The Alpine Avalanche (Alpine, Tex.), Vol. 24, No. 27, Ed. 1 Thursday, July 2, 1914 Page: 7 of 14
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VILLA AND THE RICH LANDLORDS
— OU want land. Come with me and
Y I fight and you shall have it.”
— This was the substance of Pancho
Villa’s appeal to the men that
joined him in the field. Later he
broadened it to cover all the property of the
rich, and thus drew men from the mines and
the industrial plants in the towns; but pri-
marily his call was to the peons of the coun-
try, who were landless.
In Chihuahua under the baronial feudal
rule of the Terrazas family no peon could
hope to be anything else than a peon. Friends
of the family insist that it was a benevolent
patriarchal feudalism which prevailed; but
they do not deny that somehow the hundreds
of square miles of Terrazas territory was
steadily added to, the Terrazas ranches were
broadened and the Terrazas cattle left no
grazing ground for anybody else's cattle.
Complete land monopoly of this kind hard-
ly could be acquired without injustice, though
after acquirement there may have been less
oppression of the peons on the different ha-
ciendas than has been charged.
Political monopoly was necessary to main-
tain the land monopoly, and the Terrazas
control of Chihuahua was as complete as that
of a military satrapy. It extended from the
governorship of the state down to the lowest
administrative office.
When Enrique Creel, the son-in-law of
General Luis Terrazas, was selected as am-
bassador to Washington he was governor of
Chihuahua. He did not resign that position,
but merely delegated it to one of his group.
When he became tired of being ambassador
he returned and resumed his governorship.
This practice, however was not peculiar to
Chihuahua. It obtained in other Mexican
states and is the outgrowth of the political
system of Spanish-American countries under
which the presidents can abdicate their exec-
utive functions temporarily and resume them
at will.
General Luis Terrazas is now living across
the border at El Paso. One son, Luis Terra-
zas., Jr., is still a hostage in Chihuahua, a
prisoner of state, though not in prison, who
was more valuable alive than dead, and that
is why he lives. That he was actually tor-
tured to make him give up part of the con-
cealed Terrazas millions may never be ad-
mitted, but it is significant of the barbaric
conditions of the present war that this prob-
ability is admitted. The rebels would not let
him be ransomed, because the ransom would
have ended the possibility of receiving fur-
ther sums. Other members of the family are
scattered. Former Ambassador Creel is in
Mexico City.
The Terrazas palaces are now held by the
triumphant rebels. The seats of the Terrazas
mighty are occupied by the peon poor. For-
mer peons on the Terrazas haciendas now ad-
minister them. Fifty thousand head of Ter-
razas cattle are counted as part of the rebel
resources. The rebel revenues are swelled by
what is drawn from the Terrazas goods and
properties. The governor and other consti-
tutionalist officers have themselves photo-
graphed on the piazzas of the Terrazas man-
sion.
This situation might seem to dispose of the
Terrazas family both in the gratification of
the hatred felt for them by a large element of
the peon population and in the substantial
benefit to the revolution from the control of
their vast properties. But it does not. And
• there is a reason.
The Terrazas family is a fighting family.
Spanish and Indian blood are there, and in
the collateral branch Kentucky blood also.
The father of Enrique Creel was a Kentuck-
ian who married a Mexican lady. He was
the American consul at Chihuahua, who fol-
lowed the Juarez government from place to
place during the French occupation.
His correspondence with Secretary Seward
during this period is an interesting chapter
in our diplomatic history, though not all of
it is in the archives of the state department.
Enrique Creel was a banker and at one time
was called the Pierpont Morgan of Mexico.
His financial ability is feared as much as
the masterful qualities of the Terrazas them-
selves.
Porfirio Diaz was once credited with the
intention of challenging the sway of this for-
midable family and it was even said he sent
a mild monitory message to 44Don Luis” that
things must change in Chihuahua. It is cer-
tain that some of the members of the scien-
tific circle who surrounded Diaz counseled
economic measures of reform in the barony,
Dispossessing the Terrazas of Their Feudal Lands
and these land reforms would have required
some political concessions.
But if Diaz ever planned action he quailed
before taking it, because when the first Ma-
dero revolution broke Don Luis and his fam-
ily were in undisputed possession of Chihua-
hua.
While their dispossession and the breaking
of the land monopoly was a part of the Ma-
dero programme which drew many followers,
it was only an incidental part. This may
have been one reason why a year after Ma-
dero came into power at Mexico City Don
Luis and his family were undisputed in their
possession of Chihuahua, although nominally
the administration control was out of their
hands.
