Capitalist Development of SW
• Frederick Jackson
Turner
• Expansion of the
West
• Frontier Thesis, 1893
• Manifest Destiny
• Winning the West
• Robert Sperry
– Irrigation in IV
The Imperial Valley
• Home to multibillion dollar agricultural
industry
• Mexican labor
• Desert
• Home to Yuma Indians
Imperial Valley
“Winning” of the West
• Indian Removal Act of 1830
– Southern U.S.: Cherokee, Choctaw,
Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole
– Cherokee Trail of Tears 1838—4,000 died
• 1848: U.S.-Mexico War
• *January 1848: gold discovered in CA
The Yuma
• Fort Yuma
established
• Yuma as guides,
traded with soldiers,
forded river
• Yuma land trampled
and vandalized during
Gold Rush
The Ferry Business
• 1850: Battle with
(John) Glanton Gang
• Morehead War
– General Joseph C.
Morehead
• 1852: Major
Heinzelman of U.S.
Army
Destruction of the Yuma
•
•
•
•
Gold rush
Military occupation
War with enemy tribes
Large scale
agriculture
• Arrival of railroad
Irrigation arrives
• 1898 California Development Company
diverts water from CO River to farms
• End of Yuma floods
• 1900-Van Horn and Gillett families arrive
– Pioneer myths of the West
Fresno scraper
Crossing the Colorado River
(video clip)
•
•
•
•
Unpredictable rapids
Sandbars
Rocks
Yuma aquatic skills
Shared poverty
• 1906: Yuma as wage laborers-help build
dams during flood
– Worked on first canals of IV
• Food, shelter, sand storms, fresh water,
floods earthquakes etc.
• 1905: Autobiography of Fred W. Peterson,
MD
Alliances
• Jose and Francisca Perez (and children)
arrive in IV in 1902
• The great fire
• Yuma aid
• 1911 Yuma famine
Rapidly Expanding Industrialism
Ellis Island, Triangle Fire, Yuma
• Southern and Eastern
European immigrants
in the East
– Urban factories
– Dangerous working
conditions
– Extreme poverty
– racism
• Yuma in the SW
– Rural life
– Large scale agriculture
• End of floods
• Reservations
• Destruction of crops
– Military occupation
– Shared poverty
– racism
Mexican Labor
• Profirio Diaz (1876-1911)
– Mass exploitation of Mexico’s resources
– Ejidos
– Mass immigration of Mexicans at turn of 19th
century.
– Mexican Revolution: By 1900, about 103,000
Mexican immigrants came to U.S. By 1910,
about 500,000 had immigrated to the U.S.
Labor organizing
• Ricardo Flores Magón
– Partido Liberal Mexicano
• 1906 strikes
– Worker grievances against Consolidated
Copper
– La Union Liberal Humanidad
• Sonoran governor Rafael Izábal sends in
federal troops
Ricardo Flores Magon
Political Organizing:
Plan de San Diego
• Plan called for a general uprising of Mexicans
and other minorities on Feb. 20, 1915
• Participants would execute all white males
over the age of 16
• reconquer territory lost during the U.S.-Mexico
war
• 3-5,000 joined the revolt
• President Venustiano Carranza
• Raids on Mexican communities
U.S. Dependence on Mexican
Labor
• Restrictions on Chinese and Japanese
immigration*
• European immigration slows during WW I
• Immigration Act of 1917
Immigration Act of 1917
• Asiatic Barred Zone
• Literacy Act established an $8 head tax
and banned illiterate immigrants
• Mexicans exempt
– Mexicans as an ideal labor force
– 1909 Dillingham Commission
– No strict border enforcement
U.S. Department of Labor:
Wage Withholding Scheme
• encourage laborers to return to Mexico
• 20 percent of each worker’s wages for the
first 2 months
• Employment restrictions
• Growers demanded access to Mexican
workers
• By 1920 about 500,000 children of
Mexican descent were born in the U.S
Bath Riots
El Paso, Texas: January 28,1917
• Carmelita Torres
• Refused disinfection
• 200 Mexican women had joined her and
blocked all traffic into El Paso
• Demonstrators on the march
• Blocking traffic
• "el esquadrón de la muerte,"
Santa Fe Bridge
Fumigation w/ DDT, 1956
Indignity on the Border:
video
• The Bath Riots: Indignity Along the
Mexican Border by David Dorado Romo
• What was the purpose of disinfections?
• Why did European immigrants escape this
treatment?
• What are some present day views of the
U.S.-Mexico border?
• Do you agree with the author who claimed
the protests had no effect?
After the Riots
• Reclaiming sense of dignity
• Debunking myth of passive Mexican
laborer
• Tradition of protest in Mexico carry over to
U.S.
• Brought attention to issue
• feelings of solidarity
• Sense of confidence for future activism