Border History: PLAN OF SAN DIEGO
PLAN OF SAN DIEGO
With the outbreak of revolution in northern Mexico in 1910, federal authorities and officials of the state of Texas feared that the violence and disorder might spill over into the Rio Grande valley. The Mexican and Mexican-American populations residing in the Valley far outnumbered the Anglo population. Many Valley residents either had relatives living in areas of Mexico affected by revolutionary activity or aided the various revolutionary factions in Mexico. The revolution caused an influx of political refugees and illegal immigrants into the border region, politicizing the Valley population and disturbing the traditional politics of the region. Some radical elements saw the Mexican Revolution as an opportunity to bring about drastic political and economic changes in South Texas. The most extreme example of this was a movement supporting the "Plan of San Diego," a revolutionary manifesto supposedly written and signed at the South Texas town of San Diego on January 6, 1915. The plan, actually drafted in a jail in Monterrey, Nuevo León, provided for the formation of a "Liberating Army of Races and Peoples," to be made up of Mexican Americans, African Americans, and Japanese, to "free" the states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, and Colorado from United States control. The liberated states would be organized into an independent republic, which might later seek annexation to Mexico. There would be a no-quarter race war, with summary execution of all white males over the age of sixteen. The revolution was to begin on February 20, 1915. Federal and state officials found a copy of the plan when local authorities in McAllen, Texas, arrested Basilio Ramos, Jr., one of the leaders of the plot, on January 24, 1915.
The arrival of February 20 produced only another revolutionary manifesto, rather than the promised insurrection. Similar to the original plan, this second Plan of San Diego emphasized the "liberation" of the proletariat and focused on Texas, where a "social republic" would be established to serve as a base for spreading the revolution throughout the southwestern United States. Indians were also to be enlisted in the cause. But with no signs of revolutionary activity, state and federal authorities dismissed the plan as one more example of the revolutionary rhetoric that flourished along the border. This feeling of complacency was shattered in July 1915 with a series of raids in the lower Rio Grande valley connected with the Plan of San Diego. These raids were led by two adherents of Venustiano Carranza, revolutionary general, and Aniceto Pizaña and Luis De la Rosa, residents of South Texas. The bands used the guerilla tactics of disrupting transportation and communication in the border area and killing Anglos. In response, the United States Army moved reinforcements into the area.
The "reinforcements" the U.S. Army sent were not reinforcements at all. It was practically the full balance of the National Guard as we knew it in June of 1916. Over 140,000 Guardsmen were mobilized in response to the border crisis. With Pershing pushing too deep into Mexico chasing in vain after Pancho Villa, the manpower needed to protect the U.S infrastructure along the border was inadequate. Since protection of the U.S. border was the main effort, and Pershing's expedition after Pancho Villa simply a shaping operation, it became clear to President Wilson that an immediate surge of troop strength was required. Almost immediately after the mobilization of the Guard, Carranza altered his actions to influence a cessation of hostilities. And while the National Guard was documented, in historical accounts of the mobilization, as being untrained, unfit, and understrength, these reports were scribed and recorded in large by the Regular Army. During this period, the Regular Army was still very bitter at the establishment of the National Guard as the main reserve component as opposed to the military's proposed continental army plan. In the end, the Guard succeeded in providing the operational strength of the campaign plan needed to change the strategic dynamic between Mexico and the U.S. Conversely - I assert, Gen. Pershing's expedition did nothing to help the situation if not further complicating the difficult political tensions.
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