Vigilante actions against Mexicans in the southwest had been documented from the 1850 's to 1930 's of men , women and children , many of them American citizens ; who were burned , shot , hung , whipped or mutilated due to racist terror . Thousands were killed by white settlers and gold prospectors to drive them off their land or steal their claims using false charges to gin up mob actions . Many of the killings took place in front of hundreds who encouraged mobs to remove the men from jails to lynch them . In Texas the Rangers were implicated by archeological digs at the sites of one of the massacres that took place near the U.S. Army razed village of Porvenir near the Mexican border in Marfa , Texas . Many of the state sanctioned killings which occurred in Texas have been removed from public view and recent efforts to increase awareness have been stymied by state commissions on historic places . The Chairwoman of the local historical commission refused to allow a marker to be posted about the massacre , citing ' militant Hispanics ' and reparations . She was later over-ruled by the head of the State Historical Commission , who brokered a deal to also erect markers at Anglo ranches that were victims of suspected Mexican Villistas , which may also have been a response to the extrajudicial killings by the Rangers and Ranchers . The dis-proportional response to single instances of raids like the Brite Ranch raid , the Neville Raid and even suspected instances of missing cows , perceived slights or Mexicans standing up to injustice often led to lynch mobs descending on communities and carting off any men found to be hung
Brite Ranch raid
Brite Ranch raid
Institutional racism