Mexican-American Lynchings

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William D. Carrigan’s “The Lynching of Persons of Mexican Origin or Descent in the United States,” examines the unspoken narratives of Mexican-American lynchings as well as the underlying causes of such racial violence. He argues that this form of extralegal violence is a way of maintaining Anglo Saxon dominance over the US Southwest territories acquired from the Mexican-American war. Carrigan notes that the years following the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo saw a drastic increase in the number of Mexican-American lynchings. The fear of racial violence further strengthened the effects of racialization implemented by white Americans; which, consequently led to their becoming the more dominant race. He also examines how lynchings, or the “retributive act of murder for which those responsible claim to be serving the interests of justice, tradition, or communal good”(Carrigan), were often based on racism and were incited by forms of mob rule and vigilantism. …show more content…
He notes that “between 1848 and 1879 Mexicans were lynched at a rate of 473 per 100,000 of population”(Corrigan), whereas when compared to the rate of African-Americans lynched from the same time period, the rate was significantly lower with “52.8 victims per 100,000 of population”(Corrigan). According to him a possible reason for the drastic difference in rates was the population size of the two. Because Mexican-Americans had a smaller population in regards to Anglos in the Southwest regions, the danger lynching was always there. Lynchings often took place when people took both personal and legal matters into their own