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Las Gorras Blancas (Spanish for "The White Caps") was a group active in the New Mexico Territory and American Southwest in the late 1880s and early 1890s, in response to Anglo-American farmers and ranchers settling in the territory. Founded in April 1889 by brothers Juan Jose, Pablo, and Nicanor Herrera, with support from ''vecinos'' in the New Mexico Territory pueblo communities of El Burro, El Salitre, Ojitos Frios, and San Geronimo, in present day San Miguel County.〔(''Las Gorras Blancas: The Roots of Nuevomexicano Activism'' ) by Michael Miller〕 ==History== After the northern Mexican frontier became part of the United States in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) and the Gadsden Purchase (1853), Anglo Americans began settling in large numbers to the newly acquired territories. Historically most of the land was held by a small minority of large landowners who usually left their vast holdings empty of settlement. Part of the reason for this abandonment arose from the incessant raiding by Commanche and Apache Indian bands. Generations of war had left the small Spanish speaking population in a state of desultory warfare whereby most fled to protected haciendas and villages when Indians attacked. As a result large areas of the Grandee landholdings were left uninhabited. In contrast whilst most Spanish speaking New Mexicans settled closely around fortified towns and small cities in a passive defense posture, American frontier families had a long history of successfully forming individual fortified homesteads and aggressive counter attacks on Indian terror raids. Thus, they quickly filled in the uninhabited large Spanish grandee land holds. In turn, under the new American law, land which was unused and unclaimed could be taken by squatting rights. Consequently, once American settlers began establishing freeholds in the sparsely populated large landholdings they laid land claim and successfully obtained title. Meanwhile, after obtaining title, some squatters who were operating under the control of large East Coast syndicates sold these lands back to land speculators for huge profits, especially after the passing of the 1862 Homestead Act. With Americans successfully defeating Indian tribal attacks and obtaining their land titles, the settlers quickly turned toward developing their agricultural land and were soon earning a handsome living. Seeing the success of this patter of development the grandees enviously eyed the profit they could earn by challenging the settlers claims. Thus, the Nuevomexicano grandees demanded that their lands be returned. Naturally the governments did not respond favorably both because the law favored the new settlers and because they feared the resulting chaos as American settlers left and the land once again became inhospitable from Indian attacks. Nonetheless, the grandees attempted numerous legal maneuvers to challenge the settler titles. In some cases, owing to the multitude of titles, the transfer of titles some claims and the continuing claims made by the Spanish grandees some cases before the Surveyor of General Claims Office of the New Mexico Territory took fifty years to process a claim. One tactic used by the grandees to challenge the title of settlers was to claim victim status. Nuevomexicano grandees would claim that since their original land title was in Spanish the courts refused to recognize the Spanish crown land grant, despite the fact of the court accepting English translated documents. Further muddying the legal claims were grants of land made by the US government to the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. Worse speculators behind the railway known as the Santa Fe Ring, orchestrated schemes to disland American settlers from their possessions by claiming their title was nullified owing to Spanish Land grants in some occasions and in others depriving Nuevomexicanos of their land saying the same land grant was null and void because the grandees had said their Spanish land grant hadn't been properly recorded. Whilst unable to directly challenge the Santa Fe ring, Nuevomexicanos could violently challenge the titles by the American settlers.〔Rosales, F. Arturo ''Chicano: The History of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement'' (Houston, TX: Arte Publico Press, 1997) p. 7-9〕 Consequently unable to take back formerly abandoned land by lawful means, the old grandees turned to intimidation, terrorism, and raids to accomplish their goals of ethnically cleansing American farmers from their old Spanish land grants. Politically, the grandees turned to racism and nationalism to develop a class-based consciousness among Spanish speaking New Mexicans. Using secret organizations, the grandees would use boycotts, intimidation, and assassination among the poor local Spanish speaking New Mexican to coerce and subject them to the control of the grandees against the American settlers and established authority. In their acts of intimidation, extra judicial courts and terrorism they wore white head coverings. As a result they became known as Las Gorras Blancas. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Las Gorras Blancas」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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