“They were dashing. They were colorful… They were fearless. And they gained a reputation for being fast, well-armed, dangerous.”1
“The Texas Rangers have a reputation for valor and tenacity in the pursuit of their duties, for the ability to face the dangers and hardships of their calling without flinching.”2
The Texas Rangers are a whole other breed, they are like no law enforcement agency that has ever been and will ever be. The Texas Rangers of today are the closest comparison, but not close enough because we are still left wondering: who were the Texas Rangers of the 1800s and what did they do?
Why Were the Rangers Established?
In 1823 Stephen F. Austin brought together a group of ten men to protect the Texas frontier, but it was not until 1835 that they were formally organized into a Ranger Company of 25 men.3 “Because these men moved at will and went wherever they thought the Indians might be-‘ranged’ over the country-they were called Rangers,” Walter Prescott Webb explains.4 But more important than when the Texas Rangers started, is why they started. Why was there a need?
According to Webb, “The Indians did not like the white man to move into their hunting grounds, run off the game and claim land which the Indians had always used as theirs. [The Indians] began to strike back at the newcomers, steal their horses, burn their cabins, kill their cattle, and even murder people.”5 Although the Indians were their biggest problem, they were not their only problem. Settlers often scuffled with their Mexican neighbors. “Impatient with Mexican deviousness, the Rangers reacted with straight force. But the Mexican, to keep the records straight, slipped from deviousness to outright treachery; history records that Mexicans killed more Texans by the result of parleys than on all battlefields.”6 The Texans had their hands full between the two groups. Imagine if you will, a single Texan fighting both an Indian and a Mexican at the same time-that’s what it was like.* To fight their enemies, the Texans had to learn from them. “The Rangers and the Indians were classic enemies… And the Rangers learned from the Indians and I think that was one of the things that made the Rangers successful… They learned to fight the Indians on their own terms…” as stated by Mike Cox of the Texas Department of Public Safety.7 According to T.R. Fehrenbach, “To fight the Indians and the Mexicans, Ranger leaders had to learn to think like both, or at least, to understand what Mexicans and Indians feared.”8
Horses played a major role in the lives of these three battling foes. As Webb states, “…[The Comanche and Apache Indians] lived on horseback, played on horseback, and, what was more important to the Texans, fought on horseback.”9 He reaffirms this by stating, “[The Comanche Indians] knew that a Ranger on foot was no Ranger at all, and in this the Ranger agreed with the Indian. He was careful on his horse. In Indian country he slept on the ground with his trusty horse nearby, hobbled or staked, and sometimes, though not often, he tied the rope that held his horse to his own wrist.”10 To a Ranger, his horse was as important as his gun. The Mexicans were also horsemen so that the Rangers found themselves under attack from two sides by mounted enemies.11 In order to fight on equal terms, to charge when they had an advantage and retreat when they had none, the Texas Rangers found it to their advantage to have only the best horses.12
What is a Texas Ranger?
Despite what may have been believed, Texas Rangers were not farmers and they were not older men. “They were for the most part extremely young. Most great Ranger leaders earned their fame long before the age of thirty. That they were adventurous needs no explanation; they were all volunteers. More significant was the assertion by observers that Ranger captains were unusual men-not merely brave, but officers who showed an utter absence of fear,” Fehrenbach states.13 Texas Rangers had to be more than the average man and even more than the average soldier. Fehrenbach also goes on to say, “Throughout his whole existence as a fighting man, the Texas Ranger was outnumbered by his foes. This produced not caution but canniness, and almost incredible aggressiveness. The Ranger found his best defense was to attack, dominate, subdue.”14 Even though they protected the frontier, they were not an army and they did not act like one. Their leaders were not officers with ranks-they were men who had earned their positions.** Webb explains:
The Rangers had no military discipline, were independent by nature, and did not accept a man as leader unless he was the best in the outfit. He must have courage equal to any, judgment better than most, and physical strength to outlast his men on the longest march or the hardest ride. In a time of danger the captain never said to his men ‘go,’ but said to them ‘come,’ and it became part of the tradition that the officer goes first into any place of danger.15
The Texas Rangers were not ordinary men. They were amazing in what they did and what they did not do. Their behavior’s made them successful and sometimes not so successful.
