TIMELINE
Timelines are important because they connect what happens to the consequences. For example, the Mexican American War occurred 1846-1848; one of the many consequences was a continuous migration or return of Mexicans to their former homeland. Causes often produce domino effects (more than one consequence). A timeline helps us to line up events, and relate them to the past. The following is a timeline of Latino history – mostly within the boundaries of the Euro-American nation. It helped the authors to conclude that to date there is no Latino history because of the lack of a Latino presence in the United States prior to 1980. Using the term Latino history also thwarts the development of the history and identity of other Latino groups within the United States. The timeline proves that the groups with the longest history within the United States are Mexicans who were invaded beginning in the 1820s, and Puerto Ricans whose territory was forcefully taken in 1898. The timeline is incomplete and readers are encouraged to email us and expand it.
Citation: Rodolfo F. Acuña, Guadalupe Compeán, eds. Voices of the U.S. Latino Experience [Three Volumes]. p lvii. Westport: Greenwood, 2008, and Greenwood eBooks. <http://ebooks.greenwood.com/reader.jsp?x=GR4020&p=lvii&bc=EGR4020>.
Timeline of U.S. Latino History
1803 The Louisiana Purchase makes New Spain (Colonial Mexico) the neighbor of the United States and U.S. exploration of the area west of the Mississippi begins.
1810 In Mexico, Fr. Miguel Hidalgo issues the call for Mexican independence, beginning 11 years of warfare.
1819 Simón Bolívar, the great Latin American liberator, addresses the Congress of Angostura and expresses his vision of one Latin America strong enough to resist the encroachments of Europe and the United States.
Adams-Onís Treaty of 1819, in which Spain cedes Florida to the United States, is signed after years of border wars.
1821 Treaty of Córdova, in which Mexico gains independence from Spain, is signed on August 24.
A Congress of Central America declares independence from Spain on September 15.
Texas Gov. Antonio María Martínez authorizes Euro-American Stephen Austin to colonize 300 families in Texas. The Spanish originally made this grant to his father, Moses Austin, who died before completing the contract. Meanwhile, Texas, while still part of Mexico, gets its independence from Spain.
1823 In his December 2 speech to a joint session of Congress, U.S. President James Monroe declares that further European colonization in the Americas will not be permitted. The Monroe Doctrine serves as the justification for U.S. intervention in the hemisphere to this day.
1824 Mexico's Congress abolishes slave trade in Mexico.
1829 Mexican President Vicente Guerrero abolishes slavery.
1832 Former U.S. congressman Sam Houston arrives in Texas.
1836 White Texans and Mexican elites declare the independence of Texas on March 2.
Treaty of Velasco between Mexican President Antonio López de Santa Anna and Texas dissidents is signed on May 14 but never ratified by Mexico's Congress.
1845 President James Polk's December 2nd State of the Union Address blames Mexico for tensions between the two countries and makes public Polk's commitment to the expansion of the United States through the annexation of Texas, the Oregon territory, and the purchase of California.
1846 The Mexican-American War begins.
1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo forces Mexico to cede 52 percent of its territory to the United States. In return, the United States pays Mexico $15 million. Article V of the treaty establishes the boundary between both countries, pending a survey. The controversy over this treaty continues to the present.
Nearly 600 Mexicans are lynched in the Southwest from this year to 1928.
1849 Survey efforts to establish the border between Mexico and the United States as required by Article V of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo begin in San Diego.
1850 Clayton-Bulwer Treaty is signed by the United States and Great Britain, both rivals in colonizing Central America and particularly concerned over a proposed isthmian canal. Both agree not to attempt to gain exclusive control over the canal or Nicaragua, Costa Rica, the Mosquito Coast, or any part of Central America.
1853 U.S. Senator Pierre Soulé's January 25 speech, “The Cuban Question,” heats up the rhetoric to take Cuba from Spain. Soulé and other expansionists are supported by southern interests.
The Gadsden Purchase is made on December 30 after heavy-handed U.S. tactics and threats that if not allowed to purchase southern Arizona and parts of New Mexico from Mexico, the United States will take this land. For $10 million, Mexican authorities cede 45,000 square miles of land—including the Mesilla Valley as well as use of the Gila River—to the United States.
1854 The Ostend Manifesto, a secret document written by U.S. diplomats instructing Senator Pierre Soulé to try to buy Cuba from Spain, is signed on October 18.
