A dangerous experiment: The lynching of Rafael Benavides

New Mexico Historical Review

Volumn 80, Issue 3, 2005, Pages 265-292

  Carrigan, William D ^a   Webb, Clive ^b  

^a ROWAN UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 60950676181     PISSN: 00286206     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (110)

1. Farmington (N. Mex.) Times Hustler, 23 November 1928, p. 1.
2. and Santa Fe New Mexican, 5 December 1928, p. 2, 6 December 1928, p. 7, and 22 November 1928, p. 6.
3. Robert J. Tórrez, "New Mexico's Last Lynching," 'Round the Roundhouse: New Mexico State Employees' Newsletter (11 November 2003): 6.
4. F. Arturo Rosales, email correspondence with William D. Carrigan and Clive Webb, 5 August 2002.
5. Although Benavides was the last identifiable Mexican murdered by a lynch mob, other forms of ethnic violence persisted. The Los Angeles Zoot Suit Riot of June 1943 was a stark illustration of continued conflict between Anglos and Mexicans. Mauricio Mazón, The Zoot-Suit Riots: The Psychology of Symbolic Annihilation (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1984);
6. and Carey McWilliams, "The Los Angeles Riot of 1943," in Violence in America: A Historical and Contemporary Reader, ed. Thomas Rose (New York: Random House, 1969), 168-80. After 1928, the threat of public condemnation and of prosecution by the courts discouraged would-be vigilantes.
7. Miriam Taylor, "San Juan County: Farmington" (Farmington, N. Mex.: San Juan Delphinians Society, [1950]);
8. Hartsill Lloyd Clark, "A History of San Juan County, New Mexico" (master's thesis, University of Tulsa, 1963), 69-80, 91-98;
9. and U.S. Bureau of the Census, Abstract of the Fifteenth Census of the United States (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1933).
10. and El Paso Times, 18 November 1928, p. 24.
11. Albuquerque Journal, 16 November 1928, p. 1;
12. Aztec (N. Mex.) Independent, 16 November 1928, p. 1;
13. Roswell (N. Mex.) Morning Dispatch, 16 November 1928, p. 1;
14. Roswell (N. Mex.) Daily Record, 16 November 1928, p. 1;
15. Las Vegas (N.Mex.) Daily Optic, 17 November 1928, p. 1;
16. Raton (N. Mex.) Daily Range, 17 November 1928, p. 1, and 20 November 1928, p. 1;
17. Alamogordo (N.Mex.) News, 22 November 1928, p. 2;
18. and Roy (N. Mex.) Record, 24 November 1928, p. 1.
19. Farmington (N. Mex.) Daily Times, 13 October 1982, p. 4(A);
20. For a fuller discussion of the statistics presented here, see William D. Carrigan and Clive Webb, "The Lynching of Persons of Mexican Origin or Descent in the United States, 1848-1928," Journal of Social History 37 (winter 2003): 411-38.
21. Our data distinguish between lynchings that received explicit public support and lynchings whose level of community approval is unknown. Twenty-four of our fifty-four New Mexican cases exhibit widespread popular endorsement. Although we have failed to identify clear public approval in thirty of the cases, public outcry was not strong enough to convict even one member of any mob. Most lynching victims in New-Mexico - forty-three of fifty-four, or 80 percent - were individuals targeted by mobs for specific offenses or alleged crimes. During the 1870s in particular, mobs sought revenge against any Nuevomexicanos whom they could find and killed dozens of Spanish speakers indiscriminately. We have included eleven victims of such violence in our statistics. One recent overview of lynching and mob violence for the territorial period is Nancy Gonzalez, "Untold Stories of Murder and Lynching in Territorial New Mexico" (master's thesis, University of New Mexico, 2003).