The Rangers also had a reputation, a reputation that was feared by many. “In fact, the Rangers were so feared many of the ordinary people in Mexico called them ‘los diablos tejanos,’ the devil Texans. Because these devil Texans would come riding up fast and they would distribute justice-not always fairly-but they would distribute a lot of justice,” as stated by Dr. John Miller Morris of the University of Texas at San Antonio.16 Or, as Fehrenbach so eloquently put it, “The Ranger image was that of a tall, quiet-spoken Westerner, who preferred his horse to female society, who wore a well-oiled pistol and knew how to use it, and who, when called upon, would destroy the forces of evil by killing them.” He also goes on to say, “The image was appealing rather than repellant.”17
Mexico vs. Tejas
According to Miguel Ferrer from the History Channel, on October 2, 1835, a detachment of Mexican dragoons was sent to the town of Gonzales. Their mission-confiscate a canon given to settlers there as a defense against raiding Indians. The settlers refused to give the canon back. They fought the Mexicans under a banner that read “Come and Take It.”18 One hundred and sixty Texians*** and Tejanos armed with long rifles met the dragoons, defeated, and sent them running back to San Antonio…19 The History Channel also reports that on March 1, 1836, Texas Rangers responded to a call for help at a San Antonio outpost-an old mission called the Alamo-the next day the Texas Declaration of Independence was signed. In response, Antonio Lopez De Santa Anna surrounded the Alamo with 1800 men. Nearly 200 Texans and Tejanos including some two dozen Rangers were slaughtered.20 The Rangers were furious.
The Texans took their vengeance and won their independence in eighteen hellish minutes of slaughter at San Jacinto...21 It is said that the Texans shouted, “Remember the Alamo!” as they charged the Mexicans.22 “Although no one quite knew it when the red sun went down on April 21, 1836, the balance of power in Texas had turned. The American West was won.”23 Santa Anna had been captured and Houston forced him to order all Mexican troops out of Texas.24
The Colt Paterson
We know the Texas Rangers and the cowboys of the west to be quick with a gun and to sometimes fire without mercy. But the Rangers were not always so quick. As Byron Johnson of the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum said:
When they started off in the early 1820s they were using single shot pistols and rifles. The problem with these is once you discharge one of these, it takes up to about 45 seconds to a minute and a half to reload one of them. In that period of time a Comanche warrior on horseback could fire as many as six to twelve arrows.25
It was obvious that they need a new weapon. They needed something that could at least keep up with the Comanche Indians. The solution was the five-shot Colt Paterson revolver-a weapon Texas purchased for it’s Rangers-a gun that would become a symbol of the Rangers’ strength in battle.26 However, I can not be certain whether or not this new weapon was a five-shot or a six-shot, because Fehrenbach said, “Still, there was one final, decisive factor in the winning of the Texas West. This was the invention of the revolving pistol by Samuel Colt, and the manufacturing of this revolver at Paterson, New Jersey, by 1838… Colt’s only outlet was in the West, and significantly enough, his first working model was called ‘The Texas’… it shot six times. It gave one Texas horseman the firepower of six.”27 Webb agreed with him saying, “Here was a new weapon, one that would carry six shots, one that could be used by a man on horseback.”28 And yet there is another source that agrees that it was a five-shot. Thomas W. Knowles states, “Sam Colt’s ‘Paterson five-shooter’ helped to make each Ranger equal to or better than any ten other fighting men on the face of the earth.”29 Regardless of how many shots it held, it gave the Rangers a definite advantage over the Indians. This [the Colt Paterson] put them on a better than equal footing with the Comanche Indian, from that point, Indian warfare in the west, went from being essentially defensive to the capability of waging offensive battles.30
Texas and the Wars