They accepted certain reforms imposed on
them, including the payment of a land tax and
other contributions "to the revenues and
adapted themselves very comfortably to the
new conditions.
The peons were no nearer possessing the
land under Madero than they had been under
Diaz.
Then came the carnival of pillage known
as the Orozco revolution or mutiny. Orozco
had been with Madero in the overthrowing of
the Diaz rule. When he took the warpath on
his own account the Maderists called it trea-
son. The Orozcoists said it was exercising
the same right of revolution that Madero had
exercised. Actually it was undisguised, but
DON DOIS TERRAZAS
organized, brigandage, mercenary and venal
in every attribute.
The Terrazas family was charged, whether
rightly or wrongly, with financing it. They
were said to be weary of paying even the
moderate land taxes and other contributions
exacted under the Madero government. Then
Orozco pillaged his way out of northern Mex-
ico, Huerta came into power at the seat of
government, and the counter revolution was
started in the north by the Maderists, with
Villa foremost and some of those who had not
been Maderists.
Its agrarian aspects were pronounced. It
is probably true that if in the beginning and
up to a recent period there had not been
semi-brigandage, with ample license for ra-
pine and plunder, it would have made slow
headway. A Mexican revolution resting sole-
ly on the justness of the cause may some day
occur, but hardly in this generation. Yet
the present one—past the revolutionary stage
after Villa’s victory at Torreon—owes much
of its success to the prospect of a division of
the land.
This is true in other states as well as Chi-
huahua, though not in so great a degree. Here
it was concentrated against the Terrazas fam-
ily and their affiliated family groups who .
also had large land holdings.
The frequency and intensity of the declara-
tion by Villa and other chiefs of the revolu-
tion that this time there shall be no compro-
mise means not simply no political compro-
mise, such as Madero was compelled to make,
but no compromise in staying the confiscation
of the land held by the Terrazas family. In
other states there is not the same hostility
to the great hacienda owners as individuals,
many of whom were passive in the struggle,
but that their land is wanted is sufficient to
charge them with being enemies of the peo-
ple and therefore taking possession.
Wherever they got control the revolution-
ists first seized the land as a military meas-
ure, the most influential rebel general some-
times having an hacienda assigned to him to
work on shares with the revolutionary gov-
ernment.
In 1867 the Juarez government, after its
fierce struggle with the church, confiscated
the church properties. This was done as a
national measure and the confiscation was
sometimes described as the nationalization
of the church’s goods.
In the present case the confiscation has
been by such state governments as the revo-
lutionists have been able to set up without
always waiting till they were in full posses-
sion of the state. Decrees of confiscation,
have been promulgated in Coahuila, Durango
and Sonora, as well as in Chihuahua. The
forms differed. The spirit was the same.
Preliminary official confiscation and the
motives inspiring it in Chihuahua were em-
bodied in the Villa decree issued in Decem-
ber, 1913. The language is not exactly the
language of Pancho Villa himself, but in the
original Spanish it very faithfully reflects his
sentiments. It contains substantially the
whole peon programme.
A free translation might lose some of the
intensity of the resentment which pervades
this human document, and a pretty literal
PDANCISCO VILLA
one is therefore given. It should be read and
interpreted in its entirety.
“I. General Francisco Villa, first chief of the constitu-
tionalist army in the state of Chihuahua, and in agree-
ment with the plan of Guadalupe, provisional governor
of the same state, do now, in accord with the extra-
ordinary powers with which I find myself invested, deem
it advisable to decree the following:
“Having sufficient proofs relative to the intervention
of various capitalists of the state in the latest difficulties
that the fatherland has had to contend with, thereby
causing—as a result of the defense naturally undertaken
against spoilation, military uprisings and betrayals—
numerous victims, orphans and widows, who now lament
the irreparable loss of those who were the sole support
of the innocent, and whose one fualt was their patriot-
ism, a patriotism, in itself to be envied as it maintained
the honor of the fatherland; and as there are also to be
found among these questionably rich men those who
have by a thousand means defrauded the public revenues
for more than half a century of domination through
craft and through force, I believe, in justice, that the
hour has at length arrived for them to render an ac-
counting before the bar of public opinion, while in due
time legal proceedings shall be undertaken before those
who must bring to light all the responsibilities that
these men have contracted before and with the Mexi-
can people; and, as it has been clearly proved on pre-
vious occasions that the possession of their interests has
served only to buy traitors and assassinate public offi-
cials, whose excess of generosity has been an incentive
to evildoing, it is now necessary, in order to save our
nationality, to cut the evil at its root, carrying to a
conclusion—in addition to other proceedings in behalf of
the public health, as may be required from time to time—
the confiscation of the property of the evil Mexicans,
who have bartered away human life, and who are the
direct cause of the shedding of our blood; therefore, for
these reasons, all of which justify our attitude before
the honor of the whole world, do I decree the following:
“First. On behalf of the public welfare, and in order
to guarantee the pensions of those made widows and
orphans through the defense of the Mexican people
against the exploiters of the administration, and in order
also , to pay the damages that may result through the
verdicts of the special courts that will be established
in the territory of this conflict, with the title of ‘Resti-
tution of Properties Illegally Acquired,’ whereby the sum
total of these damages will be ascertained and assigned
to the purposes already mentioned—the property mov-
able and immovable and all documents of every kind
belonging to the individuals Luis Tarrazas and his sons,
Creel Brothers, Falomir Brothers, Jose Maria Sanchez,
Lujan Brothers, Cuilty Brothers, J. Francisco Molinar,
and all those intimately associated with them, and any
other accomplices who may be entangled with them in
their business, and in the fraudulent combinations that
in former times were called politics, are declared subject
to confiscation and are hereby confiscated.