1856 Filibusterer William Walker overthrows the government of Nicaragua, gaining a foothold for slave interests.
1859 In South Texas, Juan Cortina rebels and is chased by the Texas Rangers, the U.S. Army, and local authorities for the next 15 years.
1868 On September 23, between 600 to 1000 men, mostly Puerto Rican–born, demand Puerto Rico's independence from Spain but their revolt fails.
The unsuccessful Ten Years War begins and is fought under the leadership of attorney Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, who issues the Grito de Yara proclaiming Cuban independence.
1875 Report of the Mexican Commission on the Northern Frontier Question is issued.
California social bandit Tiburcio Vásquez is executed for murder and his alleged outlaw activities.
Cuban cigarmakers strike in Florida for better work conditions and higher wages.
1876
La Ondina del Plata, an Argentine journal, publishes an article by María Eugenia Echenique on the emancipation of women. Echenique was among a group of feminist writers who were read throughout the Americas.
1877 Salt War over Euro-American monopoly of salt deposits near El Paso leads to Mexican American opposition and one of the largest white vigilante actions against Mexicans in Southwest history.
1880 Mexican Central Railroad links Mexico City to El Paso, accelerating migration to the United States.
1882 U.S. passage of Chinese Exclusion Act keeps Chinese from entering the United States for the next 10 years and is the first serious immigration ban in U.S. history. It was renewed in 1892 and again in 1902, when Congress moved to make the ban permanent. It remained in effect until 1965.
1890 Manifesto of the Las Vegas, New Mexico White Caps (Las Gorras Blancas) declares war on land encroachers who monopolize the land and water.
1894 The Alianza Hispano Americana, a mutual aid society, was founded by Tucson, Arizona, elites in response to the growing nativism against Mexicans. By 1932, this group boasted 11,000 members and was active in civil rights litigation.
1895 José Martí, Cuban poet and martyr for Cuban independence, leads the second Cuban War of Independence.
Border wars between Mexico and the United States intensify. Mexican American Victor Ochoa at El Paso is sentenced for violation of Neutrality Laws and leading revolutionary bands into Mexico.
1897 In re Ricardo Rodríguez holds that the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo considered Mexicans eligible for citizenship and entitled to full rights under the U.S. Constitution.
1898 Spanish-American War between Spain and the United States begins while Cubans are already fighting for their independence.
The Teller Amendment to the U.S. resolution of war with Spain stating that the United States claims it has no “intention to exercise sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control” over Cuba and resolves “to leave the government and control of the island to its people,” passes in Congress.
Treaty of Paris between the United States and Spain is signed. It excludes Puerto Ricans seeking independence from the bargaining table. The U.S. occupation of Puerto Rico begins.
1899 “The White Man's Burden,” by English poet Rudyard Kipling is published. It reinforces the concept that the United States is the custodian of Western civilization in the world, taking its blessings to less civilized peoples.
1900 U.S. Congress passes the Foraker Act that establishes the governing structure of Puerto Rico.
1901 Gregorio Cortez, a poor Mexican farm hand who shoots a sheriff who had shot his brother eludes Texas Rangers and law enforcement during a massive 10-day manhunt. He is immortalized in corridos (ballads) that tell of his bravery and vicariously identify with his success against the hated Texas Rangers.
1902 A revolution gives Panama independence from Colombia. Shortly afterward, Panama signs a treaty giving the United States the right to build a canal across the Panamanian isthmus.
1903 The Platt Amendment is signed and makes Cuba a U.S. protectorate.
Clifton-Morenci Strike pits 2,000 miners against the territorial militia, federal troops, and the Arizona Rangers.
1904 “To Roosevelt,” a poem by Nicaraguan Rubén Darío to Theodore Roosevelt, expresses anger at U.S. intervention and high handiness in Latin America.
1910 The Mexican Revolution pushes over 10 percent of Mexico's population to emigrate to the United States over the next decade.
1911 Primer Congreso Mexicanista, Verificado en Laredo, Texas, a congress of mutual aid societies, meets to discuss recent lynchings and violations of civil rights.
1912 New Mexico and Arizona are granted U.S. statehood due to an increase in their white population.
1914 The United States sends troops to Vera Cruz, Mexico, occupying it for six months over an incident that occurred when U.S. Marines were sent to this Mexican port under the pretext of preventing a German steamer from importing arms to Mexico. U.S. steamers bombard the port.
