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¡ Pinche Cabrón ! Supreme Court [1]
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Date: 2022-10-25
1904 New York Orphan Children
On October 2, 1904 an armed posse went through Clifton, Arizona to remove 40 orphan infants and toddlers from the homes of Mexican American families. Father Mandin of the Sacred Heart Catholic Church had screened the families who had volunteered to raise the children. The orphans traveled by train from the New York Foundling Asylum of the Sisters of Charity.
The Foundling Hospital sued for the return of the orphans, however moral white Americans prevailed.
Morenci and Clifton have been a major copper supplier since the 1800’s. Arizona mines produce 60% of the US mined copper, Morenci produces half of Arizona’s copper.
Miners moved freely from Sonora to Arizona across the mostly unmarked border. More workers came when copper prices were high and left during economic downturns.
Mexican workers were paid 30% lower wages than American (white) workers the majority of the workers were Mexican or Mexican American.
Morenci Open Pit Copper mine
Until 1907 there was no law to inspect people crossing the Mexican border and the mines hired and recruited workers from south of the border. The few Immigration Service officials were only on the lookout for people who looked like they might be violating the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.
Arizona was part of the Mexico than it has been part of the US.
Vazquez de Coronado passed through the Clifton area on his way to Kansas. The expedition was 67 years before Jamestown was founded, and 71 years before Henry Hudson’s crew decided he was a pinche cabron and put him in a boat to find the Northwest Passage by himself.
In the early 1900’s America was a Justice Amy Coney Barrett paradise. There was no safe abortion nor birth control. Adoption was not regulated. Infants were often left on doorsteps of the rich and at asylums. New York was flooded with homeless children, many of them impoverished and despised Catholic Irish. Philanthropists and religious institutions moved trainloads of young children out of the city. An estimated 250,000 were sent to farmers who wanted extra hands or wherever anyone could be found to take them.
On October 1, 1904 forty children three nuns and, George Swayne an agent from the foundling hospital arrived in Clifton. On the train the orphans had metamorphosed from unwanted tenement refuse into Prescious White American Children.
The good white Ladies of Clifton and Morenci gathered at the station witnessed the children handed over to the French Catholic priest and Margarita Chacon. Mrs. Chacon was fluent in Spanish and English and a very devout Catholic. She was born in either Florida or New Mexico raised in a Catholic Orphanage in El Paso. Father Mandin depended on her to speak with the parishioners. She taught young Anglo and Mexican children in her home.
Some orphans were given to Mexican American women who had been cleared by the church and agreed to raise the children in the faith. Twenty-four orphans were taken to the church overnight to for the nine mile and 1,000 foot climb up to Morenci in the morning.
The next day the good Anglo ladies impressed upon the powers that be (the Sheriff and Phelps Dodge Corporation Managers), their horror about the travesty that cute little white boys and girls were being handed over to people who didn’t even speak English.
A committee was convened, a posse formed, and the next night the children were rescued from the Mexicans.
One family reportedly asked to see papers authorizing the action and was shown a Colt 45. Margarita Chacon delayed the abductors for almost an hour, but finally handed over the children.
Only one Mexican American comments survive. Mariano Martinez from Benson wrote in a Tucson paper:
My parents were born in this Territory. I was raised in Tucson … educated in the public schools, and I always considered myself an American … The Mexicans applied for and complied with the requirements for the adoption of the American children. …. They are able to write and speak both the Spanish and English languages, and they do not butcher it as do your so-called ‘Arizona Americans,’ who are composed of Swedes, Norwegian, Servians, Canadians and Dutch, who …. make out of this portion of the United States a dumping ground. Probably the only claim you have to call them ‘Americans’ is that they have blue eyes, red hair, a face full of freckles and long feet. The ‘low down’ Mexicans whom you refer to … have absolute respect for law and order ...without having to resort to mob violence.
