The Men Who War the Star: The Story of the Texas Rangers (40 page)

Durham, however, was not so loose with his praise. Hall, he said, “knew his way around,” but most of the Rangers believed that Armstrong or Pidge Robinson should have been promoted to command. “Lee Hall was a good man,” he wrote. “But he wasn’t a Captain McNelly.”
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Chapter 14

The Salt War

The Trans-Pecos region, running westward from the Pecos River
to El Paso, has always been almost a separate world from the rest of Texas, and as previously noted, the concept of Rangers did not arrive until after the Civil War, when Capt. Gregorio García formed his short-lived company during Reconstruction. With the creation of the Frontier Battalion, García’s son-in-law, Telesforo Montes of San Elizario, was authorized to muster a company on May 27, 1874. Like García’s company, most of the members were local, and Montes’s Rangers were designated the Minute Company of the Frontier Battalion.

The Minute Company spent the next two years fighting various Apache bands who raided even into the suburbs of San Elizario and nearby Socorro. Montes’s failure to subdue the Indians was through no lack of effort on his own part or the part of his men; they had several fights, killed a number of marauders, and recovered stolen stock. But the vast region of the Trans-Pecos was simply too much for a small band of men against the many bands of Indians, and there are no reported activities of this company after August 31, 1876. Thus when the El Paso Salt War erupted a year later, an ad hoc Ranger company had to be organized from what was available, and what was available was not adequate for the violence that ensued.¹

Of all the blood-soaked difficulties in the Terrible Seventies, the El Paso Salt War went far beyond an ordinary feud. It was, in effect, a clash of races and cultures similar to the Cortinista conflicts on the Lower Rio Grande. The source of the bloodshed in El Paso, however, was common table salt. In the desert areas of the Southwest, salt was more sought-after than gold. Not only did it make food palatable, it was vital in a hot environment where perspiration rapidly drained the body of the salt necessary for survival, and was essential for curing meat and dairy products in the days before refrigeration. Men fought and died over rights to salt deposits just as bitterly as they fought over gold or cattle.

The racial issue came into play in part because of politics and in part because of different legal and cultural views. To the Hispanic population, salt deposits were public domain. This stemmed from ancient Spanish custom maintaining that all waters and mineral deposits belonged to the crown. A Spanish land grant might or might not include water and mineral rights, according to the will and pleasure of the sovereign. In the salt-starved provinces of the north, in what is now west Texas and New Mexico, as early as 1611 the crown decreed free access to local deposits, in effect placing them in the public domain, a principle Mexico continued upon gaining independence. Consequently, by the time that part of the continent came under U.S. rule, there was a long-established tradition of public use of salt deposits in the region.

The Americans, on the other hand, had a strong sense of private ownership and use, of both land and resources. Even the public domain was subject to lease for private commercial development, and upon discovering how completely the local population depended on salt, newly arrived entrepreneurs filed for leases on public deposits or in some cases claimed outright ownership. The determination of the Mexicans to continue taking salt as they needed it and the determination of the Americans to charge a fee or control the market set the stage for trouble. In 1854, a minor squabble erupted between Mexican salt transporters and pioneer El Paso County resident James Wiley Magoffin over use of deposits in New Mexico where Magoffin claimed exclusive rights. This dispute, however, paled in comparison to the bloody Salt War of 1877.²

The bloodshed centered around a string of salt beds at the base of Guadalupe Peak, the tallest mountain in Texas, located about 110 miles due east of the new community of El Paso and ninety miles from San Elizario, then the county seat.
Tejanos
and Mexicans had been exploiting the beds for many years before 1862, when the area’s Anglo-Saxons learned of their existence. Development was slow, however, because of the established roads to New Mexico deposits, and because the politicians were loathe to offend the largely
tejano
voting population that used the Guadalupe beds. Nevertheless, the deposits were especially valuable because of “the abundance and purity of the salt yielded from them,” and local businessmen moved to gain control. By the summer of 1877, Charles Howard of El Paso had title to virtually all the Guadalupe salt beds and posted notice that no more salt would be drawn without approval from himself or his agents.

