Making the Southern Border American, and Mexico as well. : A reading of Chatfield’s Twin Cities of the Border.

Abstract

Abstract: Historical documents call attention not only because of the facts reported, but also because of the views held by the reporter concerning the matters referred. This essay aims at identifying W. H. Chatfield’s views of America, Mexico, and their shared border, as they appear in his 1893 pamphlet The Twin Cities, Brownsville, Texas, Matamoros, Mexico, of the Border, and the Country of the Lower Rio Grande: that the Texan region bordering with Mexico then was fully Americanized, moreover, that the Mexican side of the border was undergoing a process of Americanization very needed for business, process which from that region would extend to all the Americas, process very convenient for American capitalists. The identification of those views is done, here, by highlighting them through a reading of the text itself, their judging being mostly left to the people reviewing what the author of this essay has stressed.