"Second, A law of regulation that shall be initiated
upon the triumph of our cause shall determine all mat-
ters relating to the equitable distribution of these prop-
erties, pensions being given in the first place to the
widows and orphans whose relatives have fought for
the cause of justice since 1910; and, in the second place,
the defenders of our cause shall be taken into considera-
tion fo rthe moderate division of the confiscated lands;
furthermore, the frauds committed by the individuals
mentioned through not paying taxes for many years shall
be made good to the public revenues; and further, the
properties of legal and primitive owners, wrested from
them by the individuals mentioned, ever ready to take
advantage of their power, shall be restored to said own-
ers, so that full justice shall be done to every victim of
the usurpers.
“Third. All of the confiscated properties properties
shall be administered by the state bank, which shall be
required to keep an exact and correct account of all re-
ceipts and disbursements.
"Given in the government palace, December 12, 1913.
General Francisco Villa, military governor of the state.—":
S. Terrazas, secretary.”
The state bank was provided for in a decree
issued on the same day.
It will be noted that the declaration of con-
fiscation is complete, although the equitable
distribution of the properties confiscated is
to be regulated by a fuure law and the sol-
diers are to share in the distribution of the
lands. The promise to restore their proper-
ties to the primitive owners has reference to
the farmers who were dispossessed through
technicalities and their little holdings swal-
lowed up in the big haciendas.
The international view of the land question
is not one that the revolutionists concerned
themselves with. How many of the ranches
and haciendas were mortgaged by their Mexi-
can owners to foreigners almost to their full
value is conjectural, but there have been
many such instances, possibly sometimes in
collusion. In the case of the Spanish owners
of ranches and haciendas they have been
treated as if they were Mexicans and the land
has been occupied by Villa’s men as of nat-
ural right.
When the foreign governments find a gov-
ernment of some kind established in Mexico
which can be held responsible the restoration
of the lands claimed by their nationals will
be one of the first questions pressed for set-
tlement. It is one of the biggest responsibili-
ties that the state department assumed in
keeping European nations from active inter-
vention.
The whole question of land tenure is a com-
plicated one, but it has to be solved before
Mexico can be considered on an economic
basis which will give any assurance of politi-
cal stability. A tax on land will be laid.
Those who are permitted under the new re-
gime to continue as big land owners will pay
their share toward the maintenance of the
government, which heretofore they never
have done.
Huerta promised land reform soon after he
seized control at the capital, but it was only
a short time ago—May 1—that his govern-
ment outlined a definite programme. This
was in the form of a project for land taxation
submitted to the congress by the ministers of
finance and agriculture. It proposed the cre-
ation of a federal land tax, graduated taxa-
tion according to the value of the land and
the exemption of the peasant proprietors.
Whatever government comes into power
will provide a general federal land tax and
the exemption of the small holdings. That is
possible and will correct much of the injus-
tice of the old Spanish land system, whose
worst abuses have been felt in Mexico.
The partition into small holdings, so that
there will be enough to create a real class
of peasant proprietors, is a more difficult
question, especially in the north, with so
large a desert and semi-desert area. The cac-
tus country does not offer a promising field
for small farmers, nor can many of the big
ranches be conveniently broken up for pur-
poses of mixed farming.
Irrigation as it was carried out under the
Diaz government was made another means of
enriching the big landowners and despoiling
the small farmers. Under a different system
of administration this injustice may be cor-
rected, but in Chihuahua there will still be a
question of finding enough land for the peons.
If they do not get what they want they will
wonder why they went into the revolution.
