Atlas of Hispanic-American History

To counter the loss of land, Nuevo-

mexicanos resorted to legal and illegal

techniques of their own. Formed in the

1880s, Las Gorras Blancas, “The White

Caps,” were a group of armed horsemen

in white masks and black coats who sabo-

taged the property of Anglo and rico

landowners. Specifically, they cut apart

the barbed-wire fencing and railroad ties

that they considered to be intruding on

common land. In the 1890s, they gradu-

ally disappeared as popular opinion

turned against lawlessness and the gover-

nor threatened military action.

Legal means were also used to speak

out for los pobres, or poor Nuevo-

mexicanos. Voices that supported them in

the 1890s included the Spanish-language

newspaper La Voz del Pueblo(The Voice of

the People), the early national trade

union the Knights of Labor, and the

political organization The United

People’s Party (El Partido). But the re-

distribution of land and power from

Hispanic to Anglo continued largely

unchecked.

A similar transition occurred in other

formerly Mexican territories, including

California, Texas, and Arizona. Mexican

Americans everywhere faced prejudice

and loss of economic and political power,

and they fought back as best they could.

In Santa Ana, California, in 1892, a lynch

mob broke into jail and hanged Hispanic

ranch worker Francisco Torres for having

killed his Anglo foreman, despite the fact

that Torres claimed to have acted in self-

defense. In Arizona, Mexican-American

mine workers were assigned the dirtiest

work (called “Mexican work”) and were

paid half of what Anglo workers were

paid. In Texas, Hispanic anger at Anglo

injustice resulted in the El Paso Salt War

of 1877. Salt beds that had been regarded

as community property were claimed as

private property by enterprising Anglos,

who began to charge local pobres for the

use of what they had previously enjoyed

for free. Mexican Americans erupted in

rioting, which was brutally suppressed

when the governor brought in hired gun-

men from New Mexico.

Despite the lawlessness and injustice

Mexican Americans faced in the

post–Civil War Southwest, the region

increasingly became a magnet for

116 ATLAS OF HISPANIC-AMERICAN HISTORY

Railroads in New Mexico and Arizona, 1870–1912

Struggles over land ownership in the Southwest were intensified by the great railroad building boom that followed the completion

of the transcontinental railroad in the 1860s. The major railroads of that era are shown above.