Bandit War

Seditionista campaign

The most intense period of the Bandit War came in 1915. On January 6, Basilio Ramos and his group wrote the Plan of San Diego in San Diego, Texas. Their goal was to put the American border states under the control of Mexican President Venustiano Carranza. The rebels called themselves Seditionistas and started hitting small American posts and towns along the Rio Grande, many of which had US Army soldiers protecting them.

The first strike happened on July 4, 1915, when around forty men on horseback came across the border and attacked Los Indios Ranch in Cameron County. The first death came five days later, on July 9, when a worker at King Ranch killed one of the raiders near Norias Ranch. On July 11, two Mexican-American police officers were shot from far away near Brownsville and died. American officials said those officers had known about the Plan of San Diego before the attacks began, which led to efforts to kill them.

Over the next two weeks, reports came in of more raids, attacks on police, and attempts on the lives of local landowners. By the end of July, the raiders were trying to cut off communication in the Lower Rio Grande Valley and stop trains. On July 25, they set fire to a bridge owned by the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railway and cut telegraph wires near Harlingen. Shortly after, Texas Governor James E. Ferguson sent Texas Ranger Captain Harry Ransom to the area to lead a pacification campaign.

According to writer John William Weber, Ransom ran an assassination squad that carried out a scorched-earth campaign of annihilation against Mexicans, both guilty and innocent.