Chapter 1: Who were the Texas Rangers and what is their historical significance?
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Just visit historyhit.com slash subscribe to bring the past alive. A rider moves across the wide Texas prairie, hat drawn low, dust rising behind his horse's hooves, rifle close at hand. Upon his coat, pinned to the lapel, a five-pointed star glints in the sun. He's tired, he's hungry, he's riding alone. But somewhere out there is the trouble he's been dispatched to find.
But whether he finds it or not, almost matters less than what he represents to us today.
Chapter 2: What was the situation in Tejas around 1820 that led to the formation of the Rangers?
That rider and the star he wears is a memory we all carry. The legend, the myth, the magic of the Texas Ranger.
The Texas Ranger
Greetings all. Welcome to American History Hit. Don Wildman is my name. And today we are back out on the American frontier in the vast, unspoiled lands of Texas. Teos, that is. While still well within the borders of sovereign Mexico. In this land of opportunity and danger emerged a group of men who would rank among the most iconic figures of the Wild West. The Texas Rangers.
Delivering Silver Star justice to a lawless frontier. Or so goes the myth. Who were these Texas Rangers? Defenders of order or agents of exploitation and violence?
We'll explore it all with Professor Benjamin Johnson of Loyola University, Chicago, author of several books including Texas in American History and Revolution in Texas, How a Forgotten Rebellion and Its Bloody Suppression Turned Mexicans into Americans. Ben Johnson, great to have you with us. You have a name like a Texas Ranger.
Thank you so much. I'm very pleased to be with you.
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Chapter 3: How did the Texas Rangers evolve during the Texas Revolution?
Our telling of the story begins around 1820, beginnings of Texas, which was known by the Mexicans and Spanish, who founded the place, as Tejas. What's going on in Tejas in 1820?
Tejas in 1820 is really kind of on the ropes. It has, you know, long been claimed by Spain as the northern extent of its possessions in North America. But, you know, you could say it belongs to the Comanche more than it belongs to the Spanish.
There's been lots of civil unrest and insurrection associated with efforts to create an independent Mexico that will govern itself instead of being under the rule of Spain.
It's a vast expanse, but had a low settler population, making it difficult to project colonial authority, especially against these Apache and Comanche tribes. I imagine settlements were few and far between in those days, right?
That's correct. And there's really, you know, the largest is San Antonio. So there's a cluster of Hispanic residents around San Antonio, some farther east in Nacogdoches, some farther south in what will end up being South Texas. And it's in worse shape than it had been a few generations before. And as Mexico gains its independence in 1821, I hope I'm not getting ahead of our story too much.
There is a lot of sentiment that they need to bring in more property owning sedentary people and they have a lot of land and there are a lot of such people in the United States who don't have land. And, you know, maybe this could work out. Maybe we could invite some Americans down there.
Yeah. Mexico itself had been unable to encourage its own population to settle that land. So this is what you're talking about. They're encouraging these outsiders to come in instead after 1821.
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Chapter 4: What unique role did the Texas Rangers play in the U.S.-Mexican War?
Anglo-Americans from the USA start to migrate to the territory. Stephen F. Austin, the famous name, led a band of colonists to this Texas region. And over time, tensions begin to grow between the Anglo-Americans, the indigenous nations, and the Mexican authorities. This is really what starts to boil up, right?
That's correct. Although, you know, there are also ways in which for about a decade after Stephen F. Austin brings in 100 families, you know, it really does work. Stephen is known as Esteban. That's how I write about him in my book. He's the godfather to Mexican children. He becomes fluent in Spanish. He converts to Catholicism.
At one point, he even helps put down an uprising in East Texas against Mexican rule. But I think everyone has a sense that this is a kind of volatile cocktail and unsteady mix, right, that people are still figuring out how this whole thing is going to work.
He's really, what a fascinating man, Stephen Austin, really known to Anglos anyway as the father of Texas. In 1823, the precursor of what becomes the Texas Rangers is founded. How so and why?
Sure. That is the date that the Rangers give for their founding date. And, you know, it does have a basis.
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Chapter 5: How did the Texas Rangers gain their notorious reputation in American history?
There's a description that Austin hires 10 experienced frontiersmen as what he calls rangers and a punitive expedition against Tonkoa Indians. But there's not, you know, there's not a bureaucracy. There's not a uniform.
There's not a command and control structure until really the middle of the Texas Revolution, towards the end of 1835, when Texas lawmakers, you know, the Congress of this would-be independent nation, which is still fighting Mexico for its independence, create a force, authorize the creation of a formal force called the Texas Rangers. So 1823, 1835, take your pick.
Yeah, exactly. And just to remind people who are rusty on this, the Texas Republic is founded between what years?
Yeah, the Texas Republic exists between 1836, when Texas very improbably wins its revolution and actually captures the head of state of Mexico, Santa Ana, a vastly larger polity that it had no chance of actually conquering. And the Republic lasts until 1845, when it becomes a part of the United States as a state.
Yeah.
Just important to keep that political backdrop in mind as this group is founded. That is really, is it fair to call it a militia? Not really, right?
I think a militia, paramilitary is the word that's often used. Sometimes they're doing things that look like law enforcement. Sometimes, particularly in the early years, they're mostly doing things that look like military endeavors, right?
They are making war on hostile powers and attempting to prevent outside powers from making war on Anglo-Texas.
