University of New Mexico UNM Digital Repository History ETDs Electronic Theses and Dissertations 9-5-2013 Columbus, New Mexico, and Palomas, Chihuahua: Transnational Landscapes of Violence, 1888-1930 Brandon Morgan Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/hist_etds Recommended Citation Morgan, Brandon. "Columbus, New Mexico, and Palomas, Chihuahua: Transnational Landscapes of Violence, 1888-1930." (2013). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/hist_etds/56 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Electronic Theses and Dissertations at UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in History ETDs by an authorized administrator of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Brandon Morgan Candidate History Department This dissertation is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication: Approved by the Dissertation Committee: Linda B. Hall, Chairperson Samuel Truett Judy Bieber Maria Lane i COLUMBUS, NEW MEXICO, AND PALOMAS CHIHAUAHUA: TRANSNATIONAL LANDSCAPES OF VIOLENCE, 1888-1930 BY BRANDON MORGAN B.A., History and Spanish, Weber State University, 2005 M.A., History, University of New Mexico, 2007 DISSERTATION Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy History The University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico July, 2013 ii DEDICATION In memory of Ramón Ramírez Tafoya, chronicler of La Ascensión. For Brent, Nathan, and Paige, who have spent their entire lives thus far with a father constantly working on a dissertation, and especially for Pauline, whose love and support has made the completion of this work possible. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I must admit that there were many moments during which I could not imagine that this project would ever reach completion. My gratitude goes out to Dr. Linda B. Hall, my advisor and dissertation committee chair. Without her support, I may never have entered the Ph.D. program. As I worked to complete my coursework, her guidance led me toward this project. I am forever in debt to her constant encouragement, constructive feedback, and thoughtful questioning. This work has benefitted tremendously from her critical eye. Indeed, during my time in the history graduate program as her advisee, I have matured intellectually and am now able to see the past from perspectives that I never could have recognized prior to graduate school. I would also like to thank the other members of my dissertation committee, Dr. Samuel Truett, Dr. Maria Lane, and Dr. Judy Bieber. Over the years, all of them have helped me to think more deeply and critically about the past. Along the way, their enthusiasm and intellectual curiosity was always contagious. They have each helped me to grow as a scholar and teacher. I would especially like to thank Dr. Bieber; she has always provided gracious and insightful feedback on my work. This time, she stepped up at the last minute to serve as a member of my dissertation committee. Grants in 2006 and 2009 from the UNM History Graduate Students Association (HGSA) allowed me to begin preliminary work on this project by supporting research on the history of the Mormon colonies in Chihuahua. Additionally, the New Mexico Office of the State Historian’s Scholars Program provided funding for research in Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Deming, and Columbus in 2008 and 2010. Along with financial support, iv former State Historian Estevan Rael-Gálvez and Assistant State Historian Dennis Trujillo imparted their knowledge of the New Mexico and Chihuahua archives. Felicia Lujan provided invaluable assistance in navigating the collections held at the New Mexico State Records Center and Archives. At the Center for Southwest Research at UNM, Ann Massmann aided my search for information on Pancho Villa’s connections to New Mexico. I am deeply grateful for the hospitality of Richard and Betty Dean in Columbus. They opened not only their personal archives but also their home to me. During my research in Mexico City, I had the great fortune of meeting Dr. Katherine Morrissey. As we both sought our footing in the city’s archives, we also became friends. Aida Bautista’s work as a researcher in the Archivo General de la Nación (AGN) allowed me to gain access to archival materials prior to my research trip. I am glad that I was able to meet her in person when I was in Mexico. In Ciudad Chihuahua, archivist Carmen Muñoz Herrera located materials in the collections of the Instituto Chihuahuense de la Cultura (ICHICULT). She also put me in contact with Professor Ramón Ramírez Tafoya, chronicler of La Ascensión. Although we never met in person, Ramón was always willing to share his findings, as well as archival data. At a time when I was unable to travel to La Ascensión and Palomas, he connected