an

During the year 1880, Quirino Caitan, while drunk, at a characteristic fandango, murdered another Mexican. He was captured, convicted, and then duly executed by hanging on July 18, 1882, on a scaffold erected near the present St. L. B. & M. passenger depot.

Sometime after the killing of the Austins near Sebastian, which occurred on August 6, Jose Buenrostro and Melquiades Chapa were arrested for other offenses. When confronted by persons who had been present at the time when the Austins were taken prisoners on the day of their execution by the Mexican bandits, Buenrostro and Chapa were identified as participants in the killing. They were tried, convicted, and duly hanged in the yard of the new Cameron County jail at Brownsville, on May 19, 1916.

LYNCHINGS AND EXECUTIONS WITHOUT

PROCESS OF LAW

After the defeat of Cortina at Rio Grande city in December, 1859 or thereabouts, three Mexicans suspected of having participated in his raid, were captured near Rio Grande City by the American authorities and brought to Brownsville. They were hanged to an old tree which in those days stood on Levee Street, between 10th and 11th.

About 1862, a Mexican shoemaker who had just murdered his wife, was arrested by Judge E. P. McLane, then Justice of the Peace. Near the corner of 11th and Washington, directly opposite to Lot No. 12, Block No. 65 while McLane was conducting the prisoner to the Market House, the latter suddenly turned upon him and plunged a long knife into his breast, inflicting a wound which produced death within half an hour. The Mexican was captured by a mob and rushed to the old tree in front of McAllen's on Levee Street, and

there strung up. The leaders of the mob compelled every American present to participate in the hanging. While hanging but just before his pulse had ceased to beat, a stranger with flowing cape and slouched hat, embraced the body and lifting his own feet from the ground so as to throw greater weight on the murderer, muttered, "That's the way we used to do them in Californy.”

He is

Politics and its effect on the ignorant Mexican voter has been productive of much evil on the Rio Grande. In fact, to its door may be laid 80 per cent of the crimes committed since the local county factions appropriated the names “Colorados" (Reds) and "Azules" (Blues). The average ignorant Mexican voter never forgets his colors; the thought of them‹ permeates his commercial, domestic, and social life. a red or blue every day and every hour of the year. This idea and the spirit of political patriotism stimulated Carlos Guillen, loyal Blue, to shoot and instantly kill Samuel Cobb, Blue jailor, and Felipe Cobb, Blue Constable, on April 5, 1898. The Cobbs had deflected from the Blue path in the local city election and as a result considerable animosity was aroused.

Guillen relied on the protection of his party, so did not flee the city. He was arrested and thrown in jail. A mob of citizens, Blues and Reds, rushed the jail and through the iron latticed cage shot Guillen to death.

EXPLOSION AND FIRE

October 23, 1857, fire broke out in the Phelps and Galvan general store, Lot No. 9, on Levee Street, between 12th and 13th, Brownsville. As the citizens and members of the bucket brigade reached the scene, a terrific explosion took place, killing John North and Mr. Abram Isaacs. The fire crossed the alley and razed everything on lots Nos. 5, 6, and 7, to Elizabeth on the two lots facing the latter street.

Reference has already been made to the fire and explosion on November 3, 1863, when General Bee set fire to Ft. Brown.

During 1908, two of the large wooden structures which had served as barracks for the soldiers in Ft. Brown since 1868 were destroyed by fire. The first of these was situated not far from the garrison gate on Elizabeth Street; the second just northeast.

No cause for the fire was discovered. It was from the house just east of the gate that the negroes were alleged to have fired into Brownsville buildings in August, 1906.

RAIDS ON AND IN BROWNSVILLE

Before referring to the raids on the City of Brownsville, we desire to mention an Indian raid which occurred just ten miles north of the city. In December, 1848, and up to May 14, 1849, Indians, or Mexicans disguised as such, depredated in the lower border on the Texas side of the Rio Grande. On May 10, 1849, Israel B. Bigelow, Judge of the County Court of Cameron County, Texas, wrote to Gen. Francisco Avalos, then in command at Matamoros, requesting the latter to send some troops of Mexican cavalry to the Texas side to assist in repelling or capturing a band of Indians who were, at the time of writing, robbing and killing in the vicinity of Palo Alto. General Avalos answered that he would be willing to do so but that consent of the American Federal government should first be obtained. Judge Bigelow answered that the commander of the Federal troops had refused to act. In the meantime, fearing an attack on the city, the few American and Mexican families moved to Matamoros, leaving but sixty-two Americans and Mexicans in Brownsville. The Indians, however, came no further south. It was alleged that they were of the Comanche tribe.

On October 9, 1865, at about 9 o'clock, a mutiny broke out among the negro soldiers in Brownsville. Having nothing but tents in which to live, suffering from mosquito pests, and finally chilled by a cold northern which had sprung up on the Saturday following, the negroes first entered a saloon on market square and there killed the proprietor. Then they rushed in parties through the city in quest of clothing, blankets, or lumber with which to protect their bodies from the cold. On the corner of 8th and Elizabeth the Dalzell house was in course of construction. They pounced on the lumber there. William H. Putegnat in an effort to drive them off was attacked and severely wounded by a bayonet thrust on the forehead. Several Mexicans were killed. The negroes, about 60, ultimately returned to their quarters unmolested.

During the month of October, 1873, while the two political factions, the Reds and Blues, were participating in the customary vote-catching bailes (dances), one at the Rio Grande Railroad depot and the other at the city market square, 32 recruits who had arrived two weeks prior thereto, to fill the gaps in the U. S. Army then stationed at Ft. Brown, crept down the alley between Washington and Adams Streets, Brownsville, to the intersection of 13th. From there they marched to Adams where they at once engaged in a gun fight with about an equal number of Mexicans styling themselves "Charramusqueros" (vendors of molasses candy). Two of the soldiers were badly wounded. One of the Mexicans was seriously wounded. No deaths.

About a week before the fight the badly mutilated body of a recruit had been found lying in old Washington Square, near what is now the north wing of the Grammar School. The recruits attributed this man's death to the candy vendors who at that time were quite numerous.

On August 13, 1906, several shots were fired into the twostory frame dwelling situated on the southwest corner of the block at the foot of Elizabeth Street where it enters the garrison gate. These shots, it was afterwards proved, had come from one of the two-story barracks inside the garrison, about 200 feet southeast of the gate (one of the buildings which were destroyed by fire in 1908). Immediately afterwards a number of negro soldiers of the 25th U. S. Infantry, then on duty at Fort Brown, jumped the brick fence surrounding the garrison, ran to the alley between Elizabeth and Washington, thence northward to the corner of 14th and the alley, where they deliberately fired into the Cowen residence on that corner, which, half an hour before had been crowded with merrymakers, little girls aged between 9 and 14. No one hurt at that place. The negroes then proceeded up the alley, firing on Miller's Hotel as they passed, and at a place between 12th and 13th Streets, fired upon and killed a young man named Natus as he was coming out of the alley door of his place of business. They then circled the northeast half of that block, fired into the house of Fred Starck on the northeast side of Washington Street where his wife and young children were asleep. Then they turned down 13th

Street toward the river and meeting Joe Dominguez, the City Marshal, fired at him, killing his horse and wounding him in the arm so that it was afterwards necessary to amputate

same.

President Roosevelt ordered a Board of Inquiry, and at the same time, decreed that unless the guilty one should surrender within thirty days, every soldier in the battalion should be dismissed without honor. The entire command was mustered out, but later, several proved an alibi and those who had a good past record, who thus established the alibi, were reinstated.