Yeah. And they're first organized by Austin, but then led by a guy named Moses Morrison, who their essential job is to patrol the roads and the lands in general and essentially protect these Anglo settlers. Right.
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Chapter 6: What controversies surround the Texas Rangers' actions against Indigenous communities?
By 1830s, their pay was set to $1.25 a day, but they had to provide their own horses and their supplies. I got a quote here from a guy named John Capperton. He wrote something called The Sketch of Colonel John C. Hayes, Texas Ranger. I'll read it.
Each ranger was armed with a rifle, a pistol, and a knife, with a Mexican blanket tied behind his saddle and a small wallet in which he carried salt and ammunition, and perhaps a little panola or parched corn, spiced and sweetened, a great allayer of thirst. And, of course, tobacco. He was equipped for a month.
This little body of men, unencumbered by baggage, wagons, or pack trains, moved as lightly over the prairie as the Indians." I mean, this is really the picture of this lonely rider out on the plains, isn't it?
Yeah, sure is. And they become, you know, by the 1840s, they have a reputation well outside the state of Texas for exactly the kind of thing you're talking about.
Let's talk about how they get that reputation as we go. These are not polished lawmen. They are organized, but they're riding out from sort of separate headquarters, I suppose. Kind of half farmers, half fighters patrolling a wilderness where the government barely existed.
With the outbreak of the Texas Revolution, 1836, the provisional government officially sanctioned the first ranger force to patrol the frontier. How large was this force?
56, 60 people, six companies of mounted volunteers, and they're meant to be a bit geographically dispersed.
Yeah. And within a few years, it grows. There's about 300 in a couple of years from then. And as you explained, they're not only, you know, writing for law, they're writing to help people and scout for people, their couriers, their guides. They also perform sort of rear guard actions during several battles that are going on with the Mexican army after the Battle of the Alamo.
Why is this such a unique thing to Texas? I'm curious, you know, why aren't we talking about the Arkansas Rangers? You know, why Texas?
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Chapter 7: How did the Texas Rangers transition into a modern law enforcement agency?
But they become more and more significant, particularly on the Texas frontier as really the kind of the point of the spear force. to use that phrase, for Anglo-Texans. And then, you know, this is a theme throughout Ranger history, really, you know, after just a generation. So by the 1840s, they are as significant as cultural icons and legends as they actually are as a bureaucracy.
So I think that's what distinguishes them from, you know, Arizona has Rangers, California has rangers. It was a general term for sort of backcountry woodsmen that was used across much of the English-speaking world.
But it's only in Texas that you get the confluence of an actual paramilitary bureaucracy and organization and a body of legend and war that lasts all the way up, both of them until today.
Let's take a short break. And when we come back, we'll talk about the notable engagements the rangers fought in and the darker aspects of their history right after this.
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Okay, we're back with Professor Benjamin Johnson talking about the Texas Rangers. No, not the baseball team, the real ones. We've called them sort of a bit of a militia, kind of a state police. How were they organized and how did one become a Ranger?
So yeah, they're organized, you know, they are officially chartered by the government of the Republic of Texas and officers are hired and then calls go out for men to enlist. So in that way, it really does look like a volunteer army.
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Chapter 8: What is the current public perception of the Texas Rangers and their legacy?
And Texas is in a very tenuous position, right? It is a Its whole existence as an independent sovereign is really improbable that they catch the Mexican army in a moment of vulnerability after its leader, the president of Mexico, Santa Anna, very unwisely decides to split forces and captures them. And they're still right next to some very powerful indigenous people, most powerful of whom are the
Comanche, and they're still right next to Mexico, a country that is literally hundreds of times its size and that views them as illegitimate bandits and upstart revolutionaries and would like to recapture them. But precisely because of that vulnerability, then the people leading the Republic of Texas
see the need to have a kind of frontier military force that is out in the field more or less full time, right? That's not just mobilized like a volunteer fire department when there's an emergency. And so the Rangers in their early years are really a frontier military force and their opponents, as they very readily acknowledged, are indigenous peoples in Mexico.
Tell me about a guy named John Hayes. John Jack Coffee Hayes. 1840s, right?
Sure, yeah. So Hayes is a fascinating figure, and he's really the first real legendary Texas ranger. He comes to Texas in the middle of the Revolution in 1836 and is one of the people who Sam Houston asked to join a company of rangers that's engaged in service between San Antonio and the Rio Grande, right? So right on the... what they hope will become the border with Mexico.
And he fights during the Texas Revolution and then goes on to do kind of a combination of surveying frontier lands, right, which the Rangers are involved in and are the kind of the security force for that, and then actively fighting indigenous people. And I think the reason he comes to fame is that he is both a technical innovator, right?
So he is one of the first people to realize that advances in gun technology mean that you can actually fight from horseback in a very different way than armed combat. European and American soldiers had done. It used to be you would use the horse for mobility, for speed, and when it came time to fire your musket, you would dismount and form up into some kind of ranks.
Well, he realizes that there's now weaponry that means that you can actually fire from horseback. And so he changes the tactics of frontier warfare. He adopts many native tactics as well. But the other reason is he's kind of counter type, right? You know, these pictures of rangers, especially that are taken in the 20th century, are these big, larger than life figures.
Hayes is a very diminutive, short, soft spoken man. But, you know, he really deals very effectively in violence. And so I think it's that contrast that helps. and his objective importance to the development of frontier warfare that gives rise to him as a legend. There's a county named after him still in Texas, so that tells you something about what an impression he made.
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