22. Some of these lynching victims were naturalized American citizens while others were Mexican nationals residing in the United States. We could not always determine the citizenship of a particular individual. The use of the word lynching has changed over time. Early in the twentieth century, lynching and vigilantism were nearly synonymous. Neither word applied to a mob killing unless it exhibited both widespread community support and a certain level of discrimination on the part of the mob. During the twentieth century, the definition of lynching slowly changed to embrace almost any conceivable form of mob violence. Those who calculated lynching statistics were no longer bound to prove community approval. For further insight to the shifting classification of lynching, see Christopher Waldrep, "War of Words: The Controversy over the Definition of Lynching, 1899-1940," Journal of Southern History 66 (February 2000): 75-100;
23. and Waldrep, The Many Faces of Judge Lynch: Extralegal Violence and Punishment in America (New York: Palgrave, 2002).
24. Charles Montgomery, "The Trap of Race and Memory: The Language of Spanish Civility on the Upper Rio Grande," American Quarterly 52 (September 2000): 488-89;
25. Darlis A. Miller, "Cross-Cultural Marriages in the Southwest: The New Mexico Experience, 1846-1900," New Mexico Historical Review 57 (October 1982): 341;
26. Juan Gómez-Quiñones, Roots of Chicano Politics, 1600-1940 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1994), 329-30, 354;
27. Laura E. Gómez, "Race, Colonialism, and Criminal Law: Mexicans and the American Criminal Justice System in Territorial New Mexico," Law and Society Review 34, no. 4 (2000): 1129-202;
28. and Charles Montgomery, "Becoming 'Spanish-American': Race and Rhetoric in New Mexico Politics, 1880-1928," Journal of American Ethnic History 20 (summer 2001): 60.
29. Republican Review (Albuquerque, N. Mex.), 11 March 1876
30. quoted in Nancy-Gonzalez, "Untold Stories of Murder and Lynching in Territorial New Mexico," 8.
31. John Nieto-Phillips, "Spanish American Ethnic Identity and New Mexico's Statehood Struggle," in The Contested Homeland: A Chicano History of New Mexico, ed. Erlinda Gonzales-Berry and David R. Maciel (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2000), 97-142;
32. and Montgomery, "The Trap of Race and Memory," 480.
33. Las Vegas (N. Mex.) Daily Optic, 31 May 1893, p. 2;
34. El Boletin Popular (Santa Fe, N. Mex.), 1 June 1893, pp. 1, 4;
35. Carlos C. de Baca, Vicente Silva: The Terror of Las Vegas (Truchas, N. Mex.: Tate Gallery, 1968), 38-39;
36. and Mitchell C. Sena, "Third-Rate Henchman of a First-Rate Terror," True West (January-February 1970): 28-29, 40-44.
37. In February 1885, a mob of men led by Cresensio Lucero lynched Jose Trujillo Gallegos in San Miguel County. Gallegos allegedly had murdered his own family. In 1893, a mob of Nuevomexicanos hanged Ireneo Gonzalez for attempted murder in Cebolleta. Santa Fe New Mexican Review, 23 February 1889, p. 4.
38. El Nuevo Mexicano (Santa Fe, N. Mex.), 11 February 1893;
39. Albuquerque Democrat, 7 February 1893, p. 1;
40. and Santa Fe New Mexican, 7 February 1893.
41. Maurice G. Fulton, History of the Lincoln County War (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1968), 21-24;
42. Robert N. Mullin, A Chronology of the Lincoln County War (Santa Fe, N.Mex.: Press of the Territorian, 1966), 11;
43. Philip J. Rasch, "The Horrell War," New Mexico Historical Review 31 (July 1956): 228;
44. and Ann Buffington, Old Lincoln County Pioneer Stories: Interviews from the WPA Writer's Project (Lincoln, N. Mex.: Lincoln County Historical Society, 1994), 1-3.
45. Santa Fe New Mexican, 2 January 1874;
46. Fulton, History of the Lincoln County War, 21-24;
47. Mullin, A Chronology of the Lincoln County War, 11;
48. Rasch, "The Horrell War," 228;
49. and Buffington, Old Lincoln County Pioneer Stories, 1-3.
50. Raton (N. Mex.) Comet, 10 August 1884, p. 4.
51. Santa Fe New Mexican, 25 July 1889, p. 1.
52. See also Fulton, History of the Lincoln County War, 29, 66;
53. and Mullin, Chronology of the Lincoln County War, 12-13.
