, Mario. Race and Class In the Southwest: A Theory of Racial Inequality. E-book, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb40077.0001.001. Downloaded on behalf of California State University, San Marcos  Conquest and Dispossession 23 Much unhappiness was expressed at the speed with which the 500,000 acres were grabbed up by capitalists who were accused of making their entries on lands being improved by settlers who were waiting for the enactment of a free homestead measure.... Meetings of squatters were held at which "raging excitement" was expressed at the land speculators who had entered land on which settlers had commenced their homestead. [Gates, 1975, pp. 160-61, 163] Or as Pitt puts it: No set pattern emerges in these land transformations, but the eroded claims of the original claimants washed away steadily and flowed into the hands of the newcomers-financiers, railroad developers, town promoters, cooperative colonizers, and irrigation companies. [Pitt, 1970, p. 275] In the long run, then, the main beneficiaries of the displacement of Californios from the land were those who had the financial resources and the political clout to reconcentrate the land in their own hands. The benefits were disproportionately appropriated by the same class of Anglo capitalists, speculators, and financiers whose interests had most strongly motivated the Mexican American War. New Mexico During the nineteenth century the bulk of the Chicano population of the Southwest was concentrated in New Mexico. Here, as in California, settle- ment of the land had taken place through Spanish and Mexican grants. In the southern part of the state, the common pattern was haciendas established by grantees who became patrons and brought in settlers to do the work. The haciendas were largely self-sufficient and were usually organized around a system of debt peonage. The haciendas grew their own food and were also engaged in pastoral activities. Sheep were the main export. Trade was carried on largely with Mexico, until the Santa Fe Trail was opened and American economic penetration of the area began. The northern part of the state was characterized by "communal" vil- lages which were organized on the basis of grants that had been given to the community as a whole. Here homesteads and farming lands were owned privately, whereas grazing and other land was owned in common and grazing and water rights were assigned by community councils (Zeleny, 1944, p. 68). Economic life revolved around subsistence agriculture and sheep raising. There was little manufacturing in the area. Northern New Mexico was more densely settled by Hispanos than the southern area. The pace of Anglo economic penetration in New Mexico was more like that of southern than northern California, and the tempo of land transfer was Barrera, Mario. Race and Class In the Southwest: A Theory of Racial Inequality. E-book, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb40077.0001.001. Downloaded on behalf of California State University, San Marcos  24 RACE AND CLASS IN THE SOUTHWEST correspondingly slow, although steady. In the mid-nineteenth century the economic penetration took the form of movement into agriculture and expan- sion of the commercial sector. Initially, the Anglo conquest of New Mexico resulted in a limited ex- pansion of the area occupied by the Spanish-speaking New Mexicans, or Hispanos. The reason for this is that the American military presence served to decimate the nomadic Indians who had previously resisted encroachments on their territory (Meinig, 1971, p. 32). The Hispano expansion, however, was halted in the 1870s as Anglo cattlemen and farmers increasingly moved into the area. As Meinig puts it: The Hispano hold upon much of their newly acquired country was necessarily thin, discontinuous, and at times no more than seasonal. The vanguard of their herders was often repelled and confined to the poorer lands, the outermost of their settlements were often soon enclaved within Anglo cattle country. The actual stabilization of the patterns of the two peoples was a long and complicated process which resulted neither in simple areal boundaries nor simple contrasts in activities (increasingly, Hispano shepherds tended Anglo-owned flocks), but it was a process which relentlessly strengthened the dominance of the one over the other. [Ibid., pp. 34-35] As in southern California, the coming of the transcontinental railroads had a significant impact in New Mexico. New Mexico was fully connected with the transcontinental system in the late 1870s and early 1880s, and with the transportation system came an economic boom and an influx of Anglos. 'The notion of migration to New Mexico was boosted by promoters of development of the West and by financial interests in the East which stood to profit by such migration" (Zeleny, 1944, p. 143). The 1880s saw a rapid increase in the number of Anglo-owned cattle companies (Westphall, 1965, p. 56). With the economic boom and the movement of Anglos into the state, the pressure on the land increased. From that point on, the process of land transfer accelerated. According to Zeleny, the process went faster in the southern part of the state, where the hacienda pattern had been dominant. Presumably, the denser Hispano population in the north and the pattern of communal holdings acted to retard the transfer to some extent (Zeleny, 1944, pp. 186-87). Clark Knowlton has provided a detailed list of the mechanisms by which the transfer of land took place in the New Mexico area. In general, the processes were much like those in California. Only two or three aspects of the transfer process warrant a more extended discussion, and one of them has to do with the impact of land taxes. Knowlton notes that under the Mexican system the land had been free of taxation-taxes were levied on the products of the land rather than on the land itself. 