1915 Plan de San Diego calls for the uprising of people of color, the division of the United States among them, and the killing of white men.
1916 Gen. John Pershing leads an expedition into Mexico to hunt for Mexican revolutionary hero Pancho Villa, who had invaded Columbus, New Mexico, earlier that year.
1917 The Literacy Act requires immigrants pass a literacy test that keeps most Europeans from coming to the United States and increases U.S. demand for Mexican laborers.
Carmelita Torres, a 17-year-old Mexican maid, refuses to take a gas bath while crossing the border to work in El Paso. Her actions begin a riot as other Mexican women refuse to submit to this indignity.
The Jones-Shafroth Act (also known as the Jones Act for Puerto Rico or the 1917 amendments to the “Organic Act of Puerto Rico”) amends the Foraker Act to confer citizenship on Puerto Ricans.
Nearly 1,200 striking copper miners in Bisbee, Arizona, mostly Mexican, are rounded up, put on cattle cars, and dumped in the middle of the New
Mexican desert under the pretext that they were members of the radical Industrial Workers of the World and thus unpatriotic.
1918 Puerto Ricans, as U.S. citizens, are consequently subject to the military draft.
Large numbers of Mexican Americans serve in U.S. armed forces.
1920s U.S. intervention in Central America and the Caribbean affairs increases.
Americanization rises as almost 50 percent of U.S. public schools with Mexican American students are segregated during the decade.
1920 Mexican American sociologist Ernestine M. Alvarado makes a plea for mutual understanding among Mexican Americans and other Americans.
Protestant organizations challenge Catholic Church hegemony among Mexicans.
1921 The Immigration Act sets quotas for Europeans, excludes Asians, and denaturalizes U.S.-born women who marry noncitizens.
Economic recession prompts the deportation or repatriation to Mexico of thousands of Mexican workers.
1924 The Immigration Act of 1924 sets the policy of national origins, continues the exclusion of Asians, and reduces the number of immigrants by using the quota percentage from the 1890 Census instead of the 1910 Census. It supercedes the 1921 Immigration Act.
1925 Adolfo Romo v Tempe School District, the first U.S. desegregation case, is tried.
1927 Confederación de Uniones Obreras Mexicanas (Federation of Mexican Workers Union), CUOM, is founded in Los Angeles.
1928 Imperial Valley Worker's Union goes on strike in California.
1929 The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) is organized in Texas.
Puerto Rican Luis Muñoz Marín rises to leadership, challenging the existing political parties. He would become the first democratically elected governor of the island in 1949.
The Great Depression begins.
Repatriation of between 600,000 and a million Mexicans, over 60 percent born in the United States, occurs between this year and 1936.
1930 Independent School Dist. v. Salvatierra (Texas), a discrimination case, is filed by the League of United Latin American Citizens. The appeal is dismissed and allows the school district to continue segregating migrant children because they start school late in the year. This policy only applies to Mexican Americans and not white migrant children.
The Lemon Grove segregation case in which Mexican American children were placed in a separate school in Lemon Grove, California, results in one of the first successful school desegregation court decisions in the history of the United States.
U.S. economist Victor S. Clark's Study of Puerto Rico gives a political, social, and economic portrait of the island and the conditions that were driving Puerto Rican emigration to the United States.
1933 Cotton pickers in California's San Joaquin Valley, 80 percent of whom are Mexican, take part in the largest agriculture strike in California history up to this date. Growers, assisted by police, shoot three strikers down in cold blood, starve nine infants to death, and beat and wound countless workers. The strike is broken by government intervention.
1935 The Chicago Defender comments on disturbance in the Puerto Rican section of Harlem, blaming uneven appropriation of relief to Harlem as compared to other parts of New York, unemployment, and poor housing conditions.
1936 Pedro Alibizu Campos, head of the Nationalist Party calling for independence for Puerto Rico, is convicted of trying to overthrow the U.S. government after widespread demonstrations the year before led to the killing of four nationalists and the attempted assassination of the U.S.-appointed governor of Puerto Rico.
1938 San Antonio pecan shellers, mostly Mexican women, numbering about 12,000, go on strike. During the three-month strike, shellers confront management and the San Antonio political establishment.
In Ponce, Puerto Rico, on July 25, police fire on demonstrators calling for the independence of Puerto Rico and protesting the arrest of nationalist leaders. Seventeen are killed.