54. Frances Leon Swadesh, Los Prímeros Pobladores: Hispanic Americans of the Ute Frontier (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1974), 94-95;
55. Santa Fe Daily New Mexican, 1 November 1882;
56. and Philip J. Rasch, "Feuding at Farmington," New Mexico Historical Review 40 (July 1965): 229.
57. Farmington (N. Mex.) Times Hustler, 13 and 20 February 1924,
58. quoted in Robert W. Duke, San Juan County Roars in the '20s: San Juan County, New Mexico Politics from Inception to 1926 (Flora Vista, N.Mex.: San Juan County Historical Society, 2000).
59. Santa Fe New Mexican, 6 May 1893, p. 1;
60. For a discussion of folk pornography, see Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, Revolt against Chivalry: Jesse Daniel Ames and the Women's Campaign against Lynching (New York: Columbia University Press, 1979), 150.
61. For a convincing discussion of the cultural struggle between those who favored "rough justice" and those who advocated due process in the United States, see Michael Pfeifer, Rough Justice: Lynching and American Society, 1874-1947 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004).
62. Santa Fe Democrat, 3 January 1881,
63. quoted in Gonzalez, "Untold Stones," 8-9.
64. Socorro (N. Mex.) Chieftain, 27 July 1889.
65. Silver City (N. Mex.) Enterprise, quoted in Santa Fe New Mexican, 9 January 1890, p. 4.
66. Albuquerque Review, 24 June 1876,
67. quoted in Gonzalez, "Untold Stories," 19.
68. Santa Fe New Mexican, 30 January 1881, p. 1, and 1 February 1881, pp. 1 and 4. The three men lynched by the mob were Miguel Barrera, Escolastico Perea, and California Joe.
69. Chester Potter, "Reminiscences of the Socorro Vigilantes," ed. Paige W. Christiansen, New Mexico Historical Review 40 (January 1965): 25.
70. Miguel Antonio Otero, My Life on the Frontier, 1864-1882 (New York: Pioneers, 1935), 192-93.
71. See Milton W. Callon, Las Vegas, New Mexico: The Town That Wouldn't Gamble (Las Vegas, N.Mex.: The Las Vegas Publishing Co., 1962), 71, 94;
72. and F. Stanley [S. F. L. Crocchiola], The Las Vegas Story (Denver, Colo.: World Press, 1951), 163-64.
73. Criminal Case nos. 351-70, Colfax County District Court Records, NMSRCA; Lawrence R. Murphy, Philmont: A History of New Mexico's Cimarron County (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1972), 119-22;
74. and Morris F. Taylor, O. P. McMains and the Maxwell Land Grand Conflict (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1979), 39-55.
75. Durango (Colo.) Herald-Democrat editorial republished in Santa Fe New Mexican, 26 November 1928, p. 4;
76. Rio Grande (Las Cruces, N. Mex.) Farmer editorial republished in the Santa Fe New Mexican, 27 November 1928, p. 4;
77. For more information on Cutting, see Richard Lowitt, Bronson M. Cutting: Progressive Politician (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1992).
78. This influential concept was initially conceived by Eric Hobsbawm in his book Bandits (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1969).
79. For further information on the life and career of Juan Cortina, see Charles W. Goldfinch and José T. Canales, Juan N. Cortina: Two Interpretations (New York: Arno Press, 1974);
80. and Jerry D. Thompson, ed., Juan Cortina and the Texas-Mexico Frontier 1859-1877 (El Paso: Texas Western Press, 1994).
81. Fabiola Cabcza de Baca, We Fed Them Cactus, 2d ed. with introduction by Tey Diana Rcbolledo (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1994), 89-90.
82. Howard Bryan, Wildest of the Wild West: True Tails of a Frontier Town on the Santa Fe Trail (Santa Fe, N.Mex.: Clear Light Publishers, 1988), 211.
