El Plan de San Diego
San Diego, Duval County, Texas
Marker Inscription
On January 6, 1915, nine men of Mexican descent met in San Diego, seat of Duval county, and signed El Plan de San Diego, a manifesto calling for political insurrection in response to contemporary social and political events. The proposed rebellion also had international implications, significantly impacting the Mexican revolution and American preparedness for World War I. El Plan de San Diego called for Mexican Americans, African Americans, Native Americans and Japanese Americans to rise in arms throughout the American Southwest on February 20, 1915, using force to separate Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and California from the U.S. and establish a new nation. Deodoro Guerra, an Hidalgo County merchant, became aware of the plan on January 24, when Basilio Ramos Jr., a signer of the document, attempted to recruit Guerra to join the uprising. Guerra sent word to Hidalgo County law enforcement officials, who arrested Ramos. Newspaper accounts of the proposed revolt appeared throughout the nation, causing panic and fear to spread. Though nothing happened on February 20, near-daily raids occurred in July in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. Many citizens and law enforcement officials resorted to extrajudicial means to terrorize and murder hundreds, and possibly thousands, of Mexicans and Mexican Americans. At the request of Governor James Ferguson, President Woodrow Wilson began sending soldiers to the U.S.-Mexico border. Tens of thousands of U.S. Army and National Guard troops deployed. Historians attribute the turmoil from El Plan de San Diego and its period in history to political upheaval and maneuvers from leaders of the Mexican revolution, efforts of Axis powers to keep the U.S. out of WWI, and longstanding ethnic and cultural conflicts between original south Texas settlers of Mexican descent and newcomers. (2015)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
On January 6, 1915, nine men of Mexican descent gathered in San Diego, Texas, and signed a manifesto calling for armed insurrection to wrest the Southwest from the United States and forge a new nation — enlisting Mexican Americans, African Americans, Native Americans, and Japanese Americans. The plot was betrayed almost at once when a signer tried to recruit the wrong man, and no rising came on the appointed day. But near-daily raids that summer in the Lower Rio Grande Valley triggered a wave of extrajudicial killings, as law officers and vigilantes murdered hundreds, perhaps thousands, of ethnic Mexicans, prompting President Wilson to flood the border with troops.
Why it matters
El Plan de San Diego opened one of the bloodiest chapters of anti-Mexican violence in American history, entangled with the Mexican Revolution and the run-up to World War I along a militarized border.
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Related people
- · Basilio Ramos Jr.
- · Deodoro Guerra
- · James Ferguson
- · Woodrow Wilson
Related events
- · Mexican Revolution
- · World War I
Themes & tags
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