Bandit War

Bandit War
Part of the Border War, Mexican Revolution
Date 1910–1915 Location Texas, United States Result United States victory
Belligerents
United States	Seditionistas Carrancistas
Commanders and leaders
Frederick Funston	Basilio Ramos Luis de la Rosca Aniceto Pizana Natividad Alvarez Rodriguez Ramirez
Casualties and losses
Unknown	300
Civilians: Unknown but high

The Bandit War, or Bandit Wars, refers to a series of raids in Texas, started in 1910 before finally culminating in 1915, that were carried out by Mexican rebels from the states of Tamaulipas, Coahuila and Chihuahua. Before 1914, the Carrancista faction was responsible for most of the attacks but in January 1915 rebels known as Seditionistas drafted the Plan of San Diego and began launching their own raids. The plan called for a race war, to rid the American border states of their Anglo-American population, and the annexation of the border states to Mexico. However, the Seditionistas were never able to launch a full-scale invasion of the United States so they resorted to conducting small raids into Texas. Much of the fighting involved the Texas Ranger Division though the United States Army also engaged in small unit actions with bands of Seditionist raiders.

The height of the fighting was in 1915. On January 6, Basilio Ramos and a group of his followers drafted the Plan of San Diego, in San Diego, Texas, to try and bring the American border states under the rule of President Venustiano Carranza. Calling themselves the Seditionistas, the rebels then began attacking small American outposts and settlements along the Rio Grande, many of which were guarded by United States Army soldiers. The first attack took place on July 4, 1915, when a band of approximately forty mounted rebels crossed the border and raided Los Indios Ranch in Cameron County. The first bloodshed did not occur until five days later though, on July 9, when an employee of the King Ranch killed one of the raiders near the Norias Ranch. On July 11, two Mexican-American police officers were shot, from a distance, near Brownsville, one later died. American authorities said "the Mexican officers knew of the plans [Plan of San Diego] of their fellows before the real beginning of the operations and that this was the cause of the several efforts to assassinate them." Over the next two weeks there were various reports of raids, attacks on police officers, and assassination attempts on local land owners. By the end of July, the raiders were trying to cut off communications to the people in the Lower Rio Grande Valley and disrupt railroad transportation. On July 25, they burned a bridge belonging to the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railway and then cut some telegram wires near Harlingen. A few days after that, the Governor of Texas, James E. Ferguson, sent the Texas Ranger Captain Harry Ransom into the Lower Rio Grande Valley to lead a "pacification campaign." According to author John William Weber, Ransom was in charge of an "assassination squad" that conducted a "scorched-earth campaign of annihilation" against both guilty and innocent Mexicans.

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