O’er the Land that is Free...

  Being a Mexican born American and knowing that the western United States was simply taken away from Mexico, I get a little upset and begin to feel a twinge of racism towards European Americans. But as Socrates points out, wrong doing is the result of ignorance. Simply knowing only the fact that the U.S. took that part of Mexico is knowledge. However, it only brings us to more questions about how and why; and that is ignorance that needs to be fulfilled in order to remove the wrong doing of thinking like a racist. In the following paragraphs let us consider the how and why of the acts committed by the new Euro-Americans in California, so that we may continue to rid the world of racism; at the very least with this person writing this essay. First we will see how California’s white settlers stripped Mexican Americans of their land and rights, by way of perpetuating preexisting racialized images of an elite group of people and creating further divisions within that group; then by displacing the remaining elite class by any means necessary  such as physical force, exploitation through enacted legislations, legal fees, and abuse of credit. Through out these examples we will see what, if anything, Mexican Americans did to fight back.

     First, in order to understand how it is that the new immigrants managed to convince the elite rancheros that such divisions existed within their group we must first see what conditions existed already. Since the introduction of the European idea of race by the Spanish to the Mesoamericans, Mexicans continued that habit through the time of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (protected the rights of Mexicans currently living in the new U.S. territory, guaranteeing citizenship and land rights and suffrage). Because of their mentality of superiority, the Spanish missionaries and conquistadores enslaved the native population that lived there, and thus became the elite. The Mexicans did the same thing; because of their mentality of superiority, the Hispano (claiming to be of Spanish ancestry) ranchero elite continued to enslave the indigenous population or have indentured servants. This mentality of superiority was forthcoming with the Puritan Euro-Americans at the time even after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo as well. As European-American, Richard Henry Dana describes how he “was particularly struck by the symmetry with which class division overlay differences in ancestry... skin color... [and] ‘quality of blood.’” Dana enters his mentality of superiority by further stating, “‘Yet, the least drop of Spanish blood, if it be only a [little], is sufficient to raise them from the ranks of slaves, and entitle them to the suit of clothes... and to call themselves Espanoles, and to hold property, if they can get any.’” Even though the Californio elite were able to fend off ideas of a “one-drop of blood rule” as was occurring in the south with claims of European ancestry, it did not keep the Euro-Americans from inventing whiteness and further allowed them to partition Californios away from the “northern European or Anglo-Saxon sense of the term.” Since they were only “semicivilized,” and could not easily throw them into a mixed race category, as was the case in the south. However, those that were perceived as “not so white” by the Euro-Americans were stripped of their rights. During the suffrage rights debates for Mexican Americans, a delegate named Botts argued that he did not want to extend the rights of suffrage to them as they were part of the “inferior races... African and Indian.” the ranchero elite fought back and obtained rights to vote as well as a less than higher class position in society as over time they lost political power. Euro-Americans then proceeded to the remaining Indian an black population was disenfranchised and were not given the right to vote.  An even greater divide was created through what was known as the “greaser act” of 1849, where vagrants were allowed to be arrested and fined to the point where they became indentured servants. There was not much economic gain darker skinned people could obtain in that type of society as in order to disenfranchise the working class even further all that needed to be done was to label them as Indians. This was the case with Manuel Dominguez, whom was previously an elected delegate, was not allowed to testify in a court as he was ineligible on the grounds that he was categorized as Indian. Aside from creating a wide racial divide within the Mexican-American community, Euro-Americans began to displace the rancheros from their land by any means necessary.

  One such means was that of physical force that can be seen in the case of Colonel Stevenson, whom headed a military campaign to take the “‘Mission San Buenaventura and all the property that was in that establishment.’” Stevenson, “‘even despoiled [Jose Arnez] of [his] orchards and vineyards at Los Angeles, which [Stevenson] occupied with his soldiers, who burned the house and the still,... leaving [Arnez] with [his] family buried in poverty.’” Another mean employed by Euro-Americans to displace rancheros was by enacting legislations through Congress where the elite rancheros had the burden of proof of land title before the Board of Land Commissioners. Forty percent of the rancheros lost their land. Rancho Saticoy, “patented by Thomas W. More in 1872,” was one of those initially lost. Due to the fact that rancheros had to spend their own resources to prove that the ranches were indeed theirs; the remaining sixty percent was eaten away by other means, such as payment of legal fees with land sales. Thomas A. Scott, in the 1860s purchased most of the property from Ygnacio Del Valle of Ventura County. Yet another means that was put to practice was that of purposeful abuse of credit given to the rancheros by immigrant merchants. Seeing that the rancheros had very little aptitude in money management, the merchants exploited that fact and extended credit to the rancheros so that they could run up their credit and be forced to make payment with land. Antonio Schiappa Pietra acquired Rancho Santa Clara Del Norte in this manner.

Very fast and then little by little, Mexican American Californians were stripped of their land by immigrant settlers, through the creation of a legal racial division within that group, and then by displacing the remaining Mexican American elites from their land by any means necessary, like the use of physical force, exploitation through enacted legislation by congress, legal fees, and abuse of credit. When I think about it, European-Americans did take the land from Mexican-Americans, just as the Spanish took it from the Native Americans which mainly stemmed from a mind set of superiority. I say that the only reason it ever came to allowing the European-Americans to impose such view in the ranchero elite, was because the phycological damage was already there; the elite Californios believed so deeply in their pride of being white Spanish, that the Euro-Americans simply used it against them. So, instead of being upset or have racist attitudes towards currently living Euro-Americans for what their ancestors did, we could better understand our history, and extrapolate lessons from it. The white Spanish pride and attitudes of superiority that the rancheros maintained was the gateway to all that followed and, even though it was forestalled, that is what lead them to their demise. On other words, to further paraphrase Socrates, no one does wrong on purpose, for the wrong only negatively affects those whom do the wrong. In essence, pride was the demise of the elite rancheros and the Euro-Americans took what they wanted; the hope, is that it doesn’t happen again.