Texas Rangers are propagated everywhere from film to TV shows as cowboys and heroes; they’re the good guys with the big hats and shiny badges. But how these rangers built their fame by beating, brutalizing, and murdering Mexicans is a conversation left out of the history books. The Texas Rangers were founded in 1835 shortly after the Mexican War of Independence. What started off as a group of men acting as rangers to protect the land of newly settled families in Mexican Texas, turned into an active racist targeting ploy.
Tons of violences towards Mexican families took place between 1848 and 1928. Mobs lynched atleast 597 mexicans; they lived with the fear of lynching everyday and were actively given reasons to run. They were segregated into crammed shotgun communities, were forced to sell their land, and were constantly refused services because they were “dirty”, and who was there to enforce all of these injustices? Texas Rangers. They ruled with an iron fist, reinforcing their narratives of Mexicans as criminals.
History books in America focus almost exclusively on the white narrative. It’s pretty sad thinking that you can go to Texas right now, enter a Texas Ranger Museum, and get yourself your own custom Texas Ranger badge. Imagine a hispanic name like Maria or Jose on a badge that used to beat and harass Hispanics for sport and monetary gain. Texas Rangers even have their own major league baseball team. They shouldn’t be put on a pedestal or commemorated as heavily as they are, it‘s unfair to the hundreds of Tejano families that were robbed of their homes and loved ones, and who had to endure the Texas Rangers tyranny.