'In an area where the income from agriculture fluctuates irregularly according to climatic conditions, a fixed land Barrera, Mario. Race and Class In the Southwest: A Theory of Racial Inequality. E-book, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb40077.0001.001. Downloaded on behalf of California State University, San Marcos  Conquest and Dispossession 25 tax in bad years places heavy burdens upon farmers and ranchers. A small Spanish-American subsistence farmer living in the villages was singularly unprepared to adjust to a fixed land-tax system. Cultivating his land to feed his family, he seldom ever possessed enough actual cash to pay taxes requir- ing money payments" (Knowlton, 1967, p. 7). According to New Mexico law, anyone can pay delinquent taxes on land and receive a title to that land. ''Probably no other Anglo-American measure has had a harsher impact upon Spanish-American property than the fixed land tax" (ibid.). Knowlton argues that the county land tax was also subject to extensive fraud and manipulation, to the detriment of the Hispano population. McWilliams notes the same phenomenon: In many cases, the Spanish-Americans could not pay land taxes of $1. 50 an acre, or more, levied against grazing lands. Anglo-Americans would then buy up the lands at tax sales and promptly have the land tax reduced to thirty or forty cents an acre. [McWilliams, 1968, p. 77] In many cases it appears that the new owners of the land engaged in an unwarranted enlargement of the grant boundaries. A number of grants have had their boundaries stretched and areas mar- velously expanded. But this has been done mostly by Yankee and En- glish purchasers and not by the original Mexican owners. Where bound- aries were made by natural landmarks, such as a "white rock," a "red hill," or a "lone tree," another rock, hill or tree of like description could always be found a league or two farther off, and claimed to be the original landmark described in the grant documents. [Wilbur F. Stone, associate justice of the Court of Private Land Claims, cited in West- phall, 1973, p. 36] In New Mexico, also, the role of the government and its use of land became an important factor-increasingly so toward the end of the century. Without compensation, the National Forest Service has taken millions of acres from the northern villages for the creation of national forests. Hispanos must now pay grazing fees on land that once belonged to the villages (Knowlton, 1967, p. 10). The creation of forest reserves by the Federal Government has likewise withdrawn large portions of the public domain from free grazing lands of the Spanish-Americans. The Santa Fe National Forest was created in 1892, and the Cibola and Carson National Forests were established in 1906... they combined with other factors in confining the Spanish- Americans to a smaller and smaller land base. Grants made by the government to railroads during the period of their construction also withdrew substantial portions of the public domain from the free use of the old residents. [Zeleny, 1944, p. 171] Barrera, Mario. Race and Class In the Southwest: A Theory of Racial Inequality. E-book, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb40077.0001.001. Downloaded on behalf of California State University, San Marcos  26 RACE AND CLASS IN THE SOUTHWEST Malcolm Ebright has described the process in relation to the San Joa- quin del Rio de Chama grant in northern New Mexico, originally made in 1808 to a group of Mexican families: There was never any serious question regarding the validity of the grant nor of the nature of the grant as one made to a community. The only real question which the U.S. officials who were responsible for its adjudica- tion asked was, how big was it. In 1861 when approximately 400 of the grantees and their heirs petitioned for confirmation of the grant, its size was estimated at 184,320 acres. But when surveyed in 1878 it turned out to contain 472,736 acres. It appears that the rejection of 471,314 acres of the grant, most of which eventually wound up in the Santa Fe National Forest, was based on the simple fact that the grant was too big and would unreasonably deplete the U.S. public domain. [Ebright, 1976, p. 3) Of course, even if a different determination had been made by the court, there was no guarantee that the land would remain under the control of the villagers, given the various processes that were acting to concentrate the land in the hands of large companies and land speculators. It was not until 1891 that a Court of Private Land Claims was estab- lished for New Mexico. Prior to that time, conflicts over claims were handled by the state surveyor general, subject to congressional confirmation. The Court of Private Land Claims was empowered to deal with all Spanish and Mexican land claims in the areas of New Mexico, Colorado, and Arizona. Because of the biases of the rules and procedures the court was to follow, similar to those of the California Land Commission, the results were highly disadvantageous to the Hispanos. The court [of Private Land Claims] was set up with five judges selected from other parts of the United