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San Elizario Salt War

1877 conflict in El Paso, Texas

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The conflict began as a local quarrel and grew in stages to finally occupy the attention of both the Texas and federal governments. Newspaper editors throughout the nation covered the story, often with frenzied tone and in lurid detail. At the conflict's height, as many as 650 men bore arms. About 20 to 30 men were killed in the 12-year fight for salt, and perhaps double that number were wounded.

Traditionally, the uprising of Mexican-Americans during the San Elizario Salt War has been described by historians as a bloody riot by a howling mob. The Texas Rangers who surrendered, especially their commander, have been described as unfit. More recent scholarship has placed the war within the context of the long and often violent social struggle of Mexican-Americans to be treated as equal citizens in the United States and not as a subjugated people. Most recently, the "mob" has been described as an organized political-military insurgency with the goal of re-establishing local control of their fundamental political rights and economic future.

Background

National ambiguity

The Rio Grande is a natural barrier in West Texas. Long before claims to the region were made by Anglo-Americans, Spanish colonials and later Mexicans settled a series of communities along the south banks of the river, which provided protection from Comanche and Apache raids from the north. Prior to major water-control projects on the Rio Grande such as Elephant Butte Dike, which was constructed in the early 20th century, the river flooded often. San Elizario was a relatively large community south of the river from its founding in 1789 until an 1829 flood changed the course of the river, leaving San Elizario on "La Isla", a new island between the new and old channels of the Rio Grande.

This position relative to the river became more important in 1836, when the newly independent Republic of Texas proclaimed the Rio Grande as the southern border of the new country. The nationality of the people of San Elizario was disputed until the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, which ended the Mexican–American War and identified the "deepest channel", i.e. the southern channel, as the official international boundary. The status of San Elizario was further made official by the 1853 treaty that sold the territory of the Gadsden Purchase to the United States. At that time, San Elizario was the largest US community between San Antonio, Texas, and Santa Fe, New Mexico. It was a major stop on the Camino Real and was the county seat of the region.

Civil War and Reconstruction

The American Civil War created great changes in the political landscape of West Texas. The end of the war and Reconstruction brought many entrepreneurs to the area. The families of San Elizario had deep roots and were loath to accept the newcomers. Many Republicans settled in the small community of Franklin, Texas, a trading village across the Rio Grande from the Chihuahua city of El Paso del Norte (present-day Ciudad Juárez).

By the beginning of the 1870s, the Democratic Party had begun to reclaim political influence in the state. The Democratic operatives, with their ties to the Southern United States, were not accepted by the people of San Elizario either, as they retained generational ties to Mexico. Alliances shifted and rivalries developed between the Hispanic, Republican and Democratic factions in West Texas.

Salt

At the base of the Guadalupe Mountains, about 100 mi (160 km) northeast of San Elizario, lie a series of dry saline lakes (located at 31°44′36″N 105°04′36″W / 31.74335°N 105.07668°W). Before the pumping of water and oil from West Texas, the area had a periodic shallow water table, and capillary action drew salt of a high purity to the surface. This salt was valuable for a wide variety of purposes, including preserving meats and replenishing what sweating took from humans and animals. Its value made it a commodity used for barter along El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro and was an essential element in the patio process for extracting silver from ore in Chihuahua mines. Historically, caravans to the salt lakes traveled either down the Rio Grande and then straight north or via what became the Butterfield Overland Mail route. In 1863, the people of San Elizario, as a community, built by subscription a road running east to the salt lakes. Early residents of the Rio Grande valley at El Paso were granted community access rights to these lakes by the King of Spain, and these rights were later grandfathered in by the Republic of Mexico and in accordance with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Beginning in 1866, the Texas Constitution allowed individuals to stake claims for mineral rights, thus overturning the traditional community rights.

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