Porvenir Massacre

Before January 1918 the people of Porvenir were landowners and farmers making a life in one of the hardest climates in Texas. Manuel Moralez raised cotton on land he irrigated by diverting water from the Rio Grande. Harry Warren kept a public school for about twenty boys and girls from the Bonilla, Flores, Gonzalez, Jáquez, Lares, Moralez and Nieves families. On January 24, four days before the killings, Rangers and local men searched the homes at gunpoint and held three men, among them Román Nieves, for two days.

What the plaque says

Porvenir Massacre Porvenir was a community in remote northwest Presidio County on the Rio Grande. In the midst of military conflicts and raids across and along the international border and in the immediate area during the Mexican Revolution, the small farming and ranching settlement was the site of a notorious tragedy in 1918. A group of Texas Rangers from Company B in Marfa, U.S. Army soldiers from Troop G of the 8th Cavalry, and local ranchers arrived at Porvenir in the early morning hours of January 28, 1918. They came to the ranch of Manuel Moralez and separated fifteen able-bodied men and boys from the women, children and other men. Though initial accounts denied any wrongdoing, later testimony confirmed that these 15 victims were shot and killed. Family members crossed the Rio Grande into Mexico to bury Antonio Castañeda, Longino Flores, Pedro Herrera, Vivian Herrera, Severiano Herrera, Manuel Moralez, Eutemio González, Ambrosio Hernández, Alberto García, Tiburcio Jáquez, Róman Nieves, Serapio Jiménez, Pedro Jiménez, Juan Jiménez, and Macedonio Huertas. In June 1918, Governor William P. Hobby and Adjutant General James A. Harley disbanded Company B, dismissed five Rangers for their actions at Porvenir, and forced Captain J.M. Fox's resignation. State Representative J.T. Canales filed charges with the Texas Legislature against the Texas Rangers, for the oppression and murder of hundreds of ethnic Mexicans along the Rio Grande. At an investigation beginning January 31, 1919, legislators heard and received testimony regarding several incidents including Porvenir. As a result, the Texas Rangers were reorganized and reduced in size. In the aftermath of the attack, approximately 140 remaining residents of Porvenir abandoned the community. (2015)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• McDonald Observatory — 25 mi
  The University of Texas observatory on Mount Locke, founded with a Paris, Texas banker's fortune, with star parties three nights a week under some of the darkest skies in the country.
• Presidio County Courthouse — 26 mi
  Marfa's domed courthouse of 1886, a Second Empire landmark finished in time for a New Year's ball, its statue of Justice still missing the scales someone shot away.
• Chinati Foundation — 27 mi
  Donald Judd's museum on the grounds of old Fort D. A. Russell in Marfa, where art, buildings and land are meant to be seen together, by guided tour.

More markers nearby

• Bloys Camp Meeting — 16 mi
• McDonald Observatory of the University of Texas — 25 mi
• William Edward Russell — 26 mi
• James Buchanan Gillett — 26 mi