States, a United States Attorney, and other court officials. The members of the court were Anglo-American legal officials with little knowledge of Spanish and Mexican law and no knowledge of Spanish-American land-owning customs. Court decisions were based upon a rigid interpretation of Anglo legal precepts. [Knowlton, 1967, p. 6) In the years from 1891 until 1904, when the Court was disbanded, decisions were made settling the currently urgent land claims. In this time about two-thirds of the claims examined were rejected; the court confirmed the grants to 2,051,526 acres, and rejected claims to 33,439,493 acres.... The stipulation that no grant be confirmed unless there was strict legal authority in the granting powers was the basis for the rejection of many claims.... The decisive action taken by the court in its years of activity actually relegated the Spanish-Americans to a position of greater disadvantage than they had occupied prior to its Barrera, Mario. Race and Class In the Southwest: A Theory of Racial Inequality. E-book, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb40077.0001.001. Downloaded on behalf of California State University, San Marcos  Conquest and Dispossession 27 establishment.... The conflicts over land were turned over to a sup- posedly impersonal third party, the Court, which technically fulfilled the Anglo-American conception of ''justice'' but at the same time pro- ceeded to fix the Spanish-American in a position of subordination. [Zeleny, 1944, pp. 166-67] The result was that eventually Anglos came to own four-fifths of the former grant areas (Brayer, 1974, p. 19; Meier and Rivera, 1972, p. 107). The loss of the community lands, from an original 2 million acres to 300,000 by 1930, was a major blow to the economic viability of the villages (Harper, Cordova, and Oberg, 1943, p. 62). The emphasis in the litigation decisions was clearly on ascertaining if there was legal authority in the original granting process. Although this may seem a proper norm of justice, it must be emphasized it was a norm of Anglo justice being applied to the traditional legal process of another sovereign state (either Spain or Mexico) which functioned in a different cultural and legal framework. Moreover, it applied current norms to a previous circumstance, which to the Mexican Americans could reasonably be considered an ex post facto application. It can certainly be argued that the determination of legitimacy in the granting process was an important aspect of the legal question, but the overriding importance placed on this single norm, relative to the reasonableness of the acceptance of the original grantors and the appropriate communities or individuals of the legality of the grants by their traditional ex- pressions of legality (occupation and use) and the long time lag between the grants and their validity determination seems a clear bias against the Mexican Americans. lJim Johnson, 1975, memo prepared for this study] A number of the grants in New Mexico had been made under terms in which the members of the local community were to use the land under the condition of usufruct. "It is the nature of usufruct that it is a perpetual right attached to the land, a right effective not only against the owner of the land, but also against all others. Usufruct can be owned in common, but the owners do not possess the land; they possess the right to use it" (Rock, 1976, p. 54). The right is intended to be perpetual, as long as the grantees live up to their obligations to maintain the land. This right was supposed to be protected by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, but the courts of New Mexico have refused to depart from a rigid adherence to Anglo legal norms in deciding land grant cases, and these norms do not include the right ofusufruct (ibid., pp. 56-61). At the same time, there is evidence that violence and intimidation played a considerable role in the economic changes that were taking place. ''Hand in hand with the vast expropriation of lands went a wave of violence and terrorism which caused many Hispanos to leave the San Luis Valley. Barrera, Mario. Race and Class In the Southwest: A Theory of Racial Inequality. E-book, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb40077.0001.001. Downloaded on behalf of California State University, San Marcos  28 RACE AND CLASS IN THE SOUTHWEST Family histories in the San Juan Basin relate incidents of covert shootings and public lynchings over land and political control'' (Swadesh, 1974, p. 80; see also Ganaway, 1944, p. 102). As in the case of California, dispossession from the land was largely effected through the ''normal workings'' of the institutions which were set up by Anglo society. The process illustrates the way in which institutional dis- crimination can operate in an apparently color-blind manner. The situation of the Spanish-Americans was made even more difficult by the establishment of only two federal land offices in New Mexico during much of the territorial period.... The very existence of these offices, let alone their functions, was unknown to the Spanish-American village population. On the other hand, the Americans, who lived in the larger urban centers of the Territory, possessed far better means of traveling and of communicating with each other and with the land offices. As political alliances were established, often with the personnel of the land office, they were able to note which land grants were reg- istered and which were not and thus to take appropriate