Howard, who arrived in El Paso in 1872 and briefly served as district judge, was cold, calculating, and ruthless. Contemporaries described him as a man to be feared. Two who did not fear him were Louis Cardis, a member of the state legislature whose word was “little less than law” in the Hispanic community, and Antonio Borajo, an autocratic priest who ruled his San Elizario parish with the iron-fisted determination of an inquisitor-general.³ They advised the
tejanos
and Mexicans to take the salt and disregard Howard’s fees. Howard responded by announcing his determination to kill Cardis.

The breaking point came in September 1877, when Howard had two Mexicans arrested and fined for taking salt from the Guadalupe beds without paying his fees. A mob waylaid him in Ysleta and held him for three days, debating whether or not to kill him. By now, however, Cardis was beginning to realize that things were getting out of control, and he pleaded with the mob to release Howard. In a hopeful turn of events, Borajo recently had been transferred to a parish across the river in Mexico, and the new priest helped Cardis calm the crowd. Howard was freed on a $12,000 bond signed by four friends, John G. Atkinson, Charles E. Ellis, Jesus Cobos, and Tomás García, an act that would later cost Atkinson and Ellis their lives. Yet these and other killings could have been averted had Howard chosen at this juncture to be reasonable. Cardis was earnestly trying to avert a feud, but the near-lynching left Howard even more implacable.
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THE EL PASO
Salt War began on October 10, when Howard picked up a double-barreled shotgun loaded with buckshot and walked down to S. Schutz & Bro. store in El Paso, where Cardis, who often conducted business there, was lounging in a rocker. Cardis tried to duck behind a desk, but Howard blasted him in the stomach with one barrel and in the heart with the other.
⁵
Fearing for his own life, Howard fled across the state line to Mesilla, New Mexico. El Paso County sheriff Charles Kerber went to see him, but agreed that it would not be safe for him to return to El Paso. Kerber made arrangements with the Mesilla sheriff to protect Howard from the vengeance of Cardis’s supporters, while he telegraphed Adjutant General Steele for Rangers. “The Mexicans intend to revenge the death of Cardis, but a company of your State police would quiet them very much,” he said. Steele responded by ordering Major Jones to El Paso to investigate and to have a company of the Frontier Battalion “in position to march at once in case of necessity for the use of troops.”
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To reach remote El Paso, Jones had to take the train from Austin to Santa Fe, New Mexico, by way of Topeka, Kansas. At Santa Fe, he boarded a stagecoach, finally arriving in El Paso after ten days. The trip convinced him that it was futile to try to bring in one of the regular companies of the Frontier Battalion as Steele had instructed. Instead, he decided to raise a company locally. The new twenty-man unit was mustered into service on November 12, 1877, as a detachment of Company C, Frontier Battalion, under command of Lt. John B. Tays. The Rangers were stationed in San Elizario, where trouble, if any, could be expected to break out.
⁷

The men who formed the detachment were less than desirable. As C. L. Sonnichsen noted in his history of El Paso, not one of them would have been a Ranger under normal conditions. Lieutenant Tays, likewise, was not a good choice to command Rangers in a trouble spot. He was not highly educated, and supported himself with odd jobs. The best that could be said of him was that he was relatively honest for the times, brave, and hardworking. Nevertheless, this motley collection was the best Jones could do.
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ON NOVEMBER 16,
Howard returned to El Paso and surrendered to Jones. He was taken before the local justice of the peace for arraignment, and was released after posting a $4,000 bond. After a meeting with several Cardis associates, Howard returned to Mesilla, and Jones went back to Austin.
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All was quiet until December 1, when a train of about sixteen carts and wagons started from San Elizario to draw salt from the Guadalupe beds. Fearing bloodshed, Governor Hubbard sent a telegram to several leaders of the
tejano
community, warning them to obey the laws, presumably meaning to pay Howard’s fees or stay away from the salt beds.

“You can control your people, if you will, I’m informed,” the governor said. “Do so.”

