Gunpowder Justice: A Reassessment of the Texas Rangers

by Albert Pena, Julian Samora, Joe Bernal

Focuses on corruption and reorganization in the 1930s, the elitist, nature of the Texas Rangers, and its role in violating civil liberties and the rights of Mexican-Americans.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0268010013
• ISBN13: 9780268010010
• Release Date: January 1979
• Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
• Length: 179 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.

Customer Reviews

An early contribution to Chicano Scholarship

Certainly this is a somewhat dated account, but it is a truthful account, and it runs counter to the politically correct Texas Ranger mythology so common in Texas. The Rangers have their origin as quasi public paramilitary organizations used to protect the sometimes ill gotten property of Anglo ranchers and to "pacify" the border. North of the Rio Grande, Mexicans became citizens first of Texas and then of the United States, but the Rangers and the many Anglo criminals and drifters who entered Texas after 1848 sought the land of Mexican origin citizens, and vowed to take this land by hook or by crook. The Rangers were famous for treating Mexicans and Mexican origin US citizens without regard for their civil rights as US citizens by treaty, or as Mexican citizens. What the Rangers did do was act as violent killers of innocent US citizens of Mexican origin, Natives, and Mexican nationals. Certainly there were bandits on both sides of the border, and sometimes the Rangers were little more than Anglo bandits in white hats. In the War with Mexico the US Army thought they were too violent and unruly to keep in the field.Dr. Julian Samora was a leading Mexican American scholar (yes he was a citizen) at Notre Dame where he distinguished himself as a teacher, and wrote many path breaking books, and this is only one of his many projects over a long distinguished career. For an updated history of the Border Wars and the Rangers written by a Texan, see Ben Johnson, "Revolution in Texas" (Yale University Press, 2003).