The restoration of the land to its original
owners, the Indian race, has been the one
cardinal principle of the revolution as led by
Villa, so far as there has been a principle.
Meanwhile, though dispossessed, though
his own palace and the palaces of his kin are
in the hands of his former peons, there is one
forceful figure yet to be reckoned with. I
saw him the other day in El Paso, where he
maintains an office.
Hi s powerful physiognomy, at near 80 years
of age, still marks a masterful and undaunted
spirit. Feudalism in Chihuahua is dead, but
Don Luis Terrazas, his sons and sons-in-laws,
his nephews and grandsons, do not accept de-
feat at the hands of Villa, the peon.—(Copy-
right, 1914, by Charles M. Pepper.)
le First
German Colony Settlement
in Texas
F THE many volumes that have been
Runs
written of the German in America,
nothing compares in pathos and hu-
man interest with the story of the
movement which, begun in the fa-
therland in 1842, at a meeting of noblemen,
eventuated in the foundation of New Braun-
fels and Fredericksburg, and other scattering
German settlements northwest of these two
points.
In this aristocratic enterprise the moving
spirits were the Count of Castell, who was
the active head in Germany, and Counts
Boos-Waldeck and Leiningen. . The latter
noblemen made a preliminary visit to Texas
for the purpose of securing land for coloni-
zation purposes, and Count Boos-Waldeck
bought a tract in Fayette county, which he
placed in cultivation with the aid of negro
slaves, while Count Leiningen failed to get
concessions from the Texas government such
as he thought necessary, and left empty-
handed. The general policy of the Texas
government at that time was liberal enough
to have made the colonization movement
which followed a success from the start, in-
stead of the disaster which developed, had
these representatives of the association had
the judgment and foresight which was shown
by other colonization enterprises.
- Count Boos-Waldeck was of a conservative
disposition, and advised against any whole-
sale colonization movement on his return to
Germany, the difficulties of transportation of
large bodies of people and their impedimenta
appealing strongly to him. His advice being
rejected, he resigned from the association,
and the policy he had condemned was en-
tered upon.
Whether the German "League of the No-
bility,” which stood sponsor for the emigra-
tion movement which resulted in the settle-
ment of New Braunfels and Comal county
had ulterior motives as inspiration of its ill-
considered and hopelessly mismanaged activ-
ities; whether Prince Solms-Braunfels was
acting in the interest of his royal cousin,
Queen Victoria of England, or was simply
seeking an outlet for his superabundant
though untrained energies; in fact, the ques-
tion of whether the Mainzer Adelsverein was
organized for the purpose of establishing in
the republic of Texas a German buffer state
to halt further expansion southward of the
growing American power, and the extension
of slave territory, as has been frequently
charged, may never be settled to the satisfac-
tion of the historians. However, the fact is
apparent that the group of princes and noble-
men who composed the Mainzer Adelsverein
played a very scurvy part to the thousands
of unfortunate Germans who responded to
their glittering prespectus and put up their
little savings, and entrusted their persons,
their families and their movable property to
the tender mercies of the ‘‘Association for
the Protection of German Immigrants in Tex-
as,” as they styled themselves. From Carls-
hafen, the landing port in Matagorda bay,
afterward known as Indianola, to "Las Fon-
tanas,” as the site of New Braunfels was
called, a trail of bleached bones and aban-
doned settlers’ effects told the pitiful story
of blasted hopes and heart breaking disap-
pointments.
Of the more than five thousand persons
who landed at Galveston from the emigrant
ships between the time of the arrival of the
Johann Dethard on Nov. 23,1844, and the end
of April, 1846, it is said that not more than
1,500 found homes in the promised land.
The history of the operations of the "Adels-
verein,” as the association was popularly
called, is one unbroken chain of gigantic
blunders, indicating an unbelieveable ignor-
ance of the commonest dictates of conse-
quences that was inconceivable in men of
ordinary judgment.
The first blunder, after the rejection of
the grant for colonization tendered by the
president of Texas because it did not carry
with it exemption from taxation for a term
of years, was the purchase off-hand, from a
Frenchman named Bourgeois, of an alleged
grant of land which no one of the purchasers
had seen, and which, in fact, did not exist,
at least so far as title in the grantor was con-
cerned. Bourgeois had been given a coloni-
zation contract, which, however, had expired
(Continued on Page Four.)
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Yates, W. J. The Alpine Avalanche (Alpine, Tex.), Vol. 24, No. 27, Ed. 1 Thursday, July 2, 1914, newspaper, July 2, 1914; Alpine, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1708300/m1/7/: accessed August 15, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Texas State Library and Archives Commission.