Armando Alonzo’s thorough analysis of land tenure and ranching among south Texas rancheros exemplifies a scholarly trend that begins the study of United States Latino history in the Spanish colonial period rather than with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848). This volume narrates the establishment of ranching in Nuevo Santander during the colonial period, its continuing development after Mexican independence in the newly formed state of Tamaulipas, and Tejano efforts to maintain their lands and their way of life after the United States takeover of the portion of this territory that became south Texas. Drawing on pertinent secondary literature and extensive primary sources, Alonzo demonstrates the resilience of Tejano rancheros in their struggle to endure. Significantly, the decline of the landholdings, economic clout, political influence, and social hegemony of Tejanos did not follow immediately upon the military defeat of Mexico by the United States. Indeed, Tejanos maintained their demographic dominance and a large measure of their social status until some five decades later, when changes in international livestock prices, the subsequent development of massive irrigation projects and commercial farming in south Texas, and an accompanying influx of Anglo settlers altered the landscape of the rancheros’ homeland.
Alonzo pays particular attention to a case study of Hidalgo County, the subject of his doctoral dissertation; but he also presents abundant data for other locales in the region. The book’s primary foci are land tenure and ranching, especially the saga of how Tejanos settled, developed, and, in a number of cases, eventually lost their ranchlands. While a boom in the livestock economy enabled many Tejanos to maintain and even expand their ranching enterprise after the 1848 United States takeover, a number of factors inhibited their ongoing success during the final decade and a half of the nineteenth century. These factors included increasing competition from Anglos, declining prices, bad weather, the difficulty Tejanos had in securing loans, and the cultural practice of subdividing ranchlands among all heirs, which eventually reduced Tejano landholdings to a size that was too small for commercial ranching. In short, many Anglo newcomers had the financial resources necessary to diversify their business dealings and survive tough financial times, while Tejanos were increasingly unable to surmount the influence of shifting international markets and extended periods of inclement weather.
Pointing to the gradual shifts in Tejano land tenure, as well as the relative ease of Tejano land-grant adjudication in south Texas under United States rule, Alonzo concludes that the “rancheros did not suffer as harsh a treatment as is commonly depicted in the popular literature, historical memory, and scholarly literature” (p. 270). To be sure, Alonzo’s study ends at the dawn of the twentieth century, precisely the historical epoch when Anglo displacement of Tejano political and economic influence began to accelerate. Moreover, the “scanty” evidence of Anglo racial bias in official sources (p. 281) does not fully negate Tejano testimony that Anglos used intimidation and coercion to induce land sales. Nonetheless, Alonzo demonstrates that the experience of Latinos in South Texas was distinct from that of numerous other landowners in the former territories of northern Mexico, especially from that of the population of New Mexico, where many long-standing residents lost ancestral lands through unjust legal procedures in United States courts.
Some readers may get bogged down in the considerable amount of detail in Alonzo’s presentation, although many scholars and other readers with a specific interest in the regional history of south Texas will find his care and precision both helpful and fascinating. Social and cultural historians will undoubtedly desire further evidence, narration, and elaboration of Alonzo’s provocative claim that Tejano history illuminates “the importance of land or space to the[se] settlers’ way of life and identity” (p. 3). Nonetheless, this is an important book that merits the attention of scholars interested in Latin American, United States, borderlands, economic, and ethnic history.