Twelve days later, Howard returned to San Elizario with a Ranger escort. Experience had taught him nothing, and he filed a suit to seize the salt from the train, which was expected to arrive that day.
¹⁰

Howard’s latest action, and the governor’s support of his position, was more than the community could bear. The year 1877 had been bad for the small
tejano
farmers along the river. The Rio Grande was almost dry, and crops were failing. A few pesos or dollars gathered by selling salt would have helped immensely. Indians had been active, stealing horses and mules and setting everyone’s nerves on edge. Many were in debt to John G. Atkinson, who had posted part of the bond for Howard. Citizens of Mexico were no better off, not only being hurt by drought and Indians, but also caught up in the civil strife that ultimately brought Porfirio Díaz to power. The people were ready for anything. Howard and his friends, they agreed, were the source of their ills. Even if the Mexicans and
tejanos
did not have the legal right to the salt, they felt they had the moral right. Mexico’s tradition of defiance and resistance to whatever civil authority was currently in power—invariably justified on moral grounds—looked appealing and perhaps could be applied in Texas as well. They reasoned that the time had come for action.
¹¹

As December 12 wore on, Howard went to Ysleta to take care of some business. Fearing for his life, Lieutenant Tays took a detachment of Rangers to meet him and escort him back to San Elizario. At the edge of town, they were confronted by
tejano
leader Chico Barela and a picketof about eighteen men. The Rangers and Howard rode through the line and into town, but Tays realized this was only the edge of a much larger mob. He consolidated his forces and prepared for trouble, doubling the guard around the adobe building that served as Ranger quarters and putting several men on the roofs of adjacent houses. Then Tays sent a Ranger to El Paso to request backup from a detachment of troops that had recently arrived from Fort Bayard, New Mexico, in response to pleas from local citizens for military protection. A squad of soldiers rode out to San Elizario, but were confronted by the mob and told to mind their own business, and the officer in charge apparently lost his nerve and ordered the troops back to El Paso. The Rangers were on their own. The fate of Howard and his friends was now sealed.
¹²

THE RIOT BROKE
out about 10
P.M.
, when members of the mob roped Howard associate Charles Ellis, dragged him through the streets, slashed him to death with knives, and mutilated his corpse. Then they moved against the Ranger quarters. Tays deployed his men but ordered them not to fire until fired upon. The mob came within a hundred yards of the building, then halted, apparently to take positions for a siege. The rest of the night passed quietly.

Dawn revealed the Ranger quarters surrounded by three lines of pickets, beyond which were several squads of about twenty mounted men each, placed about two hundred yards apart. Rawhide entanglements had been set up to block a charge by the Rangers, although individuals could move about. John Atkinson managed to reach Ranger quarters with a trunk containing a substantial amount of money. As Atkinson passed through the mob’s lines, he was told the Rangers had three hours to deliver Howard or they would come in and get him.

About mid-morning, the mob opened up on the building with a fusillade, mortally wounding a Ranger sergeant. The shooting continued all day and into the next. The rioters charged several times but were beaten back.
¹³

THE SIEGE, WHICH
began on Wednesday, lasted until Sunday night, when a cease-fire was negotiated. After a quiet night, Tays woke up Monday morning to find that the mob had erected fortifications and dug rifle pits. When he met with the leaders, they told him that unless the Rangers surrendered Howard, they would blow up the quarters. As for Howard, all he had to do was surrender and relinquish all claim to the Guadalupe salt beds. After that, he was free to do as he pleased.

Howard wasn’t fooled. “I will go,” he told Tays, “as it is the only chance to save your lives, but they will kill me.”

Tays was against it. He said the Rangers were prepared to hold the building and protect him to the end.

“It is useless for us to attempt to stand them off any longer,” Howard replied. “This is our only chance to escape.” He told everyone goodbye and gave his valuables to one of his agents, John McBride. Then he and Tays walked over to meet the leaders of the mob. Howard’s Spanish was rudimentary, and Tays spoke none at all, so he sent back to the Ranger quarters for Atkinson to translate. When Atkinson arrived, the leaders took him into another room, where he offered to turn his money over to the leaders of the mob in exchange for the lives of Howard, McBride, himself, and the Rangers. Chico Barela agreed and swore by the Holy Cross to uphold his end of the agreement. A flag of truce was sent to the Ranger headquarters, and to persuade them to surrender, Atkinson told them Tays had arranged an armistice and ordered them to come out. They agreed, becoming the only Rangers in history to surrender.