Obscure Rebellion
CAGLE, CARROL W.
Obscure Rebellion TIJERINA AND THE COURTHOUSE RAID By Peter Nabokov University of New Mexico 285 pp. $6.95. Reviewed by CARROL W. CAGLE Press Secretary to Senator Clinton P. Anderson...
...title to the land after the war with Mexico) is a fraud and invalid...
...Further, there was bewilderment and fear among Spanish-American villagers and outrage on the part of white liberals who decried the "occupation" of the area by armed troops...
...All trespassers must get out of New Mexico...
...Besides spending months researching every aspect of the raid and following the resultant legal battles, he has also taken the trouble to study the area's diverse peoples and problems...
...is trespassing in New Mexico...
...Two policemen were shot (another was murdered months later, a crime which has not yet been solved...
...Reviewed by CARROL W. CAGLE Press Secretary to Senator Clinton P. Anderson (D.-N.M...
...At one point, a number of men, women and children were cooped up in a stock pen for hours without having been charged...
...Taken on a blindfolded midnight ride for an exclusive interview with Tijerina while he was still a fugitive, Nabokov probably knows Tijerina better than any other observer...
...a massive manhunt, including the National Guard, was organized...
...All Spanish and Indian Pueblos are free forever...
...District Attorney Sanchez, for instance, was not even at the courthouse for the "citizens' arrest" but was miles away in Santa Fe...
...the occupants of the courthouse were terrorized, with two taken hostage...
...Lieutenant Governor E. Lee Francis was in charge at the state level in the absence of Governor David F. Cargo...
...The one thing certain is the comic-opera quality of both the raid and the massive manhunt that was to follow...
...In addition, the event happened to occur on the same day the 1967 Arab-Israeli war broke out...
...Tijerina and the Courthouse Raid is the fascinating chronicle of the raid itself, the events leading to it, and of Tijerina-a mercurial, firebrand orator and the most unusual revolutionary leader in America today...
...A precursor of the coming assault was the attempted takeover of Echo Amphitheater, a U.S...
...None of them has complained...
...Yet few-probably not even Tijerina-could have predicted the wild afternoon of shooting which was to break out on June 5. The exact sequence of events still is confused, although in Tijerina and the Courthouse Raid Peter Nabokov has done a thorough job of piecing together the complicated story...
...The relatively obscure act of rebellion was an armed raid on a northern New Mexico courthouse by an unlikely band of justicia-seeking Spanish-Americans...
...Nabokov, a colleague of mine on the New Mexican at the time, has written a first-rate book by confining himself to these aspects of the northern New Mexico scene and the necessary information about the complicated land grant situation and Anglo-Hispano relationships in the state...
...For months before the June 5, 1967, raid there had been trouble in northern New Mexico-haystack burnings, fence cuttings, minor confrontations between the Alianzans and law enforcement authorities...
...The raiders and their fiery leader, Reies Lopez Tijerina, had sought to make a "citizens' arrest" of District Attorney Alfonso Sanchez, not only to repay him for his harassment of the Alianza (the Federal Alliance of Free City-States), but to dramatically emphasize their formal claim to the land itself?hundreds of thousands of acres of timber and ranchland in northern New Mexico...
...Francis chose the latter course, activating the National Guard and thus sending armed troops and armored vehicles throughout the sprawling, mountainous area in a vain search for the elusive Tijerina and his compadres...
...As a reporter covering the state-house for the New Mexican, I saw Francis being pulled toward a conciliatory approach by War on Poverty officials and pushed toward a militaristic reaction by state "hawks...
...Inexperienced and nervous, Francis wavered erratically while sketchy reports drifted in from State Police officers in the North...
...The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (which gave the U.S...
...Tactically, there was no way to use "weekend warrior" training maneuvers to apprehend the fugitives in their homeland, Rio Arriba County, although one soldier recalled employing scouting techniques he had used against the Vietcong...
...Forest Service campground-an abortive effort to demonstrate Alianza hegemony of the land...
...One of the most genuinely revolutionary acts in recent United States history has virtually escaped notice due to press and public preoccupation with campus takeovers, ghetto rebellion and antiwar militancy...
...When a reporter inquired of Major General John Pershing Jolly, the Guard commander, why they were being detained, Jolly retorted: "Let's don't get involved in civil liberties...
...That was not a wise thing to do...
...So if you are interested in revolution, but bored with the urban and campus varieties, this is the book to turn to...
...A handbill the Alianza had distributed in the area included these statements: "U.S.A...
Vol. 53 • February 1970 • No. 4