me to the region’s history and culture. I was shocked to learn of his untimely death in the fall of 2012. His kindness and passion for the history of his home community will be sorely missed. From afar, Dr. José Angel Hernández offered thoughtful feedback on an early version of Chapter 3. I am grateful for his insights on the history of La Ascensión and migrations in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands in the nineteenth century. His comments helped me to clarify and crystalize my interpretations and arguments. v I want to also mention a few of the great friends I made during my time in the UNM history graduate program. They have always freely offered friendship and scholarly support. Julian Dodson, Becky Ellis, Shawn Austin, Scott Crago, Meg Frisbee, Donna Peterson, Brian Turo, Brian Thompson, and Cesar Estrada have always been willing to listen when I have needed another perspective. There are also numerous others—too many to name individually—that have supported my intellectual pursuits; thank you all. My parents have been a source of support and inspiration throughout my life; I am grateful for their aid to this project as well. My children, Brent, Nathan, and Paige, have yet to know a time when I did not have some work to do on this project. Their curiosity and questions helped me to think about scholarly pursuits from a unique perspective. Finally, my wife Pauline has offered encouragement and support all along the way. I can truly say that without her, this project would never have come to fruition. vi COLUMBUS, NEW MEXICO, AND PALOMAS CHIHAUAHUA: TRANSNATIONAL LANDSCAPES OF VIOLENCE, 1888-1930 BY BRANDON MORGAN B.A., History and Spanish M.A., History Ph.D., History ABSTRACT In examining the area surrounding Columbus, New Mexico, and Palomas, Chihuahua, as a landscape of violence, this dissertation historicizes the process by which violent actions create a sense of place. Although neither town is considered large enough to be of much consequence, both were targeted by bellicose campaigns that sought to destabilize the Mexican state during the Porfiriato and the Mexican Revolution. Raids on the Palomas customs house were, at least in part, responses to the drive of the Mexican government under Porfirio Díaz to create modern progress and order in Mexico. For many inhabitants of rural northwestern Chihuahua, the imposition of capitalist modes of land and resource ownership, delineation, and exchange deprived them of access to a livelihood. The dissertation, therefore, considers as violence the reallocation of resources under the modern capitalist notion of law and order. By employing a broad definition of violence, seemingly disparate actions, such as land surveys and insurgencies, are juxtaposed in order to highlight the connections between them. vii The dissertation shows the various ways in which violence was at once a destructive as well as creative force along the New Mexico-Chihuahua border between 1888 and 1930. The violence of new legal and land regimes that left colonists and settlers of northwestern Chihuahua without access to land and resources was answered through the violence of armed movements that specifically targeted the towns of Las Palomas, La Ascensión, and Columbus—sites of intensified development efforts around the turn of the century. By drawing on geographers’ and sociologists’ theories of legal and spatial violence, this dissertation places these actions in their proper context as localized movements for social and economic justice, rather than haphazard precursors to the subsequent Mexican Revolution. In this context, Pancho Villa’s Raid on Columbus is not simply an isolated incident that spilled over from the larger struggle of the Mexican Revolution. It is part of a dialectic of violence specific to the New Mexico-Chihuahua border region. viii Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction: The Lower Mimbres Valley and Landscapes of Violence ............... 1 Chapter 2: Remaking Indigenous Space: Chiricahua Apache Land Dispossession in the New Mexico-Chihuahua Borderlands ............................................................................................. 32 Chapter 3: The Violence of Capitalist Accumulation in the Borderlands: The Story of the Failed Deming, Sierra Madre, and Pacific Railroad ............................................................... 85 Chapter 4: A Violent Dialectic: Las Palomas Customs House Raid, 1893 .......................... 130 Chapter 5: The Second Founding of Columbus: Place Myth and Revolution ...................... 184 Chapter 6: Pancho Villa’s Raid on Columbus: The Transformation of the Local Place Myth ..............................................................................................................................................