Texas was annexed in 1845 and became the 28th state in the Union.31 In 1846 Mexico declared war on the United States demanding that Texas be returned.32 The army had a bigger problem on their hands though. They had never fought the Mexicans before. The American soldiers from the old states had never fought Mexicans and did not know the country,” Webb says. “The Texans had fought Mexicans, knew them and the country. General Zachary Taylor called for two regiments of Texas Rangers to act as scouts and spies for the American Army.”33 The Rangers literally saved the U.S. Army on several occasions by acting as scouts, as guerrillas behind the lines, and that sort of thing.34 Without the aide of the Texas Rangers the U.S. Army may not have succeeded in winning the war with Mexico. However bad the war might’ve been, it was good for the Rangers. The Mexican War was one of the greatest epics of the Texas Rangers simply because it brought them international recognition.35 The Rangers reputation was so powerful that it was used in the army. Johnson explains, “Some of the men were so proud of their service and the name Texas Ranger had such as impact at that time-there were units that kept the name. Now these were not real Ranger units. They were regular confederate military units, but they adopted the name because it had such power in battle to be considered a Ranger unit.”36
There was a scuffle between a Mexican named Ochoa and the county officers of the area of Zapata, in which Ochoa and a group of men hanged the county judge. This incident in 1861 was technically the first battle of the Civil War.37 The Rangers fought in this war too-and on both sides of the line. The war ended in 1865 and the Confederacy was “no more”.38 The History Channel reports:
When the war ended, the true Ranger came home. Their next job would be like nothing they encountered in the defense of the confederacy. The Texas Rangers were about to become frontier policeman… In the years of reconstruction 39
The Frontier Battalion
In 1874 the Rangers became the Frontier Battalion, composed of six companies with 75 men each. It was their job “to range the frontier and uphold the laws and peace of Texas”.40 The Frontier Battalion existed until 1901. In 1901, the Texas Legislature reorganized the Frontier Battalion into the Texas Ranger Force. The Texas Rangers were divided into four companies; each company consisted of twenty men.41 Morris states:
When you look at the Frontier Battalion, from 1875 to 1882, they largely purged Texas of around 3000 or so desperadoes, outlaws, murderers, felons of various kinds, and that’s a pretty big job to get accomplished in this end-of-reconstruction chaos that was creating such terrible conditions in Texas.42
During these times the opinions of the Rangers were not very high and the Rangers had to find something to change them…to change the people’s opinion of them. Morris goes on to explain:
There had been a public backlash against some of their high-handed techniques and approaches there, and quite simply they needed to reform their image and appearance. So they began dressing up, they began having a more clean-shaven look, getting some haircuts and they simply were encouraged to present a kinder gentler image to the public. And so they would dress up, so they would try to behave themselves less as a wild mountain man and more as a professional peace officer.43
And so the Texas Rangers became a more presentable, more respectable, and more professional law enforcement agency.
The Modern Texas Rangers
“…the [Texas Rangers] organization remains in existence today as an elite and effective unit of the Texas Department of Public Safety.”44
The Rangers have come along way since the days of six-shooters, Indians, and desperadoes. Today they are considered one of the best state police agencies in the United States.45 “In 1999, the Rangers ended a nationwide manhunt for serial killer Angel Maturino Resendez… As authorities closed in, Resendez feared being captured by the FBI. After weeks of negotiations he turned himself in to the Rangers, saying the Rangers were the only law enforcement agency he could trust.”46
Times have changed since the 1800s and so have the Texas Rangers. They’ve adapted to the change of society. They’ve adapted to society’s needs. And though they’ve changed-they’ve only gotten better. “Compared to the prevalence of white males in Ranger units of the past, today’s force is comprised of many different types of people-including women and minorities. They are part of a legacy of law enforcement that is uniquely Texan, one that has been glamorized in television and film,” according to the History Channel.47 However much the Ranger has changed, his values have stayed the same. He is still the hero that we remember. Johnson reports:
The stereotype of the Ranger is one of lawman who is tremendously capable, very honest, and has the willingness to persevere, to do whatever is necessary to bring a criminal in. One of the things people believe, and is true, is that the legend and the reality sort of meet with the Texas Rangers more so than in a lot of other law enforcement organizations. And they have become a symbol, not only for people who are not in law enforcement, but also almost an ideal for people who are in law enforcement to reach.48
The Texas Rangers truly are as amazing today as they were back then. I think Miguel Ferrer says is best:
In a state that prides itself on size, independence and wide-open spaces the Rangers are a perfect fit. Their imprint can be found in the cities and towns across the plains of Texas.
