Las Gorras Blancas

Las Gorras Blancas (Spanish for "The White Caps") was a group active in the New Mexico Territory and American Southwest in the late 1880s and early 1890s, in response to Anglo-American farmers and ranchers settling in the territory. Founded in April 1889 by brothers Juan Jose, Pablo, and Nicanor Herrera, with support from vecinos in the New Mexico Territory pueblo communities of El Burro, El Salitre, Ojitos Frios, and San Geronimo, in present-day San Miguel County.^[1]

History

After the northern Mexican frontier became part of the United States in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) and the Gadsden Purchase (1853), Anglo Americans began settling in large numbers to the newly acquired territories.

Historically most of the land was held by a small minority of large landowners who usually left their vast holdings empty of settlement. Part of the reason for this abandonment arose from the incessant raiding by Commanche and Apache Indian bands. Generations of war had left the small Spanish speaking population in a state of desultory warfare whereby most fled to protected haciendas and villages when Indians attacked. As a result, large areas of the Grandee landholdings were left uninhabited.

In contrast whilst most Spanish speaking New Mexicans settled closely around fortified towns and small cities in a passive defense posture, American frontier families had a long history of successfully forming individual fortified homesteads and aggressive counterattacks on Indian terror raids. Thus, they quickly filled in the uninhabited large Spanish grandee land holds.

In turn, under the new American law, land which was unused and unclaimed could be taken by squatting rights. Consequently, once American settlers began establishing freeholds in the sparsely populated large landholdings they laid land claim and successfully obtained title. Meanwhile, after obtaining title, some squatters who were operating under the control of large East Coast syndicates sold these lands back to land speculators for huge profits, especially after the passing of the 1862 Homestead Act.

With Americans successfully defeating Indian tribal attacks and obtaining their land titles, the settlers quickly turned toward developing their agricultural land and were soon earning a handsome living. Seeing the success of this pattern of development the grandees enviously eyed the profit they could earn by challenging the settlers claims.

Thus, the Nuevomexicano grandees demanded that their lands be returned. Naturally the governments did not respond favorably both because the law favored the new settlers and because they feared the resulting chaos as American settlers left and the land once again became inhospitable from Indian attacks. Nonetheless, the grandees attempted numerous legal maneuvers to challenge the settler titles. In some cases, owing to the multitude of titles, the transfer of titles some claims and the continuing claims made by the Spanish grandees some cases before the Surveyor of General Claims Office of the New Mexico Territory took fifty years to process a claim. One tactic used by the grandees to challenge the title of settlers was to claim victim status. Nuevomexicano grandees would claim that since their original land title was in Spanish the courts refused to recognize the Spanish crown land grant, despite the fact of the court accepting English translated documents.

Further muddying the legal claims were grants of land made by the US government to the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. Worse speculators behind the railway known as the Santa Fe Ring, orchestrated schemes to disland American settlers from their possessions by claiming their title was nullified owing to Spanish Land grants in some occasions and in others depriving Nuevomexicanos of their land saying the same land grant was null and void because the grandees had said their Spanish land grant hadn't been properly recorded. Whilst unable to directly challenge the Santa Fe ring, Nuevomexicanos could violently challenge the titles by the American settlers.^[2]

Consequently, unable to take back formerly abandoned land by lawful means, the old grandees turned to intimidation, terrorism, and raids to accomplish their goals of ethnically cleansing American farmers from their old Spanish land grants. Politically, the grandees turned to racism and nationalism to develop a class-based consciousness among Spanish speaking New Mexicans. Using secret organizations, the grandees would use boycotts, intimidation, and assassination among the poor local Spanish speaking New Mexican to coerce and subject them to the control of the grandees against the American settlers and established authority. In their acts of intimidation, extra judicial courts and terrorism they wore white head coverings. As a result, they became known as Las Gorras Blancas.

Tactics

In the early 1890s, a depressed sheep and wool market affected the Northern New Mexico economy adversely. Communal lands dictated by the original land grants were increasingly being split up and fenced off as private land, and pastures were not as plentiful. This was most felt by the Nuevomexicano villagers who relied on the communal lands to raise their stock. Regardless of whether the privately held farm or ranch was Nuevomexicano or American owned the Las Gorras Blancas tore down fences, burned barns and haystacks, scattered livestock and threatened worse to clear the land and enable the grandees to legally challenge ownership. Although most of the victims were individual farmers and ranchers principally American on one occasion a group of Las Gorras Blancas under the direction of Juan Jose Herrera " set thousands of railroad ties afire when the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad refused to raise the low wages it paid chicano workers."^[3] Moreover, there were numerous demonstrations by men wearing white caps, who rode through the Las Vegas, New Mexico streets at night on horseback, typically ending at the courthouse.

In August 1890 several members of Las Gorras Blancas ran for the New Mexico Legislature in a new populist People's Party under the name El Partido del Pueblo Unido. Pablo Herrera, Nestor Montoya, and T.B. Mills were all elected and most forms of direct action that the group was known for ceased. All three were unsuccessful in passing populist legislation, however, and left the state government disillusioned with political reform.^[1] Pablo Herrera, in a speech to the State House of Representatives in February 1891, stated:

Pablo Herrera returned to Las Vegas and attempted to revive Las Gorras Blancas but was murdered by sheriff Felipe Lopez. Some time after the movement died, Juan Jose Herrera left New Mexico and settled in Utah, where he died several years later.^[1]

Declaration

In the March 12, 1890, issue of the Las Vegas Optic, Las Gorras Blancas−The White Caps members issued the Proclamation of Las Gorras Blancas:^[4]

See also

• Alianza Federal de Mercedes
• Los Hermanos Penitentes
• Nuevomexicanos

References

Further reading

• Las Gorras Blancas of San Miguel County. New Mexico Office of the State Historian.
• Speech by Felix Martinez regarding land and Las Gorras Blancas, Las Vegas Daily Optic, August 18, 1890.
• Arellano, Anselmo F. The Never-Ending Land Grant Struggle.
• Correia, David. (2010) "Retribution Will Be Their Reward": New Mexico's Las Gorras Blancas and the Fight for the Las Vegas Land Grant Commons. Radical History Review, 2010:108, 49–72. Abstract retrieved November 29, 2010.
• Miller, Michael. Las Gorras Blancas: The Roots of Nuevomexicano Activism