Catarino Garza's Revolution on the Texas-Mexico Border(American Encounters/Global Interactions)
Elliott Young, Gilbert M. Joseph (Editor), Emily S. RosenbergBooks.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.
Overview
Catarino Garza’s Revolution on the Texas-Mexico Border rescues an understudied episode from the footnotes of history. On September 15, 1891, Garza, a Mexican journalist and political activist, led a band of Mexican rebels out of South Texas and across the Rio Grande, declaring a revolution against Mexico’s dictator, Porfirio Díaz. Made up of a broad cross-border alliance of ranchers, merchants, peasants, and disgruntled military men, Garza’s revolution was the largest and longest lasting threat to the Díaz regime up to that point. After two years of sporadic fighting, the combined efforts of the U.S. and Mexican armies, Texas Rangers, and local police finally succeeded in crushing the rebellion. Garza went into exile and was killed in Panama in 1895.
Elliott Young provides the first full-length analysis of the revolt and its significance, arguing that Garza’s rebellion is an important and telling chapter in the formation of the border between Mexico and the United States and in the histories of both countries. Throughout the nineteenth century, the borderlands were a relatively coherent region. Young analyzes archival materials, newspapers, travel accounts, and autobiographies from both countries to show that Garza’s revolution was more than just an effort to overthrow Díaz. It was part of the long struggle of borderlands people to maintain their autonomy in the face of two powerful and encroaching nation-states and of Mexicans in particular to protect themselves from being economically and socially displaced by Anglo Americans. By critically examining the different perspectives of military officers, journalists, diplomats, and the Garzistas themselves, Young exposes how nationalism and its preeminent symbol, the border, were manufactured and resisted along the Rio Grande.
Synopsis
Uses the Garza rebellion on the Texas-Mexico border to analyze economic and social change in this region, internationalizing U.S. history with its examination of a transborder area within the larger histories of Mexico and the United States.
Editorials
From the Publisher
“Launched from South Texas in 1891, a rebellion against Mexican dictator Porfirio Díaz spread quickly to both sides of the permeable U.S.-Mexico border. In this smart transnational study, Elliott Young locates the wellsprings of this nearly forgotten episode in the life of its remarkable leader, journalist Catarino Garza, and in the social, racial, and political inequities that characterized borderlands society.”—David J. Weber, Director of the Clements Center for Southwest Studies at Southern Methodist University“This is an original, provocative, and far-reaching book that breaks with the existing conceptualization of fields of study and national historiographical traditions. It not only makes a case for the importance of the Garza revolt itself but also uses the rebellion to reflect upon broad themes, including those of U.S.-Mexican relations; comparative colonialisms; the formation of borders; Latin American liberalism; and race, gender, and class. ”—William French, author of A Peaceful and Working People: Manners, Morals, and Class Formation in Northern Mexico