War Scare on the Rio Grande: Robert Runyon's Photographs of the Border Conflict, 1913-1916

I must admit my bias right up front. The authors previous book "Border Fury" combining a photo study of the Revolution itself with a history of the postcard industry, drew heavily on my collection of period postcards. That one was excellently done by the UNM Press and so is this one. This covers the many phases of the Mexican Revolution in the northeast around Matamoros, right across the Rio Grande del Norte from Brownsville, Texas. Located as it is downstream from the Big Bend country and seperated by mountains from the central valley of Mexico between the two main chains which run north and south, this area was little settled on either side until the Anglos built a railway to the border around 1900. With the opening of access to markets for tropical agricultural crops in the North this semi tropical area began to fill up with Anglo towns on the north side of the river. This area became known as the Lower Valley to distinguish it from the El Paso, Juarez area known as the Upper Valley. The sparsely settled country had always been a hotbed of banditry, dominated by the enormous King Ranch, which was almost as large as Delaware. Race relations were typical of the times, in a word, bad. The area was politically dominated by the cacique or patron (godfather) system. If you have seen the film "Lone Star" with Kris Kristofferson and Chris Cooper, you will see that things had not changed much by the fifties, the period of the film. Social unrest, and border raids were exacerbated by the unsettled conditions south of the River; although campaigning in the area was not decisive in the outcome of the Mexican Revolution. Some fighting took place between Villistas and Carranzistas in 1914 and 1915. The notorious Plan of San Diego, calling for reconquest of the old area of New Spain taken in the Mexican War and a general massacre of all Anglo males over the age of puberty, became a highly charged issue between Anglos and Chicanos. This fantastic plot was taken seriously by the Anglos and the Texas Rangers became highly feared as they carried out a race war to keep down the Chicano population. Right in the midst of these doings was Robert Runyon, a professional photographer located in Brownsville. Probably the most famous image of his atelier was one taken after the Norias raid (a group of bandits laid siege to a remote ranchhouse) in which a mounted Ranger is shown dragging away the corpse of one of the raiders at the end of a rope. {ublicztion of this photo as a postcard and in the press made a sensation as it was not apparent in the photo that this event was not a typical lynching. This book can be read with interest both by the general reader, the photo historian, and the local historian. It is a well made book typical of those sponsored by the Texas State Historical Association.