And every Texan knows that theirs is a land where the past, present and future of law enforcement has always been summed up in two words-Texas Ranger.49
End Notes
1. Dr. John Miller Morris of the University of Texas at San Antonio, Texas Rangers, The Enforcers, The History Channel, 3 March 2001
2. Thomas W Knowles, They Rode for the Lone Star: The Saga of the Texas Rangers, (Dallas: Taylor Publishing Company, 1999), 23
3. Texas Ranger Law Enforcement Agency, The Texas Rangers Hall of Fame and Museum.http://www.texasrangers.org/history.htm, 2001, The Beginning
4. Walter Prescott Webb, The Story of the Texas Rangers, (Austin: Encino Press, 1971), 4
5. Webb, 4
6. T.R. Fehrenbach, Lone Star: A History of Texas and the Texans, (Da Capo Press, 2000), 473
* I’m not sure where I got this sentence-whether I read it somewhere or whether I thought of it on my own, but I like enough to include it in my paper nonetheless.
7. Mike Cox of the Texas Department of Public Safety, Texas Rangers, The Enforcers, The History Channel, 3 March 2001
8. Fehrenbach, 473
9. Webb, 5
10. Webb, 20
11. Webb, 6
12. Webb, 6
13. Fehrenbach, 473
14. Fehrenbach, 473
** This is not to say that all army officers don’t deserve their ranks or that they didn’t earn them.
15. Webb, 8
16. Same as 1
17. Fehrenbach, 493
18. Texas Rangers, The Enforcers, The History Channel, 3 March 2001
*** This is not a typo. That’s what the Texans were originally called.
19. Knowles, 29
20. Same as 18
21. Knowles, 49
22. Fehrenbach, 232
23. Fehrenbach, 233
24. Knowles, 46
25. Byron Johnson of the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum, Texas Rangers, The Enforcers, The History Channel, 3 March 2001
26. Same as 18
27. Fehrenbach, 474-475
28. Webb, 22
29. Knowles, 96
30. Same as 25
31. Same as 18
32. Same as 18
33. Webb, 15
34. Same as 25
35. Same as 1
36. Same as 25
37. Fehrenbach, 375-376
38. Knowles, 208
39. Same as 18
40. Same as 18
41. Texas Ranger Law Enforcement Agency, The Texas Rangers Hall of Fame and Museum.http://www.texasrangers.org/history.htm, 2001, Frontier Battalion and Special Ranger Force
42. Same as 1
43. Same as 1
44. Robert M. Bohm and Keith N. Haley, Introduction to Criminal Justice, 2nd ed. (Westerville, OH: Glencoe/McGraw Hill, 1999), 153
45. Bohm, 168
46. Same as 18
47. Same as 18
48. Same as 25
49. Same as 18
Bibliography
Bohm, Robert M. and Keith N. Haley. Introduction to Criminal Justice. 2nd ed. Westerville, Ohio: Glencoe/McGraw Hill, 1999.
Fehrenbach, T.R. Lone Star: A History of Texas and the Texans. Da Capo Press, 2000.
Knowles, Thomas W. They Rode for the Lone Star: The Saga of the Texas Rangers. Dallas: Taylor Publishing Company, 1999.
Texas Ranger Law Enforcement Association. The Texas Rangers Hall of Fame and Museum.http://www.texasrangers.org/history.htm. 10 March 2001.
Texas Rangers. By Tom Jennings. Narr. Miguel Ferrer. Prod. Craig Haffner and Donna E. Lusitana. The Enforcers. The History Channel. 3 March 2001.
Webb, Walter Prescott. The Story of the Texas Rangers. Austin: Encino Press, 1971.