83. The story of Las Gorras Biancas is told in Andrew Bancroft Schlesinger, "Las Gorras Biancas, 1889-1891," Joumal of Mexican American History 1 (spring 1971): 87-143;
84. Robert \V. Larson, "The White Caps of New Mexico: A Study of Ethnic Militancy in the Southwest," Pacific Historical Review 44 (May 1975): 171-85;
85. and Robert J. Rosenbaum, Mexicano Resistance in the Southwest: The Sacred Right of Self-Presenation (1981; reprint, with a new foreword by John R. Chávez and new afterword by author, Dallas, Tex.: Published in cooperation with the William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies by Southern Methodist University Press, 1998), 99-124.
86. Phillip B. Gonzales, "La Junta de Indignación: Hispano Repertoire of Collective Protest in New Mexico, 1884-1933," Western Historical Quarterly 31 (summer 2000): 161-86.
87. Ray Abrahams, Vigilant Citizens: Vigilantism and the State (Cambridge, Mass.: Polity Press, 1998), 53-54.
88. Manuel Maria de Zamacona to James G. Blaine, 19 April 1881, r. 19
89. Notes from the Mexican Legation in the United States to the Department of State, 1821-1906, Microcopy 54, General Records of the Department of State, Record Group 59, National Archives (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Service, 1961);
90. Erna Fergusson, Murder and Mystery in New Mexico (Albuquerque: M. Armitage, 1948), 21-27;
91. James B. Gillett, Six Years with the Texas Rangers, 1875-1881, ed. and foreword by Milo Milton Quaife (1925; reprint, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1976);
92. and El Paso Times, 8 April 1881.
93. For a broader territorial study, see Donna Crail-Rugotzke, "A Matter of Guilt: The Treatment of Hispanic Inmates by New Mexico Courts and the New Mexico Territorial Prison, 1890-1912," New Mexico Historical Review 74 (July 1999): 295-314.
94. F. Arturo Rosales, Pobre Raza! Violence, Justice, and Mobilization among México Lindo Immigrants, 1900-1936 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1999), 141. Retired New Mexico state historian Robert Tórrez notes that Spanish speakers were not executed in disproportionate numbers during the territorial period. He does qualify that Mexican nationals were more likely to be put to death than Anglos or Spanish-speaking citizens of the United States in this period. Robert Tórrez to William D. Carrigan and Clive Webb, 31 December 2002.
95. Farmington (N. Mex.) Times Hustler, 16 November 1923, p. 1, and 23 November 1928, p. 1.
96. "Lynchings: By Year and Race," , 1 December 2005.
97. Philip Dray, At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America (New York: Random House, 2002), 235, 254, 256-57, 258.
98. W. Fitzhugh Brundage, Lynching in the New South: Georgia and Virginia, 1880-1930 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993), 248-49, 251.
99. See also Robert L. Zangrando, The NAACP Crusade against Lynching, 1909-1950 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1980).
100. Newspapers outside New Mexico that reported the lynching included the Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser, 17 November 1928;
101. New York Evening Post, 17 November 1928;
102. Atlanta Constitution, 18 November 1928;
103. and Norfolk (Va.) Journal and Guide, 24 November 1928.
104. Des Moines Capital, 14 September 1919;
105. Delaware Herald, 15 September 1919;
106. New York Call, 15 September 1919;
107. and New York Sun, 15 September 1919, Clipping Files, 1919, Lynching Records, Archives of Tuskegee University, Tuskegee, Alabama [hereafter ATU].
108. New York Times, 16 September 1919;
109. and Denver Post, 20 September 1919, ATU.
110. Houston Post, 18 September 1919. An editorial in the New York Globe of 16 September 1919, ATU, also noted the apparent hypocrisy of U.S. diplomatic protest: "When two Americans arc killed in Mexico, even though it be in a section of the country remote from any city and notoriously infested with bandits, a roar for intervention goes up throughout this country. When two Mexicans are killed in a civilized American city by a mob it is regrettable, to be sure; but, after all, they look somewhat like Negroes, and everyone knows what we do with the latter."