The Foundling Hospital sued in the county Superior Court lost and appealed to the territorial Supreme court. There is no trial record, but the Bisbee paper gave this report. With a brief glance it appears racist. With another look you can imagine hearing “Hurry up judge I’ve got a cross burning to go to”.
None of the people who had children take away from them testified. The proceedings were all in English.
Following is a statement of the evidence given in the probate court of Graham County, on the hearing of the petitions of John C. Gatti and others for letters of guardianship of the persons of the foundling children: That about October 1, of this year, the New York fondling hospital brought the orphans in question to Clifton and placed them in the hands of Mexican laborers’ families: that the Mexican families in which they were placed are very poor and ignorant, and, in every case, unfit either financially or morally to have the care of the children; that the orphans were all of white, American blood, were of both sexes and ranged in age from about two to four years; that a man by the name of Swayne, agent of the New York foundling hospital, had charge of the children so placed in the Mexican families. That upon its being explained to this agent, Swayne, that the families with whom these children had been placed were not Spaniards or Castilians, as he claimed, but were principally low class Indian and Mexican laborers, such as are known in Mexico and the southwest as “peons.” That they were not proper persons to have the care and custody of American children; that they were not financially able to educate and support them, and were not morally proper persons to have the custody of said children; and that after these explanations had bee made to the agent, Swayne, he was asked if he realized the position in which he had placed these children, to which he replied: “I well realize it. The families with whom they have been placed have been reported to me by our father here, whose word we must take, as Castilians and all first class families. I have visited these families and have seen the people. I know my business and you cannot dictate to me. These children will stay where they have been placed.” That the petitioners received the orphans from a committee of citizens who called on the Mexicans and requested that the orphans be given to the committee; that the Mexicans voluntarily gave the orphans to the committee, in many cases being only too glad to do so’ that all of the petitioners are white Americans, financially able to take care of the children, all of them having good moral homes for the fortunates. Upon the foregoing showing made by the petitioners, without contradiction, although the foundling asylum had been granted a continuance for two weeks, ample time to have brought as many witnesses as the institution desired, letters of guardianship were granted as prayed for in the petitions. Judge Little held that the foundling hospital had abandoned the children to the Mexican families; that the language of Swayne, the agent: “I have visited these families and have seen the people. I know my business and you cannot dictate to me. These children will stay where they have been placed;” proved beyond question such abandonment; that so far as the foundling hospital is concerned, it is certainly not entitled to the custody of the orphans and the Mexicans not having asked for the custody of the children, could not be considered in the matter. [Emphasis Added]
The Foundling Hospital appealed to the United States Supreme Court in 1906. It asked for a writ of habeas corpus for return of the orphans. The court said children have no right to personnel freedom, case dismissed. New York Foundling Hosptial v. Gatti. Its decision included the same bigoted language as the Territorial Courts.
This is the same court that decided Plessy V Ferguson.
Clifton Arizona
It has never been said exactly when the Great Again America was Donald Trump talks about was. Surely 1904 would meet his approval, especially for the courts. Both courts could twist the law, precedent, and logic to come to a twisted conclusion. Overturn Roe so 10 year old girls are forced to give birth. Seems like a good idea. Turn over children to armed mobs. No problem.
Roe was wrongly decided they say. Hey Brown v Board of Education looks shaky too.
At first the idea of forty small children kidnapped seems like a lot, but it pales in comparison to the Indian School Programs.
Readings:
The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction by Linda Gordon is the source most of the above.
American history is intertwined with Mexican History. This year Kelly Lytle Hernandez has written a great book, Bad Mexicans, about the origins of the 1910 Mexican Revolution and the United States part in it.
Terrsa Urrea grave in Clifton AZ
In 1904 Teresa Urrea: The Mexican Joan of Arc, moved to Clifton. Latino USA has an interesting article and podcast on “La Santa de Cabora”. She died and was buried in 1906. People still make pilgrimages and decorate her grave. Although she was in Clifton at the time I haven’t seen any impact on the kidnapping, I thought the podcast was fascinating
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