action to register many unregistered grants in their own names. [Knowlton, 1967, p. 6] The overall result was a steady decline in the economic and political fortunes of the Hispanos, with the land playing a key role. The struggle between the Spanish-Americans and Anglo-Americans tak- ing place in New Mexico during this period was one in which the defeat of the Spanish-Americans was pre-ordained because of certain critical advantages which the Anglo-Americans possessed. In the struggle eco- nomic and political factors were inter-related in such a manner as to produce a shift in power from the hands of the numerically preponderant Spanish-American group to those of the invading Anglos. (Zeleny, 1944, p. 159] The accommodation which was effected in the economic sphere through land displacement and competition resulted essentially in a relationship of superordination and subordination between the two competing ethnic groups. [Ibid., p. 196] The loss of lands by the Hispanos is only one aspect of the situation, however. If anything, the class dimension to the economic penetration and transfer of land in New Mexico was even more apparent than in other parts of the Southwest. Zeleny notes that New Mexico did not at first attract many of the regular settler class, but rather was a field for exploitation by American commercial enterprise and American and European capital. [Ibid., p. 159] The activities of the Santa Fe Ring and its various component rings in the nineteenth century exemplify this class dimension. The ring consisted of a Barrera, Mario. Race and Class In the Southwest: A Theory of Racial Inequality. E-book, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb40077.0001.001. Downloaded on behalf of California State University, San Marcos  Conquest and Dispossession 29 group of Anglo merchants, lawyers, bankers, politicians, and ranchers who dominated the territory during the last two decades of the century. With headquarters in Santa Fe, they exercised great influence in the territorial and national capitals. While engaged in every facet of commercial and political life, the biggest impact of the ring was probably in manipulating the land and concentrating it in their hands through a variety of sharp practices (Larson, 1968, pp. 137ff.; see also Lamar, 1970, chap. 6). Frances Swadesh has provided us with a description of the manner in which Thomas Catron, one of the leaders of the ring, gained control of the large Tierra Amarilla grant. According to this account, his methods included the manufacture of evidence, collecting large legal fees in the form of land, and defrauding the original grant claimants (Swadesh, 1974, pp. 84-85). By the 1880s, he was one of the largest landowners in the United States, with the Tierra Amarilla grant alone totaling some 600,000 acres. In the process of developing this area, Hispano communities were disrupted and much of the land was "clean cut" by lumber companies (ibid., pp. 88-89). Brayer's extended account of the activities of the British capitalist and speculator, William Blackmore, in gaining control over several grants in the northern New Mexico-southern Colorado area also highlights the class dimension in the transfer of land titles. One of the more interesting aspects of this process stands out clearly in the Santa Fe Ring, which was able to exercise power effectively because of the alliance it forged with the wealthy Hispano elite, the ricos (McWilliams, 1948, p. 122; Knowlton, 1967, p. 5; Larson, 1968, p. 144). In effect, there was an interethnic class alliance, which, however, was dominated by the Anglos. Actually, such an alliance had long been in existence. Brayer has described the manner in which Cornelio Vigil and Ceran St. Vrain, prominent residents of Taos, combined to petition Governor Armijo for a substantial grant of land in 1843. The grant was made in that same year. Within two months, the two recipients of the grant had deeded a one-sixth interest to Armijo, to Donanciano Vigil (Armijo 's territorial secretary), and to Charles Bent and Eugene Leitensdorfer, important merchants and traders (Brayer, 1974, pp. 127-29). In another example, Guadalupe Miranda and Charles Beaubien were placed in possession of a large grant of northern New Mexico land in 1841 by Governor Armijo. The curate of Taos, Father Martinez, protested that much of the land belonged to the people of Taos and had long been used as common grazing land, but to no avail (Keleher, 1964, pp. 13-15). The role of the ricos in the post-Mexican American War period was to provide their Anglo partners with political support through their influence with the Hispano population. In return, they hoped to be safeguarded to some extent in retaining control of their lands (Zeleny, 1944, p. 160). In the long Barrera, Mario. Race and Class In the Southwest: A Theory of Racial Inequality. E-book, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb40077.0001.001. Downloaded on behalf of California State University, San Marcos  30 RACE AND CLASS IN THE SOUTHWEST run, however, the bargain turned out badly for many of the ricos. Rodman Paul has given us an assessment of the effects of the alliance on the Hispano elite: Whether Hispanos really were the big gainers from the operations of either the Ring or the early business houses may be doubted. One suspects that their Anglo associates were too resourceful for that. And in any event, while some of the Hispano upper class were prospering, many of their cousins... were losing ownership of the land that had been the traditional basis of their power. So at best only a portion of even the favored class were better off at the end of the century than they had been in 1848. [Paul, 1971, p. 39] Another aspect of the class dimension as it affected the land (already seen in California) was class conflict within the Anglo population. Keleher provides a vivid account of the formation on the Maxwell land grant of groups of Anglo settlers determined to wage a struggle against the promoters and capitalists who had gained control of the grant. In the end, their efforts were largely unsuccessful (Keleher, 1964, pp. 84-107). Westphall has documented the fraudulent manipulation of the land by land and cattle companies, along the same lines as the practices described by Gates for California (Westphall, 1965, pp. 64, 81, lO0ff.). In summary, it is possible to see in New Mexico, even more clearly than in California, the interrelated nature of ethnic and class factors in the dispos- session of the land and its reconcentration in the hands of an Anglo-dominated economic and political elite. Texas Texas differs from the other areas of the Southwest in that here there was a pattern of extensive Anglo settlement of the land. A substantial amount of land had been granted to Anglos through the Mexican government's em- presario grants, particularly in southeastern Texas. Perhaps in part because of this, little has been written about the dis- placement of Mexicans and Chicanos from the land in this region. Yet this process appears to have started quite early. During the war that resulted in the independent Republic of Texas in 1836, Spanish-speaking residents were apparently driven out of certain areas, notably in Bexar County, where San Antonio is located (Meinig, 1969, p. 46). Joseph Nance adds that Texas Anglo raiders ''forced the abandonment of many of the Mexican ranches between the Neuces and the Rio Grande" in the late 1830s (Nance, 1963, p. 547). Meinig notes that "east of Victoria nearly all of the few Hispanos who had not fled in 1836 were harassed and driven out in 1845 or shortly thereaf- ter" (Meinig, 1969, p. 55). The process continued after the termination of the Mexican American Barrera, Mario. Race and Class In the Southwest: A Theory of Racial Inequality. E-book, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb40077.0001.001. Downloaded on behalf of California State University, San Marcos  Conquest and Dispossession 31 War. Speaking of south central Texas, Meinig states that "by 1860 the Anglos had gotten control, by fair means or foul, of nearly every ranch worth having north of the Neuces" (Meinig, 1969, p. 54). As in other areas, force and fraud were not the only mechanisms used to facilitate the transfer of land. The Texas historian Fehrenbach describes the situation in this way, with an unconscious touch of irony: There is some truth that many Mexican landowners, especially the small ones, were robbed in south Texas by force, intimidation, or chicanery. But what is usually ignored is the fact that the hacendado class, as a class, was stripped of property perfectly legally, according to the high- est traditions of U.S. law. [Fehrenbach, 1968, p. 510] The Espiritu Santo grant in the Rio Grande Valley provides one example of a Chicano-held grant that was validated by the courts but in which the land was lost because of the prohibitive costs of the litigation (Acufia, 1972, pp. 43-44). "'The imposition of American law infuriated most Mexican landown- ers. They had to defend their ancient titles in court, and they lost either way, either to their own lawyers or to the claimants" (Fehrenbach, 1968, p. 511). Acufia notes that an 1860 census showed that 263 Texans owned over $100,000 in real property, and that only two of these were Chicanos (Acufia, 1972, p. 44). Paul Taylor has provided us with a more intensive look at the situation in the southern Gulf Coast county of Neuces. He states that by 1835 all of the county had been granted in large tracts to Mexicans, who used the area for cattle. By 1859 all but one of the grants had passed to Anglo hands (Taylor, 1971, p. 179). The process of transfer started in 1840, through sales. Taylor addresses himself to whether the sales could be considered fair and free: When the Mexicans first sold to Americans they were under stress to sell. They were not simply individual holders of property selling of their free will; they were selling because they were Mexicans who, in a time of chaos, could no longer occupy their land, and who saw the imminent American military and political domination.... It was under the pres- sure of these conditions that the grants passed to Americans, who as bargainers took advantage of them in varying degrees. (Ibid., pp. 182- 83] Taylor's insights into the psychological pressure on the Mexican land- holders undoubtedly apply to other areas of the Southwest as well. As in other parts of the Southwest, land transfer in Texas was strongly affected by the economy. The boom in cattle that followed the American Civil War led to greater pressure on the land, as did the economic development stimulated by the coming of the railroads. According to Meier and Rivera, "as a result of the cattle boom after the Civil War... the loss of land by Barrera, Mario. Race and Class In the Southwest: A Theory of Racial Inequality. E-book, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb40077.0001.001. Downloaded on behalf of California State University, San Marcos  32 RACE AND CLASS IN